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Commentary on Psalms 10 verses 1–11
David, in these verses, discovers,
I. A very great affection to God and his favour; for, in the time of trouble, that which he complains of most feelingly is God's withdrawing his gracious presence (Psa 10:1): "Why standest thou afar off, as one unconcerned in the indignities done to thy name and the injuries done to the people?" Note, God's withdrawings are very grievous to his people at any time, but especially in times of trouble. Outward deliverance is afar off and is hidden from us, and then we think God is afar off and we therefore want inward comfort; but that is our own fault; it is because we judge by outward appearance; we stand afar off from God by our unbelief, and then we complain that God stands afar off from us.
II. A very great indignation against sin, the sins that made the times perilous, Ti2 3:1. he beholds the transgressors and is grieved, is amazed, and brings to his heavenly Father their evil report, not in a way of vain-glory, boasting before God that he was not as these publicans (Luk 18:11), much less venting any personal resentments, piques, or passions, of his own; but as one that laid to he art that which is offensive to God and all good men, and earnestly desired a reformation of manners. passionate and satirical invectives against bad men do more hurt than good; if we will speak of their badness, let it be to God in prayer, for he alone can make them better. This long representation of the wickedness of the wicked is here summed up in the first words of it (Psa 10:2), The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor, where two things are laid to their charge, pride and persecution, the former the cause of the latter. Proud men will have all about them to be of their mind, of their religion, to say as they say, to submit to their dominion, and acquiesce in their dictates; and those that either eclipse them or will not yield to them they malign and hate with an inveterate hatred. Tyranny, both in state and church, owes its origin to pride. The psalmist, having begun this description, presently inserts a short prayer, a prayer in a parenthesis, which is an advantage and no prejudice to the sense: Let them be taken, as proud people often are, in the devices that they have imagined, Psa 10:2. Let their counsels be turned headlong, and let them fall headlong by them. These two heads of the charge are here enlarged upon.
1.They are proud, very proud, and extremely conceited of themselves; justly therefore did he wonder that God did not speedily appear against them, for he hates pride, and resists the proud. (1.) The sinner proudly glories in his power and success. He boasts of his heart's desire, boasts that he can do what he pleases (as if God himself could not control him) and that he has all he wished for and has carried his point. Ephraim said, I have become rich, I have found me out substance, Hos 12:8. "Now, Lord, is it for thy glory to suffer a sinful man thus to pretend to the sovereignty and felicity of a God?" (2.) He proudly contradicts the judgment of God, which, we are sure, is according to truth; for he blesses the covetous, whom the Lord abhors. See how God and men differ in their sentiments of persons: God abhors covetous worldlings, who make money their God and idolize is; he looks upon them as his enemies, and will have no communion with them. The friendship of the world is enmity to God. But proud persecutors bless them, and approve their sayings, Psa 49:13. They applaud those as wise whom God pronounces foolish (Luk 12:20); they justify those as innocent whom God condemns as deeply guilty before him; and they admire those as happy, in having their portion in this life, whom God declares, upon that account, truly miserable. Thou, in thy lifetime, receivedst thy good things. (3.) He proudly casts off the thoughts of God, and all dependence upon him and devotion to him (Psa 10:4): The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, that pride of his heart which appears in his very countenance (Pro 6:17), will not seek after God, nor entertain the thoughts of him. God is not in all his thoughts, not in any of them. All his thoughts are that there is not God. See here, [1.] The nature of impiety and irreligion; it is not seeking after God and not having him in our thoughts. There is no enquiry made after him (Job 35:10, Jer 2:6), no desire towards him, no communion with him, but a secret wish to have no dependence upon him and not to be beholden to him. Wicked people will not seek after God (that is, will not call upon him); they