Psalm 10:8 Kommentar

The Septuagint translation joins this psalm with the ninth, and makes them but one; but the Hebrew makes it a distinct psalm, and the scope and style are certainly different. In this psalm, I. David complains of the wickedness of the wicked, describes the dreadful pitch of impiety at which they had arrived (to the great dishonour of God and the prejudice of his church and people), and notices the delay of God's appearing against them (Psa 10:1-11). II. He prays to God to appear against them for the relief of his people and comforts himself with hopes that he would do so in due time (Psa 10:12-18).

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 10 This psalm in the Septuagint version, and those that follow it, is a part and continuation of the preceding psalm, and makes but one with it; hence in these versions the number of the following psalms differ from others, and what is the eleventh with others is the tenth with them, and so on to the hundred fourteenth and one hundred fifteenth, which also are put into one; but in order to make up the whole number of one hundred and fifty, the hundred sixteenth and the hundred forty seventh are both divided into two; and indeed the subject of this psalm is much the same with the former. Antichrist and antichristian times are very manifestly described; the impiety, blasphemy, and atheism of the man of sin; his pride, haughtiness, boasting of himself, and presumption of security; his persecution of the poor, and murder of innocents, are plainly pointed at; nor does the character of the man of the earth agree to well to any as to him: his times are times of trouble; but at the end of them the kingdom of Christ will appear in great glory, when the Gentiles, the antichristian nations, will perish out of his land, Psa 10:1.

He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages,.... Which were by the wayside, where thieves and robbers harboured, and out of which they came, and robbed passengers as they came by. The word (f) signifies "palaces" or "courts": and so it is rendered by the Chaldee paraphrase and Syriac version; and so the allusion is not to mean thieves and robbers, but to persons of note and figure. Hence the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, render it, "he sitteth in lurking places with the rich"; and may be fitly applied to the pope and his cardinals. Antichrist sits in the temple of God, and by his emissaries gets into the villages, the particular churches and congregations of saints, where they lie in ambush to do mischief, to corrupt their faith, worship, and manners; and like thieves and robbers enter in to steal, kill, and destroy; in secret places doth he murder the innocent; the harmless lambs and sheep of Christ; who, though they are not without sin in themselves, yet are innocent with respect to the cause and the things for which they suffer: these are the saints and prophets and martyrs of Jesus, whose blood is shed by antichrist; and the taking away of their lives is reckoned murder with God; and is so styled in the Scriptures, Rev 9:21; though the antichristian party call it doing God good service, and impute it to zeal for the good of holy church; and yet this they choose to do in secret, by private massacres, or by the inquisition; which having condemned men to death, delivers them over to the secular power to execute the sentence on them: just as the Jews delivered Christ to the Roman governor, to shift off the sin and blame from themselves; murder being what no one cares to be known in, or chargeable with; his eyes are privily set against the poor: the word rendered "poor", is used nowhere but in this psalm, in which it is used three times, here, and in Psa 10:1; and in the plural number in Psa 10:10. It is translated "poor" both in the Chaldee paraphrase and Septuagint version, and in those that follow them. In the Arabic language it signifies "black" (g), and may design such who are black by reason of persecution and affliction, who go mourning all the day long on account of sin, their own and others; and because of the distresses and calamities of the church and people of God. These the eyes of the wicked watch and observe, and are set against them to do them all the mischief they can; their eyes are full of envy and indignation at them, though it is all in a private and secret way. The allusion is to thieves and robbers, who hide themselves in some secret place, and from thence look out for them that pass by, and narrowly observe whether they are for their purpose, and when it will be proper to come out and seize upon them. (f) Symmachus in Drusius; "atriorum", Munster; so Hammond, Ainsworth, & Michaelis. (g) "Chalae, valde niger fuit", Golius, col. 646.

"He lies in ambush with the rich" [Psalm 10:8]. What rich, but those whom he will load with this world's gifts? And he is therefore said to lie in ambush with them, because he will display their false happiness to deceive men; who, when with a perverted will they desire to be such as they, and seek not the good things eternal, will fall into his snares. "That in the dark he may kill the innocent." "In the dark," I suppose, is said, where it is not easily understood what should be sought, or what avoided. Now to kill the innocent, is of an innocent to make one guilty.

[By contrast] the righteous person praises God at all times.

