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Commentary on Psalms 58 verses 6–11
In these verses we have,
I. David's prayers against his enemies, and all the enemies of God's church and people; for it is as such that he looks upon them, so that he was actuated by a public spirit in praying against them, and not by any private revenge. 1. He prays that they might be disabled to do any further mischief (Psa 58:6): Break their teeth, O God! Not so much that they might not feed themselves as that they might not be able to make prey of others, Psa 3:7. He does not say, "Break their necks" (no; let them live to repent, slay them not, lest my people forget), but, "Break their teeth, for they are lions, they are young lions, that live by rapine." 2. That they might be disappointed in the plots they had already laid, and might not gain their point: "When he bends his bow, and takes aim to shoot his arrows at the upright in heart, let them be as cut in pieces, Psa 58:7. Let them fall at his feet, and never come near the mark." 3. That they and their interest might waste and come to nothing, that they might melt away as waters that run continually; that is, as the waters of a land-flood, which, though they seem formidable for a while, soon soak into the ground or return to their channels, or, in general, as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, but gradually dries away and disappears. Such shall the floods of ungodly men be, which sometimes make us afraid (Psa 18:4); so shall the proud waters be reduced, which threaten to go over our soul, Psa 124:4, Psa 124:5. Let us by faith then see what they shall be and then we shall not fear what they are. He prays (Psa 58:8) that they might melt as a snail, which wastes by its own motion, in every stretch it makes leaving some of its moisture behind, which, by degrees, must needs consume it, though it makes a path to shine after it. He that like a snail in her house is plenus sui - full of himself, that pleases himself and trusts to himself, does but consume himself, and will quickly bring himself to nothing. And he prays that they might be like the untimely birth of a woman, which dies as soon as it begins to live and never sees the sun. Job, in his passion, wished he himself had been such a one (Job 3:16), but he knew not what he said. We may, in faith, pray against the designs of the church's enemies, as the prophet does (Hos 9:14, Give them, O Lord! what wilt thou give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts), which explains this prayer of the psalmist.
II. His prediction of their ruin (Psa 58:9): "Before your pots can feel the heat of a fire of thorns made under them (which they will presently do, for it is a quick fire and violent while it lasts), so speedily, with such a hasty and violent flame, God shall hurry them away, as terribly and as irresistibly as with a whirlwind, as it were alive, as it were in fury."
1.The proverbial expressions are somewhat difficult, but the sense is plain, (1.) That the judgments of God often surprise wicked people in the midst of their jollity, and hurry them away of a sudden. When they are beginning to walk in the light of their own fire, and the sparks of their own kindling, they are made to lie down in sorrow (Isa 50:11), and their laughter proves like the crackling of thorns under a pot, the comfort of which is soon gone, ere they can say, Alas! I am warm, Ecc 7:6. (2.) That there is no standing before the destruction that comes from the Almighty; for who knows the power of God's anger? When God will take sinners away, dead or alive, they cannot contest with him. The wicked are driven away in their wickedness. Now,
2.There are two things which the psalmist promises himself as the good effects of sinners' destruction: - (1.) That saints would be encouraged and comforted by it (Psa 58:10): The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. The pomp and power, the prosperity and success, of the wicked, are a discouragement to the righteous; they sadden their hearts, and weaken their hands, and are sometimes a strong temptation to them to question their foundations, Psa 73:2, Psa 73:13. But when they see the judgments of God hurrying them away, and just vengeance taken on them for all the mischief they have done to the people of God, they rejoice in the satisfaction thereby given to their doubts and the confirmation thereby given to their faith in the providence of God and his justice and righteousness in governing the world; they shall rejoice in the victory thus gained over that temptation by seeing their end, Psa 73:17. