Psalms 58:4

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear.

A generation of serpents

This verse spends itself on a double comparison; of persons and conditions. The persons compared are men and serpents; the conditions or qualities upon which the similitude stands are poison and deafness. The former whereof is indefinite: “Their poison is as the poison of a serpent,” any serpent. The latter is restrictive: “Their deafness is like the adder,” one kind of serpents.

I. Poison--there is such a thing as poison; but where to be found? Wheresoever it is, in man who would look for it? God made man’s body of the dust; he mingled no poison with it. He inspired his soul from heaven; he breathes no poison with it. He feeds him with bread; he conveys no poison with it. Whence is this poison? (Matthew 13:27). That great serpent, the red dragon, hath poured into wicked hearts this poison. In this poison there is a double pestilent effect. It is to themselves death; to others a contagious sickness.

1. To themselves. It is an epidemical corruption, dispersing the venom over all parts of body and soul. It poisons the heart with falsehood, the head with lightness, the eyes with adultery, the tongue with blasphemy, the hands with oppression, the whole body with intemperance. It poisons beauty with wantonness, strength with violence, wit with wilfulness, learning with dissension, devotion with superstition. And in all this observe the effect of this poison in themselves. For it doth not only annoy others, but mostly destroy themselves. But the poison of the wicked, whilst it infects others, kills themselves. “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself” (Proverbs 5:22). Their own wickedness, like poison, hath in themselves these three direful effects.

(1) It makes them swell with pride, and blows up the heart as a bladder with a quill. “Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse?” (1 Samuel 25:10). “Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him?” (Job 21:15). Thus the spider, the poisonous vermin, “climbs up to the roof of the king’s palace” (Proverbs 30:28).

(2) It makes them swill; the poison of sin is such a burning heat within them, that they must still be drinking.

(3) It makes them burst (Acts 1:18). This is the catastrophe of a wicked life. “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death (James 1:15).

2. To others. You see how fatal the poison of the wicked is to themselves. The hurt it doth to others consists in outward harming, in inward defiling them. Outwardly.

Their poison breaks forth in the injuries of all about them. They spare neither foreigner nor neighhour. There be little snakes in Babylon, that bite only foreigners, and not inhabitants. Pliny writes of scorpions in the hill Carla, that when they sting only wound the natural-born people of the country; but bite strangers gently or not at all. These, like fools, not only strike them that are nearest, but beteem their poison to the overthrow of all. Such a one cannot sleep except he have done mischief; nay, he dies, if others do not die by him. Inwardly.--Their poison doth most hurt by infection. Their poison is got by touching--he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled: by companying with them (Proverbs 1:14); by confederacy; by sight--the very beholding of their wickedness causes it in others.

II. Their persons--We have spoken of their poison. They are said to be as serpents (Matthew 23:33; Ezekiel 2:6).

1. There are mystical serpents.

2. There are the dart-like serpents (Acts 28:1.). He is the angry man, the hasty, furious one, who flies upon another with a sudden blow.

3. The great serpent of all, the devil (Revelation 12:3). Faith in Christ can alone put him to flight. For the remedy of this poison (see John 3:14), and further let there be repentance. (Thomas Adams.)

The deafness of sinners

We do not know what revelations have been made. We do not know but the air is full of messengers and messages. If a million bands were playing near a man and he was stone deaf, he would not hear the music. A blind man might stand amidst uncounted myriads of flowers on the Grand Prairie in Illinois, and not know that there was a flower there. And you may be utterly blind and deaf to the messengers and messages of the higher life, because you are not in that state of development by which you may perceive them. (Henry Ward Beecher.)