Psalms 59:12(v2)For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, let them be caught in their pride, for the curses and lies which they utter.
Psalms 36:11(v2)Don’t let the foot of pride come against me. Don’t let the hand of the wicked drive me away.
Psalms 7:16(v2)The trouble he causes shall return to his own head. His violence shall come down on the crown of his own head.
Proverbs 5:22(v2)The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly.
Psalms 31:18(v2)Let the lying lips be mute, which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.
Show all 100 cross-references
Psalms 94:4(v3)They pour out arrogant words. All the evildoers boast.
Psalms 14:1-2(v4)The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt. They have done abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. Yahweh…
Psalms 119:122(v2)Ensure your servant’s well-being. Don’t let the proud oppress me.
Psalms 140:5(v2)The proud have hidden a snare for me, they have spread the cords of a net by the path. They have set traps for me.
Isaiah 10:12-13(v2)Therefore it will happen that when the Lord has performed his whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the…
Luke 12:19(v3)I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” ’
Acts 8:22(v4)Repent therefore of this, your wickedness, and ask God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you.
Romans 1:28(v4)Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
Genesis 6:5(v4)Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually…
Psalms 119:69(v2)The proud have smeared a lie upon me. With my whole heart, I will keep your precepts.
Psalms 119:85(v2)The proud have dug pits for me, contrary to your law.
Isaiah 26:11(v5)Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, yet they don’t see; but they will see your zeal for the people, and be disappointed. Yes, fire will consume…
Zechariah 11:5-8(v3)Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be Yahweh, for I am rich;’ and their own shepherds don’t…
Psalms 9:15-16(v2)The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made. In the net which they hid, their own foot is taken. Yahweh has made himself known. He…
Psalms 119:5(v2)Oh that my ways were steadfast to obey your statutes!
Ecclesiastes 8:11(v6)Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Isaiah 14:13(v2)You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly,…
Isaiah 14:16(v2)Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms,
Isaiah 56:12(v6)“Come,” say they, “I will get wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be as today, great beyond measure.”
Jeremiah 43:2(v2)then Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men spoke, saying to Jeremiah, “You speak falsely. Yahweh…
Micah 6:10-12(v3)Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a short ephah that is accursed? Shall I be pure with dishonest…
Matthew 24:48(v6)But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’
Romans 1:21(v4)Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart…
Exodus 5:2(v4)Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know Yahweh, and moreover I will not let Israel…
Exodus 9:17(v2)because you still exalt yourself against my people, that you won’t let them go.
Exodus 15:9(v3)The enemy said, ‘I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the plunder. My desire will be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword. My…
Exodus 18:11(v2)Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all gods because of the way that they treated people arrogantly.”
Deuteronomy 8:14(v4)then your heart might be lifted up, and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;
Deuteronomy 29:19(v3)and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the…
Job 22:17(v4)who said to God, ‘Depart from us;’ and, ‘What can the Almighty do for us?’
Job 31:24(v3)“If I have made gold my hope, and have said to the fine gold, ‘You are my confidence;’
Psalms 5:6(v3)You will destroy those who speak lies. Yahweh abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
Psalms 11:1(v6)In Yahweh, I take refuge. How can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain”?
Psalms 12:5(v5)“Because of the oppression of the weak and because of the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says Yahweh; “I will set him in safety…
Psalms 14:1(v6)The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt. They have done abominable deeds. There is no one who does good.
Psalms 15:5(v6)he who doesn’t lend out his money for usury, nor take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be shaken.
Psalms 35:21(v3)Yes, they opened their mouth wide against me. They said, “Aha! Aha! Our eye has seen it!”
Psalms 49:6(v3)Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches—
Psalms 49:11-13(v3)Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after…
Psalms 53:1(v4)The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity. There is no one who does good.
Psalms 92:5-6(v5)How great are your works, Yahweh! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man doesn’t know, neither does a fool understand this:
Proverbs 28:4(v3)Those who forsake the law praise the wicked; but those who keep the law contend with them.
Isaiah 37:23(v3)Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of…
Isaiah 65:2(v4)I have spread out my hands all day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts;
Hosea 14:9(v5)Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Who is prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of Yahweh are right, and the…
Nahum 1:10(v6)For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
1 Thessalonians 5:3(v6)For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they…
Revelation 18:7(v6)However much she glorified herself, and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, ‘I sit a queen,…
Leviticus 26:30(v3)I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul…
Deuteronomy 32:19(v3)Yahweh saw and abhorred, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
Judges 9:27(v5)They went out into the field, harvested their vineyards, trod the grapes, celebrated, and went into the house of their god and ate and…
Judges 9:38(v5)Then Zebul said to him, “Now where is your mouth, that you said, ‘Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him?’ Isn’t this the people that…
1 Samuel 23:21(v3)Saul said, “You are blessed by Yahweh; for you have had compassion on me.
2 Samuel 5:6(v5)The king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who spoke to David, saying, “The blind and the…
1 Kings 20:10-11(v5)Ben Hadad sent to him, and said, “The gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria will be enough for handfuls for all the…
1 Kings 20:13(v5)Behold, a prophet came near to Ahab king of Israel, and said, “Yahweh says, ‘Have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver…
Psalms 18:27(v4)For you will save the afflicted people, but the arrogant eyes you will bring down.
Psalms 27:8(v4)When you said, “Seek my face,” my heart said to you, “I will seek your face, Yahweh.”
Psalms 30:6(v6)As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”
Psalms 36:1(v4)A revelation is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked: “There is no fear of God before his eyes.”
Psalms 49:18(v3)Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself—
Psalms 52:1(v3)Why do you boast of mischief, mighty man? God’s loving kindness endures continually.
Psalms 73:8-9(v3)They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression. They have set their mouth in the heavens. Their tongue walks…
Psalms 101:5(v4)I will silence whoever secretly slanders his neighbor. I won’t tolerate one who is arrogant and conceited.
Proverbs 1:19(v5)So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain. It takes away the life of its owners.
Proverbs 2:13(v5)who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness,
Proverbs 2:15(v5)who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths,
Proverbs 6:17(v4)arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
Proverbs 15:24(v5)The path of life leads upward for the wise, to keep him from going downward to Sheol.
Proverbs 21:4(v4)A high look and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.
Proverbs 24:1(v5)Don’t be envious of evil men, neither desire to be with them;
Proverbs 30:9(v4)lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.
Proverbs 30:13(v4)There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes! Their eyelids are lifted up.
Isaiah 2:11(v4)The lofty looks of man will be brought low, the arrogance of men will be bowed down, and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day.
Isaiah 3:9(v4)The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have…
Isaiah 5:12(v5)The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they…
Isaiah 10:1(v5)Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who write oppressive decrees;
Isaiah 10:7-11(v3)However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations. For he…
Isaiah 28:15(v5)“Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and we are in agreement with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes…
Isaiah 42:25(v5)Therefore he poured the fierceness of his anger on him, and the strength of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he didn’t know. It…
Isaiah 47:7(v6)You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results.
Isaiah 57:17(v3)I was angry because of the iniquity of his covetousness and struck him. I hid myself and was angry; and he went on backsliding in the way…
Isaiah 59:7(v4)Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in…
Jeremiah 2:31(v4)Generation, consider Yahweh’s word. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We have broken…
Jeremiah 4:14(v4)Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long will your evil thoughts lodge within you?
Jeremiah 22:17(v3)But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”
Daniel 5:22-23(v4)“You, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven;…
Hosea 9:9(v5)They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins.
Hosea 12:7-8(v3)A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud. Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich, I have found myself wealth. In…
Habakkuk 2:9(v3)Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!
Zephaniah 2:3(v4)Seek Yahweh, all you humble of the land, who have kept his ordinances. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden…
Matthew 26:15-16(v3)and said, “What are you willing to give me, that I should deliver him to you?” They weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver. From that…
Mark 7:21(v4)For from within, out of the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, sexual sins, murders, thefts,
Luke 12:15(v3)He said to them, “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he…
Luke 16:14-15(v3)The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at him. He said to them, “You are those who justify…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (113 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv2–62. The ungodly in his pride, etc Before uttering…
2. The ungodly in his pride, etc Before uttering his prayer against the ungodly, the Psalmist briefly sets forth their wickedness in cruelly vexing the afflicted, for no other reason but because they disdain and despise them, through the pride with which they are inflated. And their cruelty is not a little enhanced from this, that, forgetful of all humanity, they contemptuously triumph over the poor and afflicted, mocking them and inflicting injuries upon them. “En se mocquant d’eux et les outrageant.” — Fr.
דלק, dalak, signifies two things, to persecute, and to be set on fire; and though we render it in the former sense, and so apply it to רשע, rasha, the wicked, in the active tense, — the wicked persecutes the poor, yet the ancient interpreters generally render it in the passive, and apply it to עני, anay, the poor, that in the pride of the wicked he is set on fire, that is, brought into great tribulation.” — Hammond. The word used by the Septuagint is ἐμπυριζέται. There may be an allusion in the Hebrew word to the fires which persecutors have kindled for burning to death the confessors and martyrs of Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv3, 5, 6The wicked man rejoiceth in his own lust, he…
The wicked man rejoiceth in his own lust, he boasteth when he hath that he would: he braggeth of his wit and wealth, and blesseth himself, and thus blasphemeth the Lord.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv2–6Psa 10:2 The wicked in [his] pride doth persecute…
Psa 10:2 The wicked in [his] pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
Ver. 2. The wicked in his pride doth persecute, &c.] Heb. hotly pursueth (εμπυριζεται. Chrysost.), and that out of his pride, the true cause of persecution, whatever else is pretended. And this is fitly here alleged, and urged as an argument to move God to make haste. See Deu 32:27 : The saints fare the better for the insolence and outrage of their enemies, whose ruin is thereby accelerated, and somewhat God will do the sooner for his people, lest the enemy exalt himself, Psa 140:8, and say, Our hand is high, the Lord hath not done this.