live without prayer, and that is living without God. They have many thoughts, many projects and devices, but no eye to God in any of them, no submission to his will nor aim at his glory. [2.] The cause of this impiety and irreligion; and that is pride. Men will not seek after God because they think they have no need of him, their own hands are sufficient for them; they think it a thing below them to be religious, because religious people are few, and mean, and despised, and the restraints of religion will be a disparagement to them. (4.) He proudly makes light of God's commandments and judgments (Psa 10:5): His wings are always grievous; he is very daring and resolute in his sinful courses; he will have his way, though ever so tiresome to himself and vexatious to others; he travails with pain in his wicked courses, and yet his pride makes him wilful and obstinate in them. God's judgments (what he commands and what he threatens for the breach of his commands) are far above out of his sight; he is not sensible of his duty by the law of God nor of his danger by the wrath and curse of God. Tell him of God's authority over him, he turns it off with this, that he never saw God and therefore does not know that there is a God, he is in the height of heaven, and quae supra nos nihil ad nos - we have nothing to do with things above us. Tell him of God's judgments which will be executed upon those that go on still in their trespasses, and he will not be convinced that there is any reality in them; they are far above out of his sight, and therefore he thinks they are mere bugbears. (5.) He proudly despises all his enemies, and looks upon them with the utmost disdain; he puffs at those whom God is preparing to be a scourge and ruin to him, as if he could baffle them all, and was able to make his part good with them. But, as it is impolitic to despise an enemy, so it is impious to despise any instrument of God's wrath. (6.) He proudly sets trouble at defiance and is confident of the continuance of his own prosperity (Psa 10:6): He hath said in his heart, and pleased himself with the thought, I shall not be moved, my goods are laid up for many years, and I shall never be in adversity; like Babylon, that said, I shall be a lady for ever, Isa 47:7; Rev 18:7. Those are nearest ruin who thus set it furthest from them.
2.They are persecutors, cruel persecutors. For the gratifying of their pride and covetousness, and in opposition to God and religion, they are very oppressive to all within their reach. Observe, concerning these persecutors, (1.) That they are very bitter and malicious (Psa 10:7): His mouth is full of cursing. Those he cannot do a real mischief to, yet he will spit his venom at, and breathe out the slaughter which he cannot execute. Thus have God's faithful worshippers been anathematized and cursed, with bell, book, and candle. Where there is a heart full of malice there is commonly a mouth full of curses. (2.) They are very false and treacherous. There is mischief designed, but it is hidden under the tongue, not to be discerned, for his mouth is full of deceit and vanity. He has learned of the devil to deceive, and so to destroy; with this his hatred is covered, Pro 26:26. He cares not what lies he tells, not what oaths he breaks, nor what arts of dissimulation he uses, to compass his ends. (3.) That they are very cunning and crafty in carrying on their designs. They have ways and means to concert what they intend, that they may the more effectually accomplish it. Like Esau, that cunning hunter, he sits in the lurking places, in the secret places, and his eyes are privily set to do mischief (Psa 10:8), not because he is ashamed of what he does (if he blushed, there were some hopes he would repent), not because he is afraid of the wrath of God, for he imagines God will never call him to an account (Psa 10:11), but because he is afraid lest the discovery of his designs should be the breaking of them. Perhaps it refers particularly to robbers and highwaymen, who lie in wait for honest travellers, to make a prey of them and what they have. (4.) That they are very cruel and barbarous. Their malice is against the innocent, who never provoked them - against the poor, who cannot resist them and over whom it will be no glory to triumph. Those are perfectly lost to all honesty and honour against whose mischievous designs neither innocence nor poverty will be any man's security. Those that have power ought to protect the innocent and provide for the poor; yet these will be the destroyers of those whose guardians they ought to be. And what do they aim at? It is to catch the poor, and draw