Psalms 10

Psalms 10:1-18

The wicked one, and the deliverance. Psalms 10:1-18. The tenth psalm, linked too closely with the ninth to have any separate title, is occupied largely with the description of the wicked one, as we have seen; and this is the cause of a gap in the alphabetic arrangement, six letters (from Mem to Tzaddi) being absent. Delitzsch would find, however, six strophes standing here to represent them, but the numerical division is into five parts, which are very unequal. The larger divisions are three: it is in fact a sort of resurrection psalm.

1. The first division gives us only the cry to Jehovah with the cause of the cry, this being the persecution of the humble by the wicked one. “Why standest Thou afar off, Jehovah? [why] hidest Thou Thyself in seasons of strait?” The previous psalm had declared God to be a stronghold in just such seasons (verse 9). Why such dissimilarity between the faith and the experience? But in truth faith in no wise rests upon experience here, but confesses that, as to His government, clouds and darkness may be round about Him. True, at last experience will come round to faith, and the exercise meanwhile be found needed and helpful. But faith is in the invisible, -sees Him indeed who is so, -has its ground, its arguments, is not credulity, but has sure evidence, all its own.
2. (a) Now we have the picture of the wicked one, the enemy of God and man. Pride and lust characterize him, the tokens of a soul out of the presence of God, but here in distinct and awful rejection of Him. He boasts of his soul’s desire, -of having his own way; pursuing it, he refuses all the check of Jehovah’s will; he renounces, he scorns Him, is in entire independence: like a “wandering star”, he is bound to no orbit, by that very fact indeed showing himself to be in earth-bonds that he knows not, a meteor to he quenched in darkness; safety and permanency are only in the orbit. He is not only independent of God, he denies Him; but he denies Him in the interest of his own lawless acts. “He will not search out,” he says. His plottings, the weaving together of his purposes, are atheistic therefore. His pride and his lusts mutually support each other. (b) Security is the natural outcome of his pride: God’s judgments are out of his sight altogether. If faith has to own often that clouds and darkness are about Him, it is in no wise strange that he should refuse all cognizance of One thus removed out of all natural ken. Nay, if God acts most clearly, the very fact that He makes all things serve Him in it still conceals Him amid the multiplicity of instruments. Then the scale in which God weighs things is too spiritual; the balances are “balances of the sanctuary”: a careless and callous conscience cannot appreciate them; the handwriting on the wall needs an interpreter, and who knows if it were correctly given? He knows not God then, and he derides men: “all his adversaries, he puffeth at them.” These things do not always go together: it does not follow that he who has emancipated himself from the restraint of conscience is necessarily free from the fear of man. Man is more intelligible, and yet not always more calculable; he is as to tangibility nearer; and the mystery of one’s own heart is dark enough to threaten one with the likeness of other hearts to ours. And yet over this also pride can lift the heart; and it is so here. Nay, he of whom this is spoken can look on indefinitely to the future as one not to be subject to the ills that afflict other men, -“from generation to generation one in no calamity.” (c) Being thus secure, all that is in his heart comes out: “out of the heart the mouth speaketh”; and “his mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression.” What is “under his tongue,” hidden, and yet ready to show itself, is “trouble” for others, “and vanity” in itself. A short description, indeed, but an effective one. If God be displaced it is to make room for man; and what is the man, then, for whom this is to make room? (d) So we have now his ways, -a monotony of wickedness which the psalmist, seeking to describe, can only do so by repeating himself in various ways. The figure is that of a wild beast and a beast of prey, -human so far only as there is with it the cunning and forecast of the hunter. Man without God is only such a beast; the spiritual part sunk into the animal only giving to it preternatural potency for evil. This process of degradation a Nebuchadnezzar is witness to; while in the prophet’s vision, the imperial powers following him inherit his shame: they are but “four wild beasts.” Even the numerical structure seems in the minor sections to fall through here, which, considering that the alphabetic has already done so, and yet with design, may make us realize design here also, -the three verses manifesting what is yet a nameless horror, like the fourth of the imperial beasts in Daniel’s vision. (Daniel 7:1-28.) (e) One closing comment takes us back to his attitude toward the divine government, which yet has its hold upon him: “he hath said in his heart, The Mighty hath forgotten: He hideth His face; He hath never seen it.”
3. (a) The alphabet is resumed with Koph, and now continues to the end. Let us notice that this letter Isaiah 100 in numerical value, the years of Abraham’s life before the promise is fulfilled, and to one “as good as dead” Isaac is born. So now it is time for God to arise and act: this consummation of denial and defiance is the index-hand which points to the last possible limit of divine long-suffering. The living God must show Himself. The Mighty One must put forth might. The suffering of the righteous calls for it; and so does the cool contempt of the wicked. Patience will be no longer forbearance, but the aggravation of the evil. (b) Faith holds confidently yet to an All-seeing One, interested as He is observant, sure to interfere. The wretched one, plunged in affliction, yet abandons himself to Him, who has proved Himself the helper of those destitute of natural help. The height of the evil is but the supreme necessity which God must respond to, and with which He directly charges Himself. With all help beside cut off, is not the soul in this condition just this “orphan” to whom He is pledged? (c) Then with the cry comes the flash of recognition: “Break Thou the arm of the wicked and the evil one! Thou shalt seek out his wickedness till there is no more to find.” And then the glorious accomplishment seems before the sight: “Jehovah is King for ever and aye: the nations are perished out of His land.” Purgation is effected, the evil is cast out; the intrusive presence of the nations in the land that is Jehovah’s land is found no more. It is only faith still that realizes this, but it is realized. Faith can be as sure as if the thing were done, and while there may be for it at times the struggle upwards through the mists of the valley, there are also the clear air of the mountain-top and the perfect vision. (d) And the soul goes on strengthened on its way. There is an experience of faith, braced and energized by communion with God, which makes already the path to shine with the glow of far-off skies, and lifts up the feet with energy and purpose. So it is now, as the soul sings: — “The desire of the humble Thou hast heard, Jehovah: Thou confirmest their heart; Thou causest Thine ear to hearken, to judge the orphan and the oppressed, that frail man of the earth” -whose abode the earth is -may no more alarm." Thus with a strain of joy and confidence the tenth psalm ends.