Read full note →
Let them be taken in the devices, &c.] As all persecutors are sure to be in which regard Tertullian well adviseth Scapula, Si nobis non parcis, tibi parce; si non tibi, Carthagini: If thou wilt not spare us Christians, yet spare thyself; or if not thyself, yet thy city Carthage, which else will smart and smoke for thy cruelty.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv2–6In his pride; through pride of heart; which makes…
In his pride; through pride of heart; which makes him forget God, Psa 10:4, and despise the poor, and oppress others, either because they oppose or dislike his wicked courses, or that he may have more fuel for his pride or ambition. Or, in his exaltation. This is the use that he makes of that power and authority to which thou hast advanced him, to persecute those whom he should protect and cherish. He seems to point at Saul or his courtiers.
Doth persecute with great fervency and burning fury, as the word signifies.
Read full note →
The poor, to wit, me, who am through their tyranny poor, and destitute, and miserable, and therefore the more proper object for thy compassion, and others who favour my righteous cause.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv2–6The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor,....…
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor,.... The "poor" is the good and gracious man, who is commonly poor in this world's things, and is sensibly poor in spirit, or sensible of his spiritual poverty; or he is so called because "afflicted", as the word signifies; and he is afflicted because he is poor: these two characters generally go together. The "wicked" man is the wicked one, the lawless one, the man of sin, and son of perdition, antichrist, the great persecutor of Christ's poor saints and faithful witnesses, more or less, ever since he has been in power; and which arises from the "pride" of his heart, not bearing that any should refuse to pay homage to him, contradict his will, or dissent from him. The word (s) signifies to follow after, to pursue, as Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, interpret it; and "to pursue hotly", as it is rendered in Gen 31:36; and denotes the vehemence and heat of his wrath and fury, with which antichrist persecutes the followers of the Lamb; hence persecution is compared to the heat of the sun, Mat 13:6; Some render the words, "through the pride of the wicked the poor is burned", or "the poor burns" (t): which may be understood either literally, of the burning of the martyrs of Jesus by antichrist, as here in Queen Mary's days; and which was foretold, that some of the saints should fall by flame, as well as by sword, captivity, and spoil; and to which that part of the description of Christ answers, whose feet are said to be like fine brass, as if it burned in a furnace; and which is prefaced to the epistle to the church at Thyatira, which is an emblem of the apostate church: see Dan 11:33; or figuratively, of the poor saints burning with grief at the pride and wickedness of the man of sin, and with zeal for the honour and glory of God; see Co2 11:29, Sol 8:6;
let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined: we read the words as a petition; and so the sense is, let the wicked persecutors be taken in the wicked and crafty schemes which they have devised for the hurt of others, as they are, or will be; see Psa 9:15. But the psalmist is not yet come to petitions, nor does he until Psa 10:12; but is all along describing the wickedness of the wicked one. It seems better therefore to render the words as do the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, "they are taken in the devices that they have imagined": and the meaning is, that the poor, who are persecuted by the wicked, are taken by their crafty schemes they lay for them, as Jarchi interprets it, and are put to death by them. So these words show the issue and event of persecution: and this sense best agrees with the boasted success of the wicked man Psa 10:3.
Read full note →
(s) "fervide persequitur", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ferventer", Gejerus; so Ainsworth. (t) "Incenditur", V. L. "ardet", Tigurine version, Muis, Cocceius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv3–5Boasteth - He glorieth in his very sins which…
Boasteth - He glorieth in his very sins which are his shame, and especially in the satisfaction of his desires.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv2–6Verse 2. The wicked in his pride] On no…
Verse 2. The wicked in his pride] On no principle of nature or reason can we account for a wicked man persecuting a humble follower of God because of his religion. The devil hates godliness; and the wicked man hates it also, because the devil is in his heart.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv2–6Psa 10:2. The wicked in his pride — The…
Psa 10:2. The wicked in his pride — The pride of his heart which makes him forget God, despise the poor, and oppress others: Hebrew, בגאות, begaa-vath, in his exaltation; doth persecute the poor — With great earnestness and burning fury, as the verb דלק, dalak, here used, signifies: as if he had said, The use which he makes of that power and authority to which thou hast advanced him is to persecute those whom he ought to protect and cherish.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv2–6The wicked in his pride - Margin: “In the…
The wicked in his pride - Margin: “In the pride of the wicked he doth.” The margin is a literal translation of the Hebrew; but the sense is the same. The meaning is, that the fact that the wicked persecuted the poor, in the case referred to, was to be traced to his pride, haughtiness, ambition; that is, in pursuing his own selfish and ambitious purposes, he became utterly regardless of the rights and comforts of others. He esteemed their interest and happiness as unworthy of regard in comparison with his own aims and purposes, and trampled down all their rights in prosecuting his own ends. The term “wicked” here - in the original in the singular number, רשׁע rāshâ‛, though perhaps used collectively - means properly the wicked one, or the wicked man, and doubtless refers to some enemy that David had in his eye, and from whom he was at that time suffering wrong. It is not possible now to ascertain with certainty who this was; but as the whole description proceeds in the singular number Psa 10:3-11, it is most natural to suppose that this refers to one individual.
Doth persecute the poor - עני ידלק yidelaq ‛ânı̂y. Prof. Alexander renders this, “burns the sufferer.” Luther, muss der Elende leiden - “must the afflicted suffer.” DeWette: angstigen sich die Elenden. The Latin Vulgate: “When the impious (man) is proud, the poor (man) is burned:” incenditur pauper. So the Septuagint. Gesenius (Lexicon) supposes it means, to burn with anguish. Horsley renders it, “In the exaltation of the impious one the helpless is consumed.” But it seems to me that our common version has expressed the true sense. The word rendered persecuteth - דלק dâlaq - means properly to burn, to flame; then to burn with love, with anger; then to burn after anyone, to persecute. See it; explained in the notes at Psa 7:13. According to the most natural application of the word here, it would seem to mean, “In the pride of the wicked, he persecutes the poor or the afflicted;” that is, he burns after him; he is inflamed against him; he hotly pursues him. The word poor in this place - עני ‛ânı̂y - means the afflicted; the crushed; the downtrodden; those in circumstances of humiliation and poverty. The psalmist doubtless refers to himself as a poor and persecuted man; and the time in his life would seem to be when he was without a protector or friend, probably before he came to the throne.
Read full note →
Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined - The artifice, plan, or scheme, which they have formed. That is, they have formed a scheme to take advantage of, or to destroy others; and the psalmist prays that, as a just retribution, this very calamity may come upon them. No man could have a right to complain if the mischief and wrong which he had devised for others should be brought upon himself; and if it were certain that this in all eases would occur, there could be nothing that would so effectually deter men from wrongdoing. The psalmist, then, simply prays that justice might be done. Compare Psa 5:10, note; Psa 7:15-16, notes. The plural form of the verb is used here, but it is not certain that the psalmist had more than one enemy in view, for on expressing his feelings toward that one enemy he may have designed to use language which would be applicable to all in similar circumstances.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv2–5Literally, "In pride of the wicked they (the poor…
Literally, "In pride of the wicked they (the poor or humble, Psa 10:17; Psa 12:5) shall be taken in the devices they (the proud) have imagined."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv2–62. Wicked—The man who breaks law and departs from…
2. Wicked—The man who breaks law and departs from right with knowledge and of set purpose. The term is used five times in the psalm. It is not an ideal picture, but a living description of an actual state of society under the misrule and outrages of the worst conceivable men.
Poor—This is the oppressed class,—the opposite of the “wicked.” The title includes the ideas both of humble and afflicted; and under different original words is given seven times. Called, also, the “innocent,” “fatherless,” “oppressed.” Psa_10:8; Psa_10:14; Psa_10:17.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv2–62. The general sense of the first clause is…
2. The general sense of the first clause is that given by R.V.:
In the pride of the wicked the poor is hotly pursued;
Read full note →
or possibly, is consumed, by fear, anxiety, and distress.
In the second clause there is a double ambiguity. The verb taken may be rendered as a wish or as a statement of fact; and its subject may be the ‘wicked’ or the ‘poor.’ Hence either, as A.V.,
let them (the wicked) be taken in the devices that they have imagined: or, as LXX, Vulg., R.V. marg.:
they (the poor) are taken in the devices that they (the wicked) have imagined.