them into their net, that is, get them into their power, not to strip them only, but to murder them. They hunt for the precious life. It is God's poor people that they are persecuting, against whom they bear a mortal hatred for his sake whose they are and whose image they bear, and therefore they lie in wait to murder them: He lies in wait as a lion that thirsts after blood, and feeds with pleasure upon the prey. The devil, whose agent he is, is compared to a roaring lion that seeks not what, but whom, he may devour. (5.) That they are base and hypocritical (Psa 10:10): He crouches and humbles himself, as beasts of prey do, that they may get their prey within their reach. This intimates that the sordid spirits of persecutors and oppressors will stoop to any thing, though ever so mean, for the compassing of their wicked designs; witness the scandalous practices of Saul when he hunted David. It intimates, likewise, that they cover their malicious designs with the pretence of meekness and humility, and kindness to those they design the greatest mischief to; they seem to humble themselves to take cognizance of the poor, and concern themselves in their concernments, when it is in order to make them fall, to make a prey of them. (6.) That they are very impious and atheistical, Psa 10:11. They could not thus break through all the laws of justice and goodness towards man if they had not first shaken off all sense of religion, and risen up in rebellion against the light of its most sacred and self-evident principles: He hath said in his heart, God has forgotten. When his own conscience rebuked him with the consequences of it, and asked how he would answer it to the righteous Judge of heaven and earth, he turned it off with this, God has forsaken the earth, Eze 8:12; Eze 9:9. This is a blasphemous reproach, [1.] Upon God's omniscience and providence, as if he could not, or did not, see what men do in this lower world. [2.] Upon his holiness and the rectitude of his nature, as if, though he did see, yet he did not dislike, but was willing to connive at, the most unnatural and inhuman villanies. [3.] Upon his justice and the equity of his government, as if, though he did see and dislike the wickedness of the wicked, yet he would never reckon with them, nor punish them for it, either because he could not or durst not, or because he was not inclined to do so. Let those that suffer by proud oppressors hope that God will, in due time, appear for them; for those that are abusive to them are abusive to God Almighty too.
In singing this psalm and praying it over, we should have our hearts much affected with a holy indignation at the wickedness of the oppressors, a tender compassion of the miseries of the oppressed, and a pious zeal for the glory and honour of God, with a firm belief that he will, in due time, give redress to the injured and reckon with the injurious.
He lies in wait in secret, like a lion in his den or a savage lion in his cave so that he may drag off the poor by crafty speech and, equally often, by their deeds. After he has caught him in the trap he will draw him to apostasy. Wild beasts are threatening, and especially so the lion. Often, therefore, lying in wait, while he discusses fasting, he openly persuades them to greed; and addressing modesty, he introduces them to a certain appearance of luxury. Thus, he pushed Eve deceptively in the garden to commit transgression, saying she was going to be equal to God. Thus he lured Judas by greed.
[By contrast] the righteous person praises God at all times.
Just as the inspired author describes them as a wild beast, so he talks about them in those terms, making a show of their tricks, ambushes, schemes. What could be more pitiful than this, what could be more desperate, to feel the need of the possessions of the poor? So shall we call these people rich, tell me?… Do you see their moral bankruptcy and cruelty? Moral bankruptcy, because they lust after the goods of the poor; cruelty, because far from being moved by their plight they aggravate their penury when they should pity it and ameliorate it. Still, they do not get up to this with impunity: when they exert their power, when they seem to prevail, when they think they are unassailable, then it is they perish, so that the inventiveness of God, the patience of the poor, the errors of these miscreants and the forbearance of God’s long-suffering may come to light. Hence it is that justice does not follow close on their heels, since God in his long-suffering summons them to repentance; but when they profit nothing from the long-suffering, then he admonishes them with retribution.