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked; that is, there shall be abundance of bloodshed (Psa 68:23), and it shall be as great a refreshment to the saints to see God glorified in the ruin of sinners as it is to a weary traveller to have his feet washed. It shall likewise contribute to their sanctification; the sight of the vengeance shall make them tremble before God (Psa 119:120) and shall convince them of the evil of sin, and the obligations they lie under to that God who pleads their cause and will suffer no man to do them wrong and go unpunished for it. The joy of the saints in the destruction of the wicked is then a holy joy, and justifiable, when it helps to make them holy and to purify them from sin. (2.) That sinners would be convinced and converted by it, Psa 58:11. The vengeance God sometimes takes on the wicked in this world will bring men to say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous. Any man may draw this inference from such providences, and many a man shall, who before denied even these plain truths or doubted of them. Some shall have this confession extorted from them, others shall have their minds so changed that they shall willingly own it, and thank God who has given them to see it and see it with satisfaction, That God is, and, [1.] That he is the bountiful rewarder of his saints and servants: Verily (however it be, so it may be read) there is a fruit to the righteous; whatever damage he may run, and whatever hardship he may undergo for his religion, he shall not only be no loser by it, but an unspeakable gainer in the issue. Even in this world there is a reward for the righteous; they shall be recompensed in the earth. Those shall be taken notice of, honoured, and protected, that seemed slighted, despised, and abandoned. [2.] That he is the righteous governor of the world, and will surely reckon with the enemies of his kingdom: Verily, however it be, though wicked people prosper, and bid defiance to divine justice, yet it shall be made to appear, to their confusion, that the world is not governed by chance, but by a Being of infinite wisdom and justice; there is a God that judges in the earth, though he has prepared his throne in the heavens. He presides in all the affairs of the children of men, and directs and disposes them according to the counsel of his will, to his own glory; and he will punish the wicked, not only in the world to come, but in the earth, where they have laid up their treasure and promised themselves a happiness - in the earth, that the Lord may be known by the judgments which he executes, and that they may be taken as earnests of a judgment to come. He is a God (so we read it), not a weak man, not an angel, not a mere name, not (as the atheists suggest) a creature of men's fear and fancy, not a deified hero, not the sun and moon, as idolaters imagined, but a God, a self-existent perfect Being; he it is that judges the earth; his favour therefore let us seek, from whom every man's judgment proceeds, and to him let all judgment be referred.
We hide away our sin, cloaking it over in the depth of our soul, like some festering and malignant disease, as if by escaping human notice we could escape the mighty eye of God and justice. Or else we make excuses for our sins by devising pleas in defense of our falls or by tightly closing our ears. Like the snake that stops its ears, we are obstinate in refusing to hear the voice of the charmer and be treated with the medicines of wisdom, by which spiritual sickness is healed.
Though it appears that the serpent’s nature is being delineated in the foregoing, rather, every vessel of evil is being delineated, and every serpent of depravity who casts himself down on the belly and hides his poison inside himself and ponders it inwardly in his breast. He25 is slippery in his thoughts, he advances in his deceits and wraps himself in his deceptions; he is always moving and stirring his poisons by thought and treading on his belly as well, that is, the seedbed of his heart. For this reason, David fittingly says, “Sinners are alienated from the womb; they have gone astray from the womb; they have spoken false things. Their madness is according to the likeness of a serpent, like the deaf asp that stops its ears, that will not hear the voice of the charmers or of the wizard that are invoked by the wise person.” For this reason, the statement that we read in the prophetic book also seems fitting, “My heart, my heart is in pain!” For wickedness exists there, where there ought to be guiltlessness; what should be more calm in us experiences the greater suffering. It is trodden down by the footsteps of evil, pricked by its claws and agitated by a kind of advance and increase of depravity where there exists the procreative seed of an everlasting posterity.