With the first rendering comp. Psa_7:15-16, Psa_9:16 : but the second is on the whole preferable. It gives a good parallelism to the first line of the verse; and a further description of the wrongs of the poor suits the context better than a parenthetical cry for retribution.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv2–6(2) The wicked.—Better, in the pride of the wicked,…
(2) The wicked.—Better, in the pride of the wicked, the sufferer burns. (So LXX., Aquila, Symmachus, and Vulg.) Not to be taken of indignation felt by the sufferers, but literally of the afflictions they endure. The Authorised Version rendering of the next clause takes the wicked as the subject of the verb; but it preserves the parallelism better, and is more in accordance with the rest of the psalm (Psa_10:8-10), to understand it of the “humble,” the singular changing to the plural in the subject when supplied: “they (the sufferers) are taken (the verb is in the present) in the plot which they (the wicked) have devised.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv2–6The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.…
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. Dr. Kay translates, "Through the pride of the wicked man the poor is set on fire;" and our Revisers, "In the pride of the wicked, the poor is hotly pursued;" and so (nearly) the LXX, the Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, Kohler, Hengstenberg, and others. The Authorized Version paraphrases rather than translates; but it does not misrepresent the general sense, which is a complaint that the poor are persecuted by the wicked . Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. (comp. Psa_35:8, "Let his net that he hath hid catch himself;" and Psa_141:10, "Let the wicked fall into their own nets;" see also Psa_7:15, 16 9:15 Pro_5:22 Pro_26:27 Ecc_10:8) Some, however, translate, "They (i.e. the poor) are ensnared in the devices which they (i.e. the wicked) have imagined;" and this is certainly a possible rendering. Hengstenberg regards it as preferable to the other "on account of the parallelism and connection."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon1885 · Public DomainOn vv2–6Ver. 2. The second verse contains the formal indictment…
Ver. 2. The second verse contains the formal indictment against the wicked:
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. The accusation divides itself into two distinct charges, pride and tyranny; the one the root and cause of the other. The second sentence is the humble petition of the oppressed:
Read full note →
Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. The prayer is reasonable, just, and natural. Even our enemies themselves being judges, it is but right that men should be done by as they wished to do to others. We only weigh you in your own scales, and measure your corn with your own bushel. Terrible shall be thy day, O persecuting Babylon! when thou shalt be made to drink of the wine cup which thou thyself hast filled to the brim with the blood of saints. There are none who will dispute the justice of God, when he shall hang every Haman on his own gallows, and cast all the enemies of his Daniels into their own den of lions.
Ver. 2. The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. THE OPPRESSOR'S PLEA. I seek but what is my own by law; it was his own free act and deed the execution lies for goods and body; and goods or body I will have, or else my money. What if his beggardly children pine, or his proud wife perish? they perish at their own charge, not mine; and what is that to me? I must be paid, or he lie by it until I have my utmost farthing, or his bones. The law is just and good; and, being ruled by that, how can my fair proceedings be unjust? What is thirty in the hundred to a man of trade? Are we born to thrum caps or pick straws? and sell our livelihood for a few tears, and a whining face? I thank God they move me not so much as a howling dog at midnight. I will give no day if heaven itself would be security. I must have present money, or his bones...Fifteen shillings in the pound composition! I will hang first. Come, tell me not of a good conscience: a good conscience is no parcel in my trade; it hath made more bankrupts than all the loose wives in the universal city. My conscience is no fool: it tells me my own is my own, and that a well crammed bag is no deceitful friend, but will stick close to me when all my friends forsake me. If to gain a good estate out of nothing, and to regain a desperate debt which is as good as nothing, be the fruits and signs of a bad conscience, God help the good. Come, tell me not of griping and oppression. The world is hard, and he that hopes to thrive must gripe as hard. What I give I give, and what I lend I lend. If the way to heaven be to turn beggar upon earth, let them take it that like it. I know not what you call oppression, the law is my direction; but of the two, it is more profitable to oppress than to be oppressed. If debtors would be honest and discharge, our hands were bound: but when their failing offends my bags, they touch the apple of my eye, and I must right them. Francis Quarles.
Ver. 2. That famous persecutor, Domitian, like others of the Roman emperors, assumed divine honours, and heated the furnace seven times hotter against Christians because they refused to worship his image. In like manner, when the popes of Rome became decorated with the blasphemous titles of Masters of the World, and, Universal Fathers, they let loose their blood hounds upon the faithful. Pride is the egg of persecution. C.H.S.
Ver. 2. Pride, is a vice which cleaveth so fast unto the hearts of men, that if we were to strip ourselves of all faults one by one, we should undoubtedly find it the very last and hardest to put off. Richard Hooker, 1554-1600.
Ver. 2. Religious persecution in all its phases based on pride.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv4–6The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will…
Psa_10:4
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God.
Read full note →
The wicked, from pride, refuse to seek God
In this Psalm we have a full-length portrait of a careless, unawakened sinner, drawn by the unerring pencil of truth. Two of the features which compose this portrait are delineated in our text.
1. An unwillingness to seek after God.
2. Pride, which causes that unwillingness.
I. The wicked will not seek after God. They do not, because they will not. To this purpose they obstinately and unalterably adhere, unless their wills are subdued by Divine grace.
1. The wicked will not seek after the knowledge of God. This is evident from Scripture statement, and from the experience of all ages. The wicked will not pray for the knowledge of God, nor improve their opportunities for acquiring the knowledge of God.
2. The wicked will not seek the favour of God. Knowing nothing experimentally of His excellence and perfections, and ignorant of their entire dependence on Him for happiness, they cannot of course realise that the favour of God is life, and His loving kindness is better than life.
3. The wicked will not seek after the likeness of God. That they do not at all resemble Him is certain. They do not wish or endeavour to resemble Him. There is, indeed, in their view, no reason why they should. There are but two motives which can make any being wish to resemble another. A wish to obtain the approbation of the person imitated; or admiration of something in his character, and a consequent desire to inscribe it into our own. But the wicked can be influenced by neither of these motives to seek after conformity to God.
4. The wicked will not seek after communion with God. Communion supposes some degree of resemblance to the being whose communion is sought, and a participation of the same nature, views, and feelings.
II. The reason why the wicked will not seek God.
1. Pride renders God a disagreeable object of contemplation to the wicked, and a knowledge of Him as undesirable. Pride consists in an unduly exalted opinion of ones self. It is therefore impatient of a rival, hates a superior, and cannot endure a master.
2. The pride of the wicked prevents them from seeking the knowledge of God, by rendering them unwilling to be taught. Pride is almost as impatient of a teacher as of a master.
3. Pride renders the wicked unwilling to use the means by which alone the knowledge of God can be acquired. It renders them unwilling to study the Bible in a proper manner. Pride also renders the man unwilling to pray. And it prevents him from improving public and private opportunities for acquiring religious instruction. The pride of the wicked will not allow them to seek after the favour or the likeness of God. It makes them unwilling to seek after communion with God.
Reflections--
1. How evident it is that salvation is wholly of grace, and that all the wicked, if left to themselves, will certainly perish.
2. How depraved, how infatuated, how unreasonable do the wicked appear!
3. How foolish, absurd, ruinous, blindly destructive of its own object does pride appear! The subject may be applied for purposes of self-examination. (E. Payson, D. D.)
The pride of man restrains seeking after God
Christianity made but few converts amongst the disciples of Zeno. Why should it have been so? With their simple and self-denying habits, why were they not attracted by the purer morals of the Gospel? and with their superiority to the surrounding superstitions, why did they not hail that unknown God whom Cleanthus had sung, and whom Paul now preached? The answer we fear is to be found in that little word pride--that little word which is still so great a hindrance to many wise men after the flesh. Amongst the Greeks and Romans the Stoics occupied the same place as the Pharisees amongst the Jews. The very foundation of their theory was to make the virtuous man self-sufficing, and usually they got so far as to make him self-sufficient. In cutting off all other vices the Stoic, like the cynic before him, fostered to enormous magnitude pride or self-complacency, and, as Archer Butler says in his Ancient Philosophy, sought not so much to please the Deity as to be His equal. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
God is not in all his thoughts.
The sinfulness of forgetting God
A characteristic mark of the ungodly man. Forgetfulness of God is the concealed spring from which the evil and bitter streams of outward wickedness derive their origin.
I. What is intended by having God in all our thoughts. It is not meant that we should have our meditations constantly and invariably fixed upon God. Nor that the most pious and spiritual state of mind will disqualify a man for transacting the proper business of his station. We are here reminded of the necessity of an abiding and habitual impression of our obligations and accountableness to God. The text implies that we should take God as our portion, and expect our highest and best happiness from Him. Whatever it be from which a man expects his chief good, to that his thoughts naturally revert whenever he is not compelled to fix them upon some other object. It will be the favourite topic of his meditations.
II. The consequence of the want of this principle. The man described here is one who lives in a state of habitual forgetfulness of God; acts without an abiding sense of his obligation and accountableness to Him; lives to please himself, rather than Him who made him. This state of mind is the very thing that leads to every act of gross outward sin. Conclusion:
1. Learn not to be satisfied with ourselves, because men approve of us. They cannot at all look at our motives.
2. If, in order to our being approved of God, it is necessary that we should have such a constant regard to Him, is it not clear that the retrospect of our lives will show us that we have been lamentably defective in His sight? Our subject may remind us of our exceeding sinfulness, and of our need of the mercy and grace of God as revealed in the Gospel of His Son. (T. Scott, MA.)
Who are the wicked
The text says that God is not in their thoughts.
1. This is because of practical atheism. God is put out of the way by various theories. One makes the world ten thousand years old, and another ten million. The Bible is sneered at as an old, antiquated book.
2. Ignorance of Gods character is another reason why God is not in mens thoughts. We, as sinful and blinded creatures, cannot justly comprehend a holy God. Even Christs disciples but poorly comprehended Gods character as revealed in Christ. Much more in the case of the sinner is it true that God is not in his thoughts on account of the blindness of sin. Justice and holiness are obscured.
3. A misconception of their own moral condition follows. They lose sight of God because they are not awake to their own ill-desert.
4. Another reason why God is not in the wicked mans thought is because of absorption in the things of the world. The demands of business should be met, but those of God are not to be forgotten. Men know that there is a future life, though some may argue against it. The Sabbath is given as one preparative. (J. H. Hamilton, M. D.)
The place where God is not
God is everywhere, and yet the verse tells us where He is not--in the thoughts of wicked men. This is--
1. A notorious fact. Millions live day by day as if God were not.
2. An astounding fact. It is unnatural, impious, calamitous. Why, then, is God not in their thoughts?
I. Negatively.
1. It is not because there can be any doubt as to the importance of thinking of God.
2. Nor because there is any lack of means to remind men of Him. All things are full of Him.
3. Nor because of the unbroken regularity of the material world. In heaven, where there is the same regularity, their minds ever delight in Him.