"His eyes look against the poor," for he is chiefly to persecute the righteous, of whom it is said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" [Matthew 5:3] [Psalm 10:9]. "He lies in wait in a secret place, as a lion in his den." By a lion in a den, he means one in whom both violence and deceit will work. For the first persecution of the Church was violent, when by proscriptions, by torments, by murders, the Christians were compelled to sacrifice: another persecution is crafty, which is now conducted by heretics of any kind and false brethren: there remains a third, which is to come by Antichrist, than which there is nothing more perilous; for it will be at once violent and crafty. Violence he will exert in empire, craft in miracles. To the violence, the word "lion" refers; to craft, the words "in his den." And these are again repeated with a change of order. "He lies in wait," he says, "that he may catch the poor;" this has reference to craft: but what follows, "To catch the poor while he draws him," is put to the score of violence. For "draws" means, he brings him to himself by violence, by whatever tortures he can.
His wickedness is described as a two-fold corruption, for in his mouth he will have a blasphemous cursing when he makes the false claim that he is the Son of God. He will also have bitterness when he imposes the death penalty on those who resist him, and he will hand over to punishment whoever refuses to worship him as the deity. He will have these things in his mouth, which he will speak in public. But “under his tongue,” as the psalmist says, indicates that he will have the most savage thoughts, so that since he himself is already destroyed he may hasten to destroy everything.
In earlier times, the persecution of the church was merely violent, when Christians were being pressed by pagans through proscriptions, torture and beatings to sacrifice to idols. A second type of persecution is through deceit, which is currently being carried out by heretics and false Christians. A final form still remains, and it is predicted to come through the Antichrist. No form of persecution is more dangerous than this, since it will be extremely violent because of the power of this unique kingdom, and it will result in deception through miraculous signs. As a result, just as the Lord says in the Gospel, “it will deceive, if possible, even the elect.” The word lion refers to the violence of this kingdom, and the phrase “in his den,” predicts its deceit.
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SUMMARY
Psalm 10:9 offers a chilling portrayal of the wicked's predatory nature, likening their insidious actions to a lion patiently ambushing its prey. This verse vividly encapsulates the psalmist's deep distress over the unchecked arrogance and malicious intent of those who exploit the vulnerable, underscoring their calculated deception and the inevitable entrapment of the unsuspecting poor. It stands as a stark depiction of social injustice and a poignant cry for divine intervention against such calculated and pervasive evil.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Psalm 10:9 is profoundly rich in imagery, particularly through the extended simile that compares the wicked to a "lion in his den." This comparison immediately evokes a powerful sense of danger, stealth, and predatory intent, effectively conveying the wicked's ferocity, cunning, and hidden malice. The entire verse functions as a vivid metaphor for a hunting expedition, where the wicked are the calculating hunters, the poor are their unsuspecting prey, and the "net" is the insidious instrument of their capture. The repetition of the phrase "he lieth in wait" serves to emphasize the persistent, calculated, and insidious nature of the wicked's malice, highlighting their unwavering determination to harm. Furthermore, the repeated mention of "the poor" underscores their consistent vulnerability and the wicked's specific, targeted oppression of the defenseless. The language employed creates a palpable sense of dread and helplessness, drawing the reader deeply into the psalmist's anguish over such rampant and cruel injustice.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Psalm 10:9 powerfully articulates the sobering biblical reality of calculated evil and its devastating impact on the vulnerable. Theologically, it underscores the inherent injustice of a fallen world where the strong frequently prey on the weak, and human depravity manifests in cunning, deceptive, and destructive ways. This verse implicitly raises the profound question of divine justice and God's apparent silence in the face of such oppression, a common and deeply felt theme throughout the lament psalms. However, even in its raw expression of pain and bewilderment, the psalm, and this verse within it, serves a crucial purpose: to expose the true, insidious nature of unrighteousness, thereby affirming God's ultimate concern for the oppressed and His eventual, certain intervention on their behalf. It highlights the biblical mandate for believers to protect and advocate for the vulnerable, recognizing that God Himself is the ultimate defender of the poor and afflicted.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Psalm 10:9 serves as a sobering and vital reminder that evil in the world often operates not merely with overt displays of brute force, but with profound cunning, stealth, and calculated malice. It calls us, as believers, to cultivate spiritual discernment, recognizing that threats to righteousness, justice, and the well-being of others may not always be obvious but can lurk in hidden places, patiently seeking to ensnare the unsuspecting. This verse compels us to look beyond superficial appearances and to understand the true, often insidious, nature of spiritual and social warfare. Furthermore, it ignites within us a profound and active compassion for "the poor"—the afflicted, the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the oppressed in our contemporary society. We are called not only to identify deeply with their plight but also to actively advocate for them, standing firmly against systems, policies, and individuals that exploit the defenseless. While the psalmist expresses a lament, the underlying hope is always in God's ultimate and perfect justice. Therefore, we are encouraged to trust that even when evil seems to triumph and God's intervention appears delayed, He sees, He knows, and He will, in His perfect timing, bring righteousness and deliverance to those who are oppressed. This verse challenges us to be vigilant, compassionate, and unwavering in our faith in God's sovereign justice and His eventual vindication of the righteous.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Who are "the poor" that the wicked target in this psalm?