Therefore, having been taught by these examples, I did not want to bite back at him who bites back at me or to retaliate in kind; and I chose rather to charm out the fury of a madman by incantation and to pour the antidote of a single look into a poisoned heart. But I am afraid that my efforts are in vain and that I shall be forced to sing the well-known song of David and console myself with these words: “The sinners are alienated from the assembly; they have gone astray from the womb; they have spoken false things. Their madness is according to the likeness of a serpent, like the deaf asp that stops its ears, which will not hear the voice of the charmers nor of the wizard that charms wisely. God shall break in pieces their teeth in their mouths; the Lord shall break the teeth of the lions. They shall come to nothing, like water running down; he has bent his bow until they are weakened. Like wax that melts, they shall be taken away: fire has fallen on them, and they have not seen the sun.” And again: “The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge of the wicked; he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner.” And people shall say, “If, indeed, there is a reward to the just, there is, indeed, a God who judges them on the earth.”
Atticus: I grant you that they are just men, but I cannot agree with you at all that they are without sin. For I say that humanity can be without fault, which in Greek is called kakia [“wickedness”], but I deny that it is anamartētos [“faultless”], that is to say sine peccato [“without sin”]. For this is a virtue that befits God alone; and every creature is subject to sin and stands in need of the mercy of God, as Scripture says: “The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.” And lest I seem to be discussing certain little faults, so to speak, of the saints, into which they slipped through error, I shall produce a few testimonies that refer not to individuals but rather to all people in general. In the thirty-first psalm, it is written, “I said I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and you have forgiven the wickedness of my heart.” And it continues immediately, “For this” (that is to say, for this impiety or iniquity, for both words can be understood in this passage) “shall everyone that is holy pray to you in a seasonable time.” If one is holy, what is his reason for praying for forgiveness of his iniquity? If one has iniquity, in what sense is he called holy? In the sense, to be sure, that it is also written in another place: “A just person shall fall seven times and shall rise again.” And, “The just is accuser of himself in the beginning of his speech.” And in another place: “The wicked are alienated from the womb, they have gone astray from the womb, they have spoken false things.” They became sinful at the very moment they were born in the likeness of Adam’s sin, who was a figure of the one who was to come, or at the moment when Christ was born of a virgin. It has been written about him: “Every one who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.”
"They shall be despised like water running down" [Psalm 58:7]. Be not terrified, brethren, by certain streams, which are called torrents: with winter waters they are filled up; do not fear: after a little it passes by, that water runs down; for a time it roars, soon it will subside: they cannot hold long. Many heresies now are utterly dead: they have run in their channels as much as they were able, have run down, dried are the channels, scarce of them the memory is found, or that they have been. "They shall be despised like water running down." But not they alone; the whole of this age for a time is roaring, and is seeking whom it may drag along. Let all ungodly men, all proud men resounding against the rocks of their pride as it were with waters rushing along and flowing together, not terrify you, winter waters they are, they cannot always flow: it must needs be that they run down unto their place, unto their end. And nevertheless of this torrent of the world the Lord has drunk. For He has suffered here, the very torrent He has drunk, but in the way He has drunk, but in the passage over: because in way of sinners He has not stood. But of Him says the Scripture what? "Of the torrent in the way He shall drink, therefore He shall lift up His Head;" that is, for this reason glorified He has been, because He has died; for this reason has risen again, because He has suffered....
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SUMMARY
Psalms 58:7 is a fervent imprecation from the psalmist, pleading with God to utterly dissolve and render powerless those who pervert justice and perpetrate wickedness. Through the vivid imagery of melting waters and shattered arrows, the verse expresses a profound desire for the swift and complete dissipation of evil influences and the frustration of their malicious schemes, trusting in God's ultimate and decisive judgment to bring an end to unrighteousness and vindicate the oppressed.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Psalms 58:7 employs several potent literary devices to convey its message of divine judgment and the frustration of evil. The most prominent is Simile, seen in "Let them melt away as waters which run continually." This comparison vividly illustrates the desired outcome: the complete and irreversible dissipation of the wicked's power and presence, likening them to water that flows away and vanishes. The imagery is powerful, evoking a sense of utter loss of substance and influence. Furthermore, the verse uses Metaphor when it refers to the wicked's "arrows." These are not literal arrows but represent their malicious intentions, schemes, attacks, or instruments