4. Nor because man has no consciousness of restraint in action. But all holy souls are equally free.
II. Positively. The cause is in the heart.
1. Fear--the guilty conscience.
2. Dislike; hence men exclude God from their thoughts. Learn, the appalling wickedness of man, and his need of Christ. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
A searching description of the wicked
The heart of the wicked is the only place in the creation of God whence, if we may so speak, the Creator is banished. Inquire--
I. Into the causes of such a state of mind. They penetrate deeper than may at first sight appear. It is nothing temporary or accidental that causes the forgetfulness of which the Psalmist complains; the evil is general and radical. It has its source in our original apostasy; it extends to us all by nature; no man is free from its influence. Subordinate to this primary and leading cause there are individual causes which, though but results of the former, become in their turn new and fruitful causes of the same effect. The constant pressure of worldly concerns, even when lawful, tends to banish God from our thoughts. But mere inattention is not the whole cause why God is not more in the hearts of men. They wilfully and deliberately banish Him from their thoughts. They are anxious to forget Him. And the reason is that they do not truly love God. What we love is always welcome to our thoughts.
II. Into the evils resulting therefrom. In fact, all the vice that exists among mankind arises from their not having God in their thoughts. Did men seriously think upon God they would not dare to sin as they too often do.
III. Into the method of overcoming this unhappy state of character.
1. Learn to contemplate the Almighty in the magnitude of His terrors,
2. Let us view God in the abundance of His love. (Christian Observer.)
A discourse on habitual devotion
It is characteristic of a good man that he sets the Lord always before him, whereas it is said of the wicked, God is not in all their thoughts. This seems to furnish a pretty good test of the state of a mans mind with respect to virtue and vice. The wicked man is a practical atheist. The good man sees God in everything, and everything in God. An habitual regard of God is the most effectual means of advancing us from the more imperfect to the more perfect state. Recommend this duty by an enumeration of its happy effects.
1. An habitual regard to God in our actions tends greatly to keep us firm in our adherence to our duty. It has pleased Divine Providence to place man in a state of trial and probation. This world is strictly such. God has placed us under laws. We are certainly less liable to forget these laws, and our obligation to observe them, when we keep up an habitual regard to our great Lawgiver and Judge, when we consider Him as present with us.
2. An habitual regard to God promotes an uniform cheerfulness of mind. It tends to dissipate melancholy and anxiety.
3. Fits a man for the business of this life, giving a peculiar presence and intrepidity of mind, and is therefore the best support in difficult enterprises of any kind. Consider the most proper and effectual methods of promoting this temper of mind.
(1) Endeavour to divest your minds of too great a multiplicity of the cares of this world;
(2) Do not omit stated times of worshipping God by prayer, public and private;
(3) Omit no opportunity of turning your thoughts to God;
(4) Never fail to have recourse to God upon every occasion of strong emotion of mind;
(5) Labour to free your minds of all consciousness of guilt and self-reproach;
(6) Cultivate in your minds just ideas of God. (J. Priestley, LL. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v6Psa 10:6. - Psa 16:8. - Psa 30:6.
Psalms
ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN
Read full note →
Psa 10:6. - Psa 16:8. - Psa 30:6.
How differently the same things sound when said by different men! Here are three people giving utterance to almost the same sentiment of confidence. A wicked man says it, and it is insane presumption and defiance. A good man says it, having been lulled into false security by easy times, and it is a mistake that needs chastisement. A humble believing soul says it, and it is the expression of a certain and blessed truth. ‘The wicked saith in his heart, I shall not be moved.’ A good man, led astray by his prosperity, said, ‘I shall not be moved,’ and the last of the three put a little clause in which makes all the difference, ‘because He is at my right hand, I shall never be moved.’ So, then, we have the mad arrogance of godless confidence, the mistake of a good man that needs correction, and the warranted confidence of a believing soul.
I. The mad arrogance of godless confidence.
The ‘wicked’ man, in the psalm from which our first text comes, said a good many wrong things ‘in his heart.’ The tacit assumptions on which a life is based, though they may never come to consciousness, and still less to utterance, are the really important things. I dare say this ‘wicked man’ was a good Jew with his lips, and said his prayers all properly, but in his heart he had two working beliefs. One is thus expressed: ‘As for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved.’ The other is put into words thus: ‘He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten, He hideth His face. He will never see it.’
That is to say, the only explanation of a godless life, unless the man is an idiot, is that there lie beneath it, as formative principles and unspoken assumptions, guiding and shaping it, one or both of these two thoughts: either ‘There is no God,’ or ‘He does not care what I do, and I am safe to go on for evermore in the present fashion.’ It might seem as if a man with the facts of human life before him, could not, even in the insanest arrogance, say, ‘I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity.’ But we have an awful power-and the fact that we exercise, and choose to exercise, it is one of the strange riddles of our enigmatical existence and characters-of ignoring unwelcome facts, and going cheerily on as though we had annihilated them, because we do not reflect upon them. So this man, in the midst of a world in which there is no stay, and whilst he saw all round him the most startling and tragical instances of sudden change and complete collapse, stands quietly and says, ‘Ah! I shall never be moved’; ‘God doth not require it.’
That absurdity is the basis of every life that is not a life of consecration and devotion-so far as it has a basis of conviction at all. The ‘wicked’ man’s true faith is this, absurd as it may sound when you drag it out into clear, distinct utterance, whatever may be his professions. I wonder if there are any of us whose life can only be acquitted of being utterly unreasonable and ridiculous by the assumption, ‘I shall never be moved’?
Have you a lease of your goods? Do you think you are tenants at will or owners? Which? Is there any reason why any of us should escape, as some of us live as if we believed we should escape, the certain fate of all others? If there is not, what about the sanity of the man whose whole life is built upon a blunder? He is convicted of the grossest folly, unless he be assured that either there is no God, or that He does not care one rush about what we do, and that consequently we are certain of a continuance in our present state.
Do you say in your heart, ‘I shall never be moved’? Then you must be strong enough to resist every tempest that beats against you. Is that so? ‘I shall never be moved’-then nothing that contributes to your well-being will ever slip from your grasp, but you will be able to hold it tight. Is that so? ‘I shall never be moved’-then there is no grave waiting for you. Is that so? Unless these three assumptions be warranted, every godless man is making a hideous blunder, and his character is the sentence pronounced by the loving lips of Incarnate Truth on the rich man who thought that he had ‘much goods laid up for many years,’ and had only to be merry-’Thou fool! Thou fool!’ If an engineer builds a bridge across a river without due calculation of the force of the winds that blow down the gorge, the bridge will be at the bottom of the stream some stormy night, and the train piled on the fragments of it in hideous ruin. And with equal certainty the end of the first utterer of this speech can be calculated, and is foretold in the psalm, ‘The Lord is King for ever and ever. . . . The godless are perished out of the land.’
II. We have in our second text the mistake of a good man who has been lulled into false confidence.
The Psalmist admits his error by the acknowledgment that he spoke ‘in my prosperity’; or, as the word might be rendered, ‘in my security.’ This suggests to us the mistake into which even good men, lulled by the quiet continuance of peaceful days, are certain to fall, unless there be continual watchfulness exercised by them.
It is a very significant fact that the word which is translated in our Authorised Version ‘prosperity’ is often rendered ‘security,’ meaning thereby, not safety, but a belief that I am safe. A man who is prosperous, or at ease, is sure to drop into the notion that ‘to-morrow will be as this day, and much more abundant,’ unless he keeps up unslumbering watchfulness against the insidious illusion of permanence. If he yields to the temptation, in his foolish security, forgetting how fragile are its foundations, and what a host of enemies surround him threatening it, then there is nothing for it but that the merciful discipline, which this Psalmist goes on to tell us he had to pass through by reason of his fall, shall be brought to bear upon him. The writer gives us a page of his own autobiography. ‘In my security I said, I shall never be moved.’ ‘Lord! by Thy favour Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide Thy face.’ What about the security then? What about ‘I shall never be moved’ then? ‘I was troubled. I cried to Thee, O Lord!’-and then it was all right, his prayer was heard, and he was in ‘security’-that is, safety-far more really when he was ‘troubled’ and sore beset than when he had been, as he fancied, sure of not being moved.
Long peace rusts the cannon, and is apt to make it unfit for war. Our lack of imagination, and our present sense of comfort and well-being, tend to make us fancy that we shall go on for ever in the quiet jog-trot of settled life without any very great calamities or changes. But there was once a village at the bottom of the crater of Vesuvius, and great trees, that had grown undisturbed there for a hundred years, and green pastures, and happy homes and flocks. And then, one day, a rumble and a rush, and what became of the village? It went up in smoke-clouds. The quiescence of the volcano is no sign of its extinction. And as surely as we live, so sure is it that there will come a ‘to-morrow’ to us all which shall not be as this day. No man has any right to calculate upon anything beyond the present moment, and there is no basis whatever, either for the philosophical assertion that the order of nature is fixed, and that therefore there are no miracles, or for the practical translation of the assertion into our daily lives, that we may reasonably expect to go on as we are without changes or calamities. There is no reason capable of being put into logical shape for believing that, because the sun has risen ever since the beginning of things, it will rise to-morrow, for there will come a to-morrow when it will not rise. In like manner, the longest possession of our mercies is no reason for forgetting the precarious tenure on which we hold them all.
So, Christian men and women! let us try to keep vivid that consciousness which is so apt to get dull, that nothing continueth in one stay, and that we shall be moved, as far as the outward life and its circumstances are concerned. If we forget it, we shall need, and we shall get, the loving Fatherly discipline, which my second text tells us followed the false security of this good man. The sea is kept from putrefying by storms. Wine poured from vessel to vessel is purified thereby. It is an old truth and a wholesome one, to be always remembered, ‘because they have no changes therefore they fear not God .’
