Psalms 9:6

O thou enemy,.... Which some understand of Goliath, though we do not read of any desolations made by him, nor of any cities destroyed by him; nor by the Israelites upon his death, and the flight of

O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.

This is a sudden apostrophe to the enemies of God’ s people, Philistines, Amorites, or other nations, who had formerly made great havoc and waste among them. Destructions are come to a perpetual end; thou hast destroyed the Israelitish nation utterly and irrecoverably, and, as it follows, their defenced cities, and their very name and memory, according to thy own desire. So it is a sarcasm or irony, a usual figure in Scripture and all authors, whereby the quite contrary is signified, to wit, that they were not only frustrated of their desires and hopes of destroying the Israelites, but were also subdued, and in a great part destroyed by them. Or this verse may be understood of the great waste and ruin which God’ s enemies had brought upon Israel before this time; which is here remembered, to make the Israelites more thankful for their later or present deliverances. Or it may be taken as a prophecy of the future calamities which the enemies should by God’ s permission bring upon Israel, of which he speaks as of a thing past and done, after the manner of the prophets. But this place is otherwise rendered in the margin of our Bibles, and by divers others, the destructions of the enemy which may be understood either, 1. Actively, which they caused; or, 2. Passively, which they felt are come to a perpetual end, or, are fully and finally completed. Thou hast destroyed cities; either, 1. Thou, O God, who is oft understood and couched in a pronoun in this manner, thou hast destroyed their cities. Or rather, 2. Thou, O enemy; as may be gathered both from the foregoing clause, where it is so expressed; and from the next verse, where it follows by way of opposition to this, But the Lord, &c. Their memorial is perished with them; the places and people are utterly extinct.

Psalms 9:6 O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.Ver. 6. O thou enemy] The same whom he called wicked one in the former verse; where the word wicked is of the singular number: q.d. O thou implacable wretch, that wouldst never be reconciled till thou wast ruined; which now thou art, &c. Some read it interrogatively, and with it ironically, O enemy, are destructions come to an end? and cities so wasted that they can never be repaired? q.d. So indeed thou hast designed it, but art fairly disappointed. And the like befell Antiochus, Nero, Dioclesian, Philip II of Spain, Charles IX of France, and other bloody persecutors, with tbeir devilish thoughts and threats; which they could never effect and accomplish. Their memorial is perished with them] Heb. Of them, of them (twice), for more vehemency. The Vulgate (alter the Greek) hath it cum sonitu, with a humming noise, so that the sound thereof ringeth all the world over. R. David rendereth it, Memoria eorum periit; suntne illi? Their memorial is perished; have they yet a being anywhere?

(6) O thou enemy . . .—This vocative gives no intelligible meaning. Translate, As for the enemy, they are made an utter wreck and perpetual ruin.Destructions.—Properly, desolations, ruins, from a word meaning “to be dried up.” Come to a perpetual end.—Properly, are completed for ever.Thou hast destroyed.—Some understand the relative: “the cities which thou hast destroyed.” Their memorial.—Better, their very memory is perished; literally, their memory, theirs. (Comp. “He cannot flatter, he”—Shakespeare, King Lear). The LXX. and Vulg. read, “with a sound,” referring to the crash of falling cities. Some would substitute enemies for cities, but they lose the emphasis of the passage, which points to the utter evanishment from history of great cities as a consequence and sign of Divine judgment. Probably the poet thinks of Sodom and Gomorrha, whose overthrow left such a signal mark on the thought of Israel. We think of the mounds of earth which alone represent Nineveh and Babylon. “’Mid far sands, The palm-tree cinctured city stands, Bright white beneath, as heaven, bright blue, Leans over it, while the years pursue Their course, unable to abate Its paradisal laugh at fate. One morn the Arab staggers blind O’er a new tract of earth calcined To ashes, silence, nothingness, And strives, with dizzy wits, to guess Whence fell the blow.”—R. : Easter Day.

Verse 6. Destructions are come to a perpetual end] Rather, "The enemy is desolated for ever; for thou hast destroyed their cities, and their memory is perished with them." Multitudes of the cities of the Canaanites have perished so utterly that neither name nor vestige remains of them.

6. The enemy are consumed, left desolate for ever; And (their) cities thou didst uproot; the very remembrance of them is perished. An address to the enemy (P.B.V. and A.V.) would be out of place here; and the word rendered destructions does not bear an active sense, but means ruins or desolations. It is best to regard the words as still addressed to Jehovah, continuing the description of His judgment on the enemies of Israel. The language of this and the preceding verse recalls that of the curse on Amalek: “I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven” (Exodus 17:14; cp. Deuteronomy 25:19). ‘Their memorial’ or ‘remembrance’ refers grammatically to the enemy, not to the cities, and the pronoun is repeated in the original to emphasise the contrast between those who are thus destroyed and forgotten, and Jehovah who sits enthroned on high for ever. Critical reasons however suggest a slight alteration of the text. If the emphatic pronoun is transferred from the end of Psa 9:6 to the beginning of Psa 9:7, and a verb supplied, we may render, They are perished, but the Lord sitteth &c. This emendation (approved by Delitzsch) marks the contrast still more strongly (cp. Psalms 102:26), and moreover makes the pair of Psa 9:7-8 begin, as they should, with the letter Hç. There is also much to be said in favour of transposing the clauses of Psa 9:6 thus, as proposed by Nowack: The enemy are consumed, the remembrance of them is perished: And the cities thou didst uproot are desolate for ever.

O thou enemy! - This verse has been very variously rendered and explained. For an examination of the particular views entertained of it, see particularly Rosenmuller, in loc.

3-6. A graphic description of the desolating effect of the war.