Answer: In the context of Psalm 10:9 and the Psalms generally, "the poor" (Hebrew: 'aniy) refers to more than just those lacking material wealth. It encompasses the afflicted, the humble, the oppressed, the vulnerable, and often, the righteous who are without worldly power or protection. They are those who are dependent on God for their deliverance and justice, making them easy targets for the wicked who exploit their weakness and lack of recourse.
Why is the wicked person compared to a "lion in his den"?
Answer: The comparison of the wicked person to a "lion in his den" is a powerful simile used to emphasize several key characteristics. First, it highlights the stealth and cunning of the wicked; like a lion, they lie in wait, observing and planning their attack from a hidden vantage point. Second, it conveys their predatory nature and ferocity, indicating their intent to harm, devour, and completely overwhelm their victims. Third, it underscores the power imbalance between the wicked and their vulnerable prey, much like a lion's overwhelming strength against a helpless animal. This imagery vividly portrays the malicious intent and destructive capacity of the oppressor, emphasizing the hidden danger they pose.
How does this verse contribute to the broader theme of justice in the Psalms?
Answer: Psalm 10:9, by graphically depicting the wicked's calculated oppression of the poor, serves as a crucial element in the Psalms' broader theme of divine justice. While the psalmist laments God's apparent inaction and the wicked's prosperity, this verse lays bare the profound injustice that demands God's intervention. It highlights the moral outrage of preying on the defenseless, thereby setting the stage for the psalmist's desperate plea for God to "arise" and execute justice. It implicitly affirms God's character as the ultimate defender of the oppressed, even when His justice seems delayed, and builds towards the confident expectation that He will ultimately hear the cry of the humble and bring the wicked to account, as seen in Psalm 10:17-18.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Psalm 10:9, with its stark depiction of the wicked's predatory nature and their calculated ensnarement of the poor, finds profound Christ-centered fulfillment in several ways. Jesus Christ Himself identified deeply with "the poor" and the oppressed, embodying the very vulnerability described in this psalm. He came not to be served, but to serve, and ultimately became the ultimate "poor" one, suffering at the hands of wicked men who plotted His demise with cunning and stealth, much like the lion lying in wait. The religious and political leaders of His day, driven by malice and envy, sought to "catch" Him in their "net" of legalistic accusations and false testimonies, leading Him to the cross. Yet, it is precisely through Christ that the ultimate triumph over the ensnarer is achieved. The devil, described in 1 Peter 5:8 as "a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour," was ultimately defeated by Christ's sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays down His life for the sheep, protecting them from the thief who comes only to "steal and kill and destroy" (John 10:10). Furthermore, Christ is the righteous Judge who will, in His second coming, bring perfect justice to the oppressed and judge those who have wickedly exploited the vulnerable, fulfilling the psalmist's longing for divine intervention and establishing His eternal kingdom where righteousness dwells and the poor in spirit will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:3).