III. Lastly, we have the same thing said by another man in another key.
‘Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.’ The prelude to the assertion makes all the difference. Here is the warranted confidence of a simple faith.
The man who clasps God’s hand, and has Him standing by his side, as his Ally, his Companion, his Guide, his Defence-that man does not need to fear change. For all the things which convict the arrogant or mistaken confidences of the other men as being insanity or a lapse from faith prove the confidence of the trustful soul to be the very perfection of reason and common sense.
We may be confident of our power to resist anything that can come against us, if He be at our side. The man that stands with his back against an oak-tree is held firm, not because of his own strength, but because of that on which he leans. There is a beautiful story of some heathen convert who said to a missionary’s wife, who had felt faint and asked that she might lean for a space on her stronger arm, ‘If you love me, lean hard.’ That is what God says to us, ‘If you love Me, lean hard.’ And if you do, because He is at your right hand, you will not be moved. It is not insanity; it is not arrogance; it is simple faith, to look our enemies in the eyes, and to feel sure that they cannot touch us, ‘Trust in Jehovah; so shall ye be established.’ Rest on the Lord, and ye shall rest indeed.
In like manner the man who has God at his right hand may be sure of the unalterable continuance of all his proper good. Outward things may come or go, as it pleases Him, but that which makes the life of our life will never depart from us as long as He stands there. And whilst He is there, if only our hearts are knit to Him, we can say, ‘My heart and my flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. I shall not be moved. Though all that can go goes, He abides; and in Him I have all riches.’ Trust not in the uncertainty of outward good, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.
The wicked man was defiantly arrogant, and the forgetful good man was criminally self-confident, when they each said, ‘I shall not be moved.’ We are only taking up the privileges that belong to us if, exercising faith in Him, we venture to say, ‘Take what Thou wilt; leave me Thyself; I have enough.’ And the man who says, ‘Because God is at my right hand, I shall not be moved,’ has the right to anticipate an unbroken continuance of personal being, and an unchanged continuance of the very life of his life. That which breaks off all other lives abruptly is no breach in the continuity, either of the consciousness or of the avocations of a devout man. For, on the other side of the flood, he does what he does on this side, only more perfectly and more continually. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever,’ and it makes comparatively little difference to him whether his place be on this or on the other side of Jordan. We ‘shall not be moved,’ even when we change our station from earth to heaven, and the sublime fulfilment of the warranted confidence of the trustful soul comes when the ‘to-morrow’ of the skies is as the ‘to-day’ of earth, only ‘much more abundant.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv4, 6The wicked man
The wicked man
This refers here to wicked people in general. AT: "the wicked person" (See: Generic Noun Phrases)
Read full note →
has a raised face
A raised face represents pride or arrogance. AT: "has an arrogant attitude" or "is proud" (See: Metaphor)
he does not seek God
Seeking God represents either 1) asking God for help or 2) thinking about God and obeying him. AT: "he does not ask God for help" or "he does not think about God" (See: Metaphor)
He is secure at all times
"He is safe at all times." He is not really safe, but he thinks that he is.
your righteous decrees are too high for him
Something that is hard to understand is spoken of as if it were too high to reach. AT: "he cannot understand your righteous decrees" (See: Metaphor)
he snorts at all his enemies
People snort at their enemies when they think that their enemies are weak and worthless. AT: "he thinks that all his enemies are weak and worthless" or "he sneers at all his enemies" (See: Symbolic Action)
he snorts
This means that he blows air out noisily through his nose.
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv2, 3, 4, 610:2-11 Wicked and oppressive people might prosper, leaving ugly…
10:2-11 Wicked and oppressive people might prosper, leaving ugly consequences. Evil can be as dramatic as the psalmist portrays it here, or it could be more subtle.
10:2 The wicked brazenly defy God with their acts and speech (17:10; 31:18; 59:12; 73:8; 123:4). Although the Lord will deal with them (31:23), they disturb the righteous (see 5:4-6) prior to their condemnation and judgment.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv2–6 2. The ungodly in his pride, etc Before uttering…
2. The ungodly in his pride, etc Before uttering his prayer against the ungodly, the Psalmist briefly sets forth their wickedness in cruelly vexing the afflicted, for no other reason but because they disdain and despise them, through the pride with which they are inflated. And their cruelty is not a little enhanced from this, that, forgetful of all humanity, they contemptuously triumph over the poor and afflicted, mocking them and inflicting injuries upon them. “En se mocquant d’eux et les outrageant.” — Fr.
דלק, dalak, signifies two things, to persecute, and to be set on fire; and though we render it in the former sense, and so apply it to רשע, rasha, the wicked, in the active tense, — the wicked persecutes the poor, yet the ancient interpreters generally render it in the passive, and apply it to עני, anay, the poor, that in the pride of the wicked he is set on fire, that is, brought into great tribulation.” — Hammond. The word used by the Septuagint is ἐμπυριζέται. There may be an allusion in the Hebrew word to the fires which persecutors have kindled for burning to death the confessors and martyrs of Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv3, 5, 6 The wicked man rejoiceth in his own lust, he…
The wicked man rejoiceth in his own lust, he boasteth when he hath that he would: he braggeth of his wit and wealth, and blesseth himself, and thus blasphemeth the Lord.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv2–6 Psa 10:2 The wicked in [his] pride doth persecute…
Psa 10:2 The wicked in [his] pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
Ver. 2. The wicked in his pride doth persecute, &c.] Heb. hotly pursueth (εμπυριζεται. Chrysost.), and that out of his pride, the true cause of persecution, whatever else is pretended. And this is fitly here alleged, and urged as an argument to move God to make haste. See Deu 32:27 : The saints fare the better for the insolence and outrage of their enemies, whose ruin is thereby accelerated, and somewhat God will do the sooner for his people, lest the enemy exalt himself, Psa 140:8, and say, Our hand is high, the Lord hath not done this.
Read full note →
Let them be taken in the devices, &c.] As all persecutors are sure to be in which regard Tertullian well adviseth Scapula, Si nobis non parcis, tibi parce; si non tibi, Carthagini: If thou wilt not spare us Christians, yet spare thyself; or if not thyself, yet thy city Carthage, which else will smart and smoke for thy cruelty.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2–6 In his pride; through pride of heart; which makes…
In his pride; through pride of heart; which makes him forget God, Psa 10:4, and despise the poor, and oppress others, either because they oppose or dislike his wicked courses, or that he may have more fuel for his pride or ambition. Or, in his exaltation. This is the use that he makes of that power and authority to which thou hast advanced him, to persecute those whom he should protect and cherish. He seems to point at Saul or his courtiers.
Doth persecute with great fervency and burning fury, as the word signifies.
Read full note →
The poor, to wit, me, who am through their tyranny poor, and destitute, and miserable, and therefore the more proper object for thy compassion, and others who favour my righteous cause.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–6 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor,....…
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor,.... The "poor" is the good and gracious man, who is commonly poor in this world's things, and is sensibly poor in spirit, or sensible of his spiritual poverty; or he is so called because "afflicted", as the word signifies; and he is afflicted because he is poor: these two characters generally go together. The "wicked" man is the wicked one, the lawless one, the man of sin, and son of perdition, antichrist, the great persecutor of Christ's poor saints and faithful witnesses, more or less, ever since he has been in power; and which arises from the "pride" of his heart, not bearing that any should refuse to pay homage to him, contradict his will, or dissent from him. The word (s) signifies to follow after, to pursue, as Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, interpret it; and "to pursue hotly", as it is rendered in Gen 31:36; and denotes the vehemence and heat of his wrath and fury, with which antichrist persecutes the followers of the Lamb; hence persecution is compared to the heat of the sun, Mat 13:6; Some render the words, "through the pride of the wicked the poor is burned", or "the poor burns" (t): which may be understood either literally, of the burning of the martyrs of Jesus by antichrist, as here in Queen Mary's days; and which was foretold, that some of the saints should fall by flame, as well as by sword, captivity, and spoil; and to which that part of the description of Christ answers, whose feet are said to be like fine brass, as if it burned in a furnace; and which is prefaced to the epistle to the church at Thyatira, which is an emblem of the apostate church: see Dan 11:33; or figuratively, of the poor saints burning with grief at the pride and wickedness of the man of sin, and with zeal for the honour and glory of God; see Co2 11:29, Sol 8:6;
let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined: we read the words as a petition; and so the sense is, let the wicked persecutors be taken in the wicked and crafty schemes which they have devised for the hurt of others, as they are, or will be; see Psa 9:15. But the psalmist is not yet come to petitions, nor does he until Psa 10:12; but is all along describing the wickedness of the wicked one. It seems better therefore to render the words as do the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, "they are taken in the devices that they have imagined": and the meaning is, that the poor, who are persecuted by the wicked, are taken by their crafty schemes they lay for them, as Jarchi interprets it, and are put to death by them. So these words show the issue and event of persecution: and this sense best agrees with the boasted success of the wicked man Psa 10:3.
Read full note →
(s) "fervide persequitur", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ferventer", Gejerus; so Ainsworth. (t) "Incenditur", V. L. "ardet", Tigurine version, Muis, Cocceius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv3–5 Boasteth - He glorieth in his very sins which…
Boasteth - He glorieth in his very sins which are his shame, and especially in the satisfaction of his desires.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv2–6 Verse 2. The wicked in his pride] On no…
Verse 2. The wicked in his pride] On no principle of nature or reason can we account for a wicked man persecuting a humble follower of God because of his religion. The devil hates godliness; and the wicked man hates it also, because the devil is in his heart.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv2–6 Psa 10:2. The wicked in his pride — The…
Psa 10:2. The wicked in his pride — The pride of his heart which makes him forget God, despise the poor, and oppress others: Hebrew, בגאות, begaa-vath, in his exaltation; doth persecute the poor — With great earnestness and burning fury, as the verb דלק, dalak, here used, signifies: as if he had said, The use which he makes of that power and authority to which thou hast advanced him is to persecute those whom he ought to protect and cherish.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2–6 The wicked in his pride - Margin: “In the…
The wicked in his pride - Margin: “In the pride of the wicked he doth.” The margin is a literal translation of the Hebrew; but the sense is the same. The meaning is, that the fact that the wicked persecuted the poor, in the case referred to, was to be traced to his pride, haughtiness, ambition; that is, in pursuing his own selfish and ambitious purposes, he became utterly regardless of the rights and comforts of others. He esteemed their interest and happiness as unworthy of regard in comparison with his own aims and purposes, and trampled down all their rights in prosecuting his own ends. The term “wicked” here - in the original in the singular number, רשׁע rāshâ‛, though perhaps used collectively - means properly the wicked one, or the wicked man, and doubtless refers to some enemy that David had in his eye, and from whom he was at that time suffering wrong. It is not possible now to ascertain with certainty who this was; but as the whole description proceeds in the singular number Psa 10:3-11, it is most natural to suppose that this refers to one individual.
Doth persecute the poor - עני ידלק yidelaq ‛ânı̂y. Prof. Alexander renders this, “burns the sufferer.” Luther, muss der Elende leiden - “must the afflicted suffer.” DeWette: angstigen sich die Elenden. The Latin Vulgate: “When the impious (man) is proud, the poor (man) is burned:” incenditur pauper. So the Septuagint. Gesenius (Lexicon) supposes it means, to burn with anguish. Horsley renders it, “In the exaltation of the impious one the helpless is consumed.” But it seems to me that our common version has expressed the true sense. The word rendered persecuteth - דלק dâlaq - means properly to burn, to flame; then to burn with love, with anger; then to burn after anyone, to persecute. See it; explained in the notes at Psa 7:13. According to the most natural application of the word here, it would seem to mean, “In the pride of the wicked, he persecutes the poor or the afflicted;” that is, he burns after him; he is inflamed against him; he hotly pursues him. The word poor in this place - עני ‛ânı̂y - means the afflicted; the crushed; the downtrodden; those in circumstances of humiliation and poverty. The psalmist doubtless refers to himself as a poor and persecuted man; and the time in his life would seem to be when he was without a protector or friend, probably before he came to the throne.
Read full note →
Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined - The artifice, plan, or scheme, which they have formed. That is, they have formed a scheme to take advantage of, or to destroy others; and the psalmist prays that, as a just retribution, this very calamity may come upon them. No man could have a right to complain if the mischief and wrong which he had devised for others should be brought upon himself; and if it were certain that this in all eases would occur, there could be nothing that would so effectually deter men from wrongdoing. The psalmist, then, simply prays that justice might be done. Compare Psa 5:10, note; Psa 7:15-16, notes. The plural form of the verb is used here, but it is not certain that the psalmist had more than one enemy in view, for on expressing his feelings toward that one enemy he may have designed to use language which would be applicable to all in similar circumstances.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–5 Literally, "In pride of the wicked they (the poor…
Literally, "In pride of the wicked they (the poor or humble, Psa 10:17; Psa 12:5) shall be taken in the devices they (the proud) have imagined."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv2–6 2. Wicked—The man who breaks law and departs from…
2. Wicked—The man who breaks law and departs from right with knowledge and of set purpose. The term is used five times in the psalm. It is not an ideal picture, but a living description of an actual state of society under the misrule and outrages of the worst conceivable men.
Poor—This is the oppressed class,—the opposite of the “wicked.” The title includes the ideas both of humble and afflicted; and under different original words is given seven times. Called, also, the “innocent,” “fatherless,” “oppressed.” Psa_10:8; Psa_10:14; Psa_10:17.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2–6 2. The general sense of the first clause is…
2. The general sense of the first clause is that given by R.V.:
In the pride of the wicked the poor is hotly pursued;
Read full note →
or possibly, is consumed, by fear, anxiety, and distress.
In the second clause there is a double ambiguity. The verb taken may be rendered as a wish or as a statement of fact; and its subject may be the ‘wicked’ or the ‘poor.’ Hence either, as A.V.,
let them (the wicked) be taken in the devices that they have imagined: or, as LXX, Vulg., R.V. marg.:
they (the poor) are taken in the devices that they (the wicked) have imagined.
With the first rendering comp. Psa_7:15-16, Psa_9:16 : but the second is on the whole preferable. It gives a good parallelism to the first line of the verse; and a further description of the wrongs of the poor suits the context better than a parenthetical cry for retribution.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2–6 (2) The wicked.—Better, in the pride of the wicked,…
(2) The wicked.—Better, in the pride of the wicked, the sufferer burns. (So LXX., Aquila, Symmachus, and Vulg.) Not to be taken of indignation felt by the sufferers, but literally of the afflictions they endure. The Authorised Version rendering of the next clause takes the wicked as the subject of the verb; but it preserves the parallelism better, and is more in accordance with the rest of the psalm (Psa_10:8-10), to understand it of the “humble,” the singular changing to the plural in the subject when supplied: “they (the sufferers) are taken (the verb is in the present) in the plot which they (the wicked) have devised.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv2–6 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.…
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. Dr. Kay translates, "Through the pride of the wicked man the poor is set on fire;" and our Revisers, "In the pride of the wicked, the poor is hotly pursued;" and so (nearly) the LXX, the Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, Kohler, Hengstenberg, and others. The Authorized Version paraphrases rather than translates; but it does not misrepresent the general sense, which is a complaint that the poor are persecuted by the wicked . Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. (comp. Psa_35:8, "Let his net that he hath hid catch himself;" and Psa_141:10, "Let the wicked fall into their own nets;" see also Psa_7:15, 16 9:15 Pro_5:22 Pro_26:27 Ecc_10:8) Some, however, translate, "They (i.e. the poor) are ensnared in the devices which they (i.e. the wicked) have imagined;" and this is certainly a possible rendering. Hengstenberg regards it as preferable to the other "on account of the parallelism and connection."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv2–6 Ver. 2. The second verse contains the formal indictment…
Ver. 2. The second verse contains the formal indictment against the wicked:
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. The accusation divides itself into two distinct charges, pride and tyranny; the one the root and cause of the other. The second sentence is the humble petition of the oppressed:
Read full note →
Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. The prayer is reasonable, just, and natural. Even our enemies themselves being judges, it is but right that men should be done by as they wished to do to others. We only weigh you in your own scales, and measure your corn with your own bushel. Terrible shall be thy day, O persecuting Babylon! when thou shalt be made to drink of the wine cup which thou thyself hast filled to the brim with the blood of saints. There are none who will dispute the justice of God, when he shall hang every Haman on his own gallows, and cast all the enemies of his Daniels into their own den of lions.
Ver. 2. The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. THE OPPRESSOR'S PLEA. I seek but what is my own by law; it was his own free act and deed the execution lies for goods and body; and goods or body I will have, or else my money. What if his beggardly children pine, or his proud wife perish? they perish at their own charge, not mine; and what is that to me? I must be paid, or he lie by it until I have my utmost farthing, or his bones. The law is just and good; and, being ruled by that, how can my fair proceedings be unjust? What is thirty in the hundred to a man of trade? Are we born to thrum caps or pick straws? and sell our livelihood for a few tears, and a whining face? I thank God they move me not so much as a howling dog at midnight. I will give no day if heaven itself would be security. I must have present money, or his bones...Fifteen shillings in the pound composition! I will hang first. Come, tell me not of a good conscience: a good conscience is no parcel in my trade; it hath made more bankrupts than all the loose wives in the universal city. My conscience is no fool: it tells me my own is my own, and that a well crammed bag is no deceitful friend, but will stick close to me when all my friends forsake me. If to gain a good estate out of nothing, and to regain a desperate debt which is as good as nothing, be the fruits and signs of a bad conscience, God help the good. Come, tell me not of griping and oppression. The world is hard, and he that hopes to thrive must gripe as hard. What I give I give, and what I lend I lend. If the way to heaven be to turn beggar upon earth, let them take it that like it. I know not what you call oppression, the law is my direction; but of the two, it is more profitable to oppress than to be oppressed. If debtors would be honest and discharge, our hands were bound: but when their failing offends my bags, they touch the apple of my eye, and I must right them. Francis Quarles.
Ver. 2. That famous persecutor, Domitian, like others of the Roman emperors, assumed divine honours, and heated the furnace seven times hotter against Christians because they refused to worship his image. In like manner, when the popes of Rome became decorated with the blasphemous titles of Masters of the World, and, Universal Fathers, they let loose their blood hounds upon the faithful. Pride is the egg of persecution. C.H.S.
Ver. 2. Pride, is a vice which cleaveth so fast unto the hearts of men, that if we were to strip ourselves of all faults one by one, we should undoubtedly find it the very last and hardest to put off. Richard Hooker, 1554-1600.
Ver. 2. Religious persecution in all its phases based on pride.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv4–6 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will…
Psa_10:4
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God.
Read full note →
The wicked, from pride, refuse to seek God
In this Psalm we have a full-length portrait of a careless, unawakened sinner, drawn by the unerring pencil of truth. Two of the features which compose this portrait are delineated in our text.
1. An unwillingness to seek after God.
2. Pride, which causes that unwillingness.
I. The wicked will not seek after God. They do not, because they will not. To this purpose they obstinately and unalterably adhere, unless their wills are subdued by Divine grace.
1. The wicked will not seek after the knowledge of God. This is evident from Scripture statement, and from the experience of all ages. The wicked will not pray for the knowledge of God, nor improve their opportunities for acquiring the knowledge of God.
