LXXXII. This psalm represents the conviction which was so profoundly fixed in the Hebrew mind, that Justice is the fundamental virtue of society, and that its corruption implies total disorganisation and ruin. The mode in which this conviction is presented is also distinctively Hebrew. We have here... [ Continue Reading ]
STANDETH. — In the Hebrew a _participle,_ with an official ring about it. (See Isaiah 3:13.) It is used to designate departmental officers (1 Kings 4:5; 1 Kings 4:7; 1 Kings 4:27; 1 Kings 9:23. Comp. 1 Samuel 22:9; Ruth 2:5). Thus the psalm opens with the solemn statement that God had taken His offi... [ Continue Reading ]
HOW LONG? — What a terrible severity in this Divine _Quousque tandem!_ “The gods Grow _angry_ with your patience; this their care, And must be yours, that guilty men escape not; As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself.” BEN JONSON. JUDGE UNJUSTLY. — Literally, _judge iniquity._ For the op... [ Continue Reading ]
(2-4) These verses contain the rebuke addressed by the supreme judge to those abusing the judicial office and function.... [ Continue Reading ]
POOR. — Rather, _miserable._ (See Psalms 41:1.) This verse recalls the solemn curse in Deuteronomy 27:19.... [ Continue Reading ]
THE POOR AND NEEDY. — Better, _The miserable_ (as in Psalms 82:8) _and poor,_ a different word from “needy” in Psalms 82:3.... [ Continue Reading ]
Here we imagine a pause, that interval between warning and judgment which is God’s pity and man’s opportunity; but the expostulation falls dead without a response. The men are infatuated by their position and blinded by their pride, and the poet, the spectator of this drama of judgment, makes this c... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE SAID. — Again the Divine voice breaks the silence with an emphatic _I. “_From me comes your office and your honoured title, _gods;_ now from _me_ hear your doom. _Princes though ye be, ye will die as other men: yea, altogether will ye princes perish.”_ (For the rendering “altogether,” literal... [ Continue Reading ]
ARISE. — The psalm would have been incomplete had not the poet here resumed in his own person, with an appeal to the Supreme Judge to carry His decrees into effect against the oppressors of Israel. Here, at least, if not all through it, the affliction of the community, and the perversion of justice... [ Continue Reading ]