Here he shows the progress of the wicked as regards the body; and regarding this he does two things. First, he sets forth their progress. Second, the end of the progress, "in the snare." Regarding the first, he does three things. First, he sets forth with whom he lies in ambush, at "with the rich." Second, against whom: "to kill the innocent." Third, how he lies in ambush, "he lies in ambush in secret." He says therefore: The wicked, not content with speech, labor to accomplish their deeds; hence "he sits in ambush," thinking how to harm others. "In secret places," on account of simulation: Sir. 11: "Many are the snares of the deceitful." "With the rich," that is, with counselors: Sir. 13: "The hunting of a lion is the wild donkey in the desert; so are the poor the pasture of the rich." Jerome has, "near the vestibule," that is, his chamber. Against whom does he show this? Certainly against the innocent; hence, "to kill the innocent," corporally or spiritually. Ex. 23: "The innocent and the just you shall not put to death." And against the poor; hence, "his eyes are upon the poor." Is. 3: "Why do you crush my people, and grind the faces of the poor?" The Gloss: the Antichrist will take counsel with the rich against the poor. Jerome has, "his eyes are upon the strong," because the poor are not strong in temporal things, but in spiritual things. Job 16: "My enemy has looked upon me with terrible eyes."

The Psalmist mourns God's apparent indifference to his troubles, which are aggravated by the successful malice, blasphemy, pride, deceit, and profanity of the wicked. On the just and discriminating providence of God he relies for the destruction of their false security, and the defense of the needy. (Psa. 10:1-18) These are, of course, figurative terms (compare Psa 7:6; Psa 13:1, &c.). hidest--Supply "thine eyes" or "face."

eyes . . . privily--He watches with half-closed eyes, appearing not to see.

The ungodly is described as a lier in wait; and one is reminded by it of such a state of anarchy, as that described in Hos 6:9 for instance. The picture fixes upon one simple feature in which the meanness of the ungodly culminates; and it is possible that it is intended to be taken as emblematical rather than literally. חצר (from חצר to surround, cf. Arab. hdr, hṣr, and especially hdr) is a farm premises walled in (Arab. hadar, hadâr, hadâra), then losing the special characteristic of being walled round it comes to mean generally a settled abode (with a house of clay or stone) in opposition to a roaming life in tents (cf. Lev 25:31; Gen 25:16). In such a place where men are more sure of falling into his hands than in the open plain, he lies in wait (ישׁב, like Arab. q‛d lh, subsedit = insidiatus est ei), murders unobserved him who had never provoked his vengeance, and his eyes להלכה יצפּנוּ. צפה to spie, Psa 37:32, might have been used instead of צפן; but צפן also obtains the meaning, to lie in ambush (Psa 56:7; Pro 1:11, Pro 1:18) from the primary notion of restraining one's self (Arab. ḍfn, fut. i. in Beduin Arabic: to keep still, to be immoveably lost in thought, vid., on Job 24:1), which takes a transitive turn in צפן "to conceal." חלכה, the dative of the object, is pointed just as though it came from חיל: Thy host, i.e., Thy church, O Jahve. The pausal form accordingly is חלכה with Segol, in Psa 10:14, not with Ṣere as in incorrect editions. And the appeal against this interpretation, which is found in the plur. חלכאים Psa 10:10, is set aside by the fact that this plural is taken as a double word: host (חל = חיל = חיל as in Oba 1:20) of the troubled ones (כּאים, not as Ben-Labrat supposes, for נכאים, but from כּאה weary, and mellow and decayed), as the Ker (which is followed by the Syriac version) and the Masora direct, and accordingly it is pointed חלכּאים with Ṣere. The punctuation therefore sets aside a word which was unintelligible to it, and cannot be binding on us. There is a verb הלך, which, it is true, does not occur in the Old Testament, but in the Arabic, from the root Arab. ḥk, firmus fuit, firmum fecit (whence also Arab. ḥkl, intrans. to be firm, ferm, i.e., closed), it gains the signification in reference to colour: to be dark (cognate with חכל, whence חכלילי) and is also transferred to the gloom and blackness of misfortune. (Note: Cf. Samachschari's Golden Necklaces, Proverb 67, which Fleischer translates: "Which is blacker: the plumage of the raven, which is black as coal, or thy life, O stranger among strangers?" The word "blacker" is here expressed by Arab. ahlaku, just as the verb Arab. halika, with its infinitives halak or hulkat and its derivatives is applied to sorrow and misery.) From this an abstract is formed חלך or חלך (like חפשׁ): blackness, misfortune, or also of a defective development of the senses: imbecility; and from this an adjective חלכּה = חלכּי, or also (cf. חפשׁי, עלפּה Eze 31:15 = one in a condition of languishing, עלף) חלכּה = חלכּי, plur. חלכּאים, after the form דּוּדאים, from דּוּדי, Ew. 189, g.