2. The wicked will not seek the favour of God. Knowing nothing experimentally of His excellence and perfections, and ignorant of their entire dependence on Him for happiness, they cannot of course realise that the favour of God is life, and His loving kindness is better than life.
3. The wicked will not seek after the likeness of God. That they do not at all resemble Him is certain. They do not wish or endeavour to resemble Him. There is, indeed, in their view, no reason why they should. There are but two motives which can make any being wish to resemble another. A wish to obtain the approbation of the person imitated; or admiration of something in his character, and a consequent desire to inscribe it into our own. But the wicked can be influenced by neither of these motives to seek after conformity to God.
4. The wicked will not seek after communion with God. Communion supposes some degree of resemblance to the being whose communion is sought, and a participation of the same nature, views, and feelings.
II. The reason why the wicked will not seek God.
1. Pride renders God a disagreeable object of contemplation to the wicked, and a knowledge of Him as undesirable. Pride consists in an unduly exalted opinion of ones self. It is therefore impatient of a rival, hates a superior, and cannot endure a master.
2. The pride of the wicked prevents them from seeking the knowledge of God, by rendering them unwilling to be taught. Pride is almost as impatient of a teacher as of a master.
3. Pride renders the wicked unwilling to use the means by which alone the knowledge of God can be acquired. It renders them unwilling to study the Bible in a proper manner. Pride also renders the man unwilling to pray. And it prevents him from improving public and private opportunities for acquiring religious instruction. The pride of the wicked will not allow them to seek after the favour or the likeness of God. It makes them unwilling to seek after communion with God.
Reflections--
1. How evident it is that salvation is wholly of grace, and that all the wicked, if left to themselves, will certainly perish.
2. How depraved, how infatuated, how unreasonable do the wicked appear!
3. How foolish, absurd, ruinous, blindly destructive of its own object does pride appear! The subject may be applied for purposes of self-examination. (E. Payson, D. D.)
The pride of man restrains seeking after God
Christianity made but few converts amongst the disciples of Zeno. Why should it have been so? With their simple and self-denying habits, why were they not attracted by the purer morals of the Gospel? and with their superiority to the surrounding superstitions, why did they not hail that unknown God whom Cleanthus had sung, and whom Paul now preached? The answer we fear is to be found in that little word pride--that little word which is still so great a hindrance to many wise men after the flesh. Amongst the Greeks and Romans the Stoics occupied the same place as the Pharisees amongst the Jews. The very foundation of their theory was to make the virtuous man self-sufficing, and usually they got so far as to make him self-sufficient. In cutting off all other vices the Stoic, like the cynic before him, fostered to enormous magnitude pride or self-complacency, and, as Archer Butler says in his Ancient Philosophy, sought not so much to please the Deity as to be His equal. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
God is not in all his thoughts.
The sinfulness of forgetting God
A characteristic mark of the ungodly man. Forgetfulness of God is the concealed spring from which the evil and bitter streams of outward wickedness derive their origin.
I. What is intended by having God in all our thoughts. It is not meant that we should have our meditations constantly and invariably fixed upon God. Nor that the most pious and spiritual state of mind will disqualify a man for transacting the proper business of his station. We are here reminded of the necessity of an abiding and habitual impression of our obligations and accountableness to God. The text implies that we should take God as our portion, and expect our highest and best happiness from Him. Whatever it be from which a man expects his chief good, to that his thoughts naturally revert whenever he is not compelled to fix them upon some other object. It will be the favourite topic of his meditations.
II. The consequence of the want of this principle. The man described here is one who lives in a state of habitual forgetfulness of God; acts without an abiding sense of his obligation and accountableness to Him; lives to please himself, rather than Him who made him. This state of mind is the very thing that leads to every act of gross outward sin. Conclusion:
1. Learn not to be satisfied with ourselves, because men approve of us. They cannot at all look at our motives.
2. If, in order to our being approved of God, it is necessary that we should have such a constant regard to Him, is it not clear that the retrospect of our lives will show us that we have been lamentably defective in His sight? Our subject may remind us of our exceeding sinfulness, and of our need of the mercy and grace of God as revealed in the Gospel of His Son. (T. Scott, MA.)
Who are the wicked
The text says that God is not in their thoughts.
1. This is because of practical atheism. God is put out of the way by various theories. One makes the world ten thousand years old, and another ten million. The Bible is sneered at as an old, antiquated book.
2. Ignorance of Gods character is another reason why God is not in mens thoughts. We, as sinful and blinded creatures, cannot justly comprehend a holy God. Even Christs disciples but poorly comprehended Gods character as revealed in Christ. Much more in the case of the sinner is it true that God is not in his thoughts on account of the blindness of sin. Justice and holiness are obscured.
3. A misconception of their own moral condition follows. They lose sight of God because they are not awake to their own ill-desert.
4. Another reason why God is not in the wicked mans thought is because of absorption in the things of the world. The demands of business should be met, but those of God are not to be forgotten. Men know that there is a future life, though some may argue against it. The Sabbath is given as one preparative. (J. H. Hamilton, M. D.)
The place where God is not
God is everywhere, and yet the verse tells us where He is not--in the thoughts of wicked men. This is--
1. A notorious fact. Millions live day by day as if God were not.
2. An astounding fact. It is unnatural, impious, calamitous. Why, then, is God not in their thoughts?
I. Negatively.
1. It is not because there can be any doubt as to the importance of thinking of God.
2. Nor because there is any lack of means to remind men of Him. All things are full of Him.
3. Nor because of the unbroken regularity of the material world. In heaven, where there is the same regularity, their minds ever delight in Him.
4. Nor because man has no consciousness of restraint in action. But all holy souls are equally free.
II. Positively. The cause is in the heart.
1. Fear--the guilty conscience.
2. Dislike; hence men exclude God from their thoughts. Learn, the appalling wickedness of man, and his need of Christ. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
A searching description of the wicked
The heart of the wicked is the only place in the creation of God whence, if we may so speak, the Creator is banished. Inquire--
I. Into the causes of such a state of mind. They penetrate deeper than may at first sight appear. It is nothing temporary or accidental that causes the forgetfulness of which the Psalmist complains; the evil is general and radical. It has its source in our original apostasy; it extends to us all by nature; no man is free from its influence. Subordinate to this primary and leading cause there are individual causes which, though but results of the former, become in their turn new and fruitful causes of the same effect. The constant pressure of worldly concerns, even when lawful, tends to banish God from our thoughts. But mere inattention is not the whole cause why God is not more in the hearts of men. They wilfully and deliberately banish Him from their thoughts. They are anxious to forget Him. And the reason is that they do not truly love God. What we love is always welcome to our thoughts.
II. Into the evils resulting therefrom. In fact, all the vice that exists among mankind arises from their not having God in their thoughts. Did men seriously think upon God they would not dare to sin as they too often do.
III. Into the method of overcoming this unhappy state of character.
1. Learn to contemplate the Almighty in the magnitude of His terrors,
2. Let us view God in the abundance of His love. (Christian Observer.)
A discourse on habitual devotion
It is characteristic of a good man that he sets the Lord always before him, whereas it is said of the wicked, God is not in all their thoughts. This seems to furnish a pretty good test of the state of a mans mind with respect to virtue and vice. The wicked man is a practical atheist. The good man sees God in everything, and everything in God. An habitual regard of God is the most effectual means of advancing us from the more imperfect to the more perfect state. Recommend this duty by an enumeration of its happy effects.
1. An habitual regard to God in our actions tends greatly to keep us firm in our adherence to our duty. It has pleased Divine Providence to place man in a state of trial and probation. This world is strictly such. God has placed us under laws. We are certainly less liable to forget these laws, and our obligation to observe them, when we keep up an habitual regard to our great Lawgiver and Judge, when we consider Him as present with us.
2. An habitual regard to God promotes an uniform cheerfulness of mind. It tends to dissipate melancholy and anxiety.
3. Fits a man for the business of this life, giving a peculiar presence and intrepidity of mind, and is therefore the best support in difficult enterprises of any kind. Consider the most proper and effectual methods of promoting this temper of mind.
(1) Endeavour to divest your minds of too great a multiplicity of the cares of this world;
(2) Do not omit stated times of worshipping God by prayer, public and private;
(3) Omit no opportunity of turning your thoughts to God;
(4) Never fail to have recourse to God upon every occasion of strong emotion of mind;
(5) Labour to free your minds of all consciousness of guilt and self-reproach;
(6) Cultivate in your minds just ideas of God. (J. Priestley, LL. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v6 Psa 10:6. - Psa 16:8. - Psa 30:6.
Psalms
ONE SAYING FROM THREE MEN
Read full note →
Psa 10:6. - Psa 16:8. - Psa 30:6.
How differently the same things sound when said by different men! Here are three people giving utterance to almost the same sentiment of confidence. A wicked man says it, and it is insane presumption and defiance. A good man says it, having been lulled into false security by easy times, and it is a mistake that needs chastisement. A humble believing soul says it, and it is the expression of a certain and blessed truth. ‘The wicked saith in his heart, I shall not be moved.’ A good man, led astray by his prosperity, said, ‘I shall not be moved,’ and the last of the three put a little clause in which makes all the difference, ‘because He is at my right hand, I shall never be moved.’ So, then, we have the mad arrogance of godless confidence, the mistake of a good man that needs correction, and the warranted confidence of a believing soul.
I. The mad arrogance of godless confidence.
The ‘wicked’ man, in the psalm from which our first text comes, said a good many wrong things ‘in his heart.’ The tacit assumptions on which a life is based, though they may never come to consciousness, and still less to utterance, are the really important things. I dare say this ‘wicked man’ was a good Jew with his lips, and said his prayers all properly, but in his heart he had two working beliefs. One is thus expressed: ‘As for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved.’ The other is put into words thus: ‘He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten, He hideth His face. He will never see it.’
That is to say, the only explanation of a godless life, unless the man is an idiot, is that there lie beneath it, as formative principles and unspoken assumptions, guiding and shaping it, one or both of these two thoughts: either ‘There is no God,’ or ‘He does not care what I do, and I am safe to go on for evermore in the present fashion.’ It might seem as if a man with the facts of human life before him, could not, even in the insanest arrogance, say, ‘I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity.’ But we have an awful power-and the fact that we exercise, and choose to exercise, it is one of the strange riddles of our enigmatical existence and characters-of ignoring unwelcome facts, and going cheerily on as though we had annihilated them, because we do not reflect upon them. So this man, in the midst of a world in which there is no stay, and whilst he saw all round him the most startling and tragical instances of sudden change and complete collapse, stands quietly and says, ‘Ah! I shall never be moved’; ‘God doth not require it.’
That absurdity is the basis of every life that is not a life of consecration and devotion-so far as it has a basis of conviction at all. The ‘wicked’ man’s true faith is this, absurd as it may sound when you drag it out into clear, distinct utterance, whatever may be his professions. I wonder if there are any of us whose life can only be acquitted of being utterly unreasonable and ridiculous by the assumption, ‘I shall never be moved’?
Have you a lease of your goods? Do you think you are tenants at will or owners? Which? Is there any reason why any of us should escape, as some of us live as if we believed we should escape, the certain fate of all others? If there is not, what about the sanity of the man whose whole life is built upon a blunder? He is convicted of the grossest folly, unless he be assured that either there is no God, or that He does not care one rush about what we do, and that consequently we are certain of a continuance in our present state.
Do you say in your heart, ‘I shall never be moved’? Then you must be strong enough to resist every tempest that beats against you. Is that so? ‘I shall never be moved’-then nothing that contributes to your well-being will ever slip from your grasp, but you will be able to hold it tight. Is that so? ‘I shall never be moved’-then there is no grave waiting for you. Is that so? Unless these three assumptions be warranted, every godless man is making a hideous blunder, and his character is the sentence pronounced by the loving lips of Incarnate Truth on the rich man who thought that he had ‘much goods laid up for many years,’ and had only to be merry-’Thou fool! Thou fool!’ If an engineer builds a bridge across a river without due calculation of the force of the winds that blow down the gorge, the bridge will be at the bottom of the stream some stormy night, and the train piled on the fragments of it in hideous ruin. And with equal certainty the end of the first utterer of this speech can be calculated, and is foretold in the psalm, ‘The Lord is King for ever and ever. . . . The godless are perished out of the land.’
II. We have in our second text the mistake of a good man who has been lulled into false confidence.
The Psalmist admits his error by the acknowledgment that he spoke ‘in my prosperity’; or, as the word might be rendered, ‘in my security.’ This suggests to us the mistake into which even good men, lulled by the quiet continuance of peaceful days, are certain to fall, unless there be continual watchfulness exercised by them.
It is a very significant fact that the word which is translated in our Authorised Version ‘prosperity’ is often rendered ‘security,’ meaning thereby, not safety, but a belief that I am safe. A man who is prosperous, or at ease, is sure to drop into the notion that ‘to-morrow will be as this day, and much more abundant,’ unless he keeps up unslumbering watchfulness against the insidious illusion of permanence. If he yields to the temptation, in his foolish security, forgetting how fragile are its foundations, and what a host of enemies surround him threatening it, then there is nothing for it but that the merciful discipline, which this Psalmist goes on to tell us he had to pass through by reason of his fall, shall be brought to bear upon him. The writer gives us a page of his own autobiography. ‘In my security I said, I shall never be moved.’ ‘Lord! by Thy favour Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide Thy face.’ What about the security then? What about ‘I shall never be moved’ then? ‘I was troubled. I cried to Thee, O Lord!’-and then it was all right, his prayer was heard, and he was in ‘security’-that is, safety-far more really when he was ‘troubled’ and sore beset than when he had been, as he fancied, sure of not being moved.
Long peace rusts the cannon, and is apt to make it unfit for war. Our lack of imagination, and our present sense of comfort and well-being, tend to make us fancy that we shall go on for ever in the quiet jog-trot of settled life without any very great calamities or changes. But there was once a village at the bottom of the crater of Vesuvius, and great trees, that had grown undisturbed there for a hundred years, and green pastures, and happy homes and flocks. And then, one day, a rumble and a rush, and what became of the village? It went up in smoke-clouds. The quiescence of the volcano is no sign of its extinction. And as surely as we live, so sure is it that there will come a ‘to-morrow’ to us all which shall not be as this day. No man has any right to calculate upon anything beyond the present moment, and there is no basis whatever, either for the philosophical assertion that the order of nature is fixed, and that therefore there are no miracles, or for the practical translation of the assertion into our daily lives, that we may reasonably expect to go on as we are without changes or calamities. There is no reason capable of being put into logical shape for believing that, because the sun has risen ever since the beginning of things, it will rise to-morrow, for there will come a to-morrow when it will not rise. In like manner, the longest possession of our mercies is no reason for forgetting the precarious tenure on which we hold them all.
So, Christian men and women! let us try to keep vivid that consciousness which is so apt to get dull, that nothing continueth in one stay, and that we shall be moved, as far as the outward life and its circumstances are concerned. If we forget it, we shall need, and we shall get, the loving Fatherly discipline, which my second text tells us followed the false security of this good man. The sea is kept from putrefying by storms. Wine poured from vessel to vessel is purified thereby. It is an old truth and a wholesome one, to be always remembered, ‘because they have no changes therefore they fear not God .’
III. Lastly, we have the same thing said by another man in another key.
‘Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.’ The prelude to the assertion makes all the difference. Here is the warranted confidence of a simple faith.
The man who clasps God’s hand, and has Him standing by his side, as his Ally, his Companion, his Guide, his Defence-that man does not need to fear change. For all the things which convict the arrogant or mistaken confidences of the other men as being insanity or a lapse from faith prove the confidence of the trustful soul to be the very perfection of reason and common sense.
We may be confident of our power to resist anything that can come against us, if He be at our side. The man that stands with his back against an oak-tree is held firm, not because of his own strength, but because of that on which he leans. There is a beautiful story of some heathen convert who said to a missionary’s wife, who had felt faint and asked that she might lean for a space on her stronger arm, ‘If you love me, lean hard.’ That is what God says to us, ‘If you love Me, lean hard.’ And if you do, because He is at your right hand, you will not be moved. It is not insanity; it is not arrogance; it is simple faith, to look our enemies in the eyes, and to feel sure that they cannot touch us, ‘Trust in Jehovah; so shall ye be established.’ Rest on the Lord, and ye shall rest indeed.
In like manner the man who has God at his right hand may be sure of the unalterable continuance of all his proper good. Outward things may come or go, as it pleases Him, but that which makes the life of our life will never depart from us as long as He stands there. And whilst He is there, if only our hearts are knit to Him, we can say, ‘My heart and my flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. I shall not be moved. Though all that can go goes, He abides; and in Him I have all riches.’ Trust not in the uncertainty of outward good, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.
The wicked man was defiantly arrogant, and the forgetful good man was criminally self-confident, when they each said, ‘I shall not be moved.’ We are only taking up the privileges that belong to us if, exercising faith in Him, we venture to say, ‘Take what Thou wilt; leave me Thyself; I have enough.’ And the man who says, ‘Because God is at my right hand, I shall not be moved,’ has the right to anticipate an unbroken continuance of personal being, and an unchanged continuance of the very life of his life. That which breaks off all other lives abruptly is no breach in the continuity, either of the consciousness or of the avocations of a devout man. For, on the other side of the flood, he does what he does on this side, only more perfectly and more continually. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever,’ and it makes comparatively little difference to him whether his place be on this or on the other side of Jordan. We ‘shall not be moved,’ even when we change our station from earth to heaven, and the sublime fulfilment of the warranted confidence of the trustful soul comes when the ‘to-morrow’ of the skies is as the ‘to-day’ of earth, only ‘much more abundant.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 6 The wicked man
The wicked man
This refers here to wicked people in general. AT: "the wicked person" (See: Generic Noun Phrases)
Read full note →
has a raised face
A raised face represents pride or arrogance. AT: "has an arrogant attitude" or "is proud" (See: Metaphor)
he does not seek God
Seeking God represents either 1) asking God for help or 2) thinking about God and obeying him. AT: "he does not ask God for help" or "he does not think about God" (See: Metaphor)
He is secure at all times
"He is safe at all times." He is not really safe, but he thinks that he is.
your righteous decrees are too high for him
Something that is hard to understand is spoken of as if it were too high to reach. AT: "he cannot understand your righteous decrees" (See: Metaphor)
he snorts at all his enemies
People snort at their enemies when they think that their enemies are weak and worthless. AT: "he thinks that all his enemies are weak and worthless" or "he sneers at all his enemies" (See: Symbolic Action)
he snorts
This means that he blows air out noisily through his nose.
translationWords
God
righteous
decree
adversary
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv2, 3, 4, 6 10:2-11 Wicked and oppressive people might prosper, leaving ugly…
10:2-11 Wicked and oppressive people might prosper, leaving ugly consequences. Evil can be as dramatic as the psalmist portrays it here, or it could be more subtle.
10:2 The wicked brazenly defy God with their acts and speech (17:10; 31:18; 59:12; 73:8; 123:4). Although the Lord will deal with them (31:23), they disturb the righteous (see 5:4-6) prior to their condemnation and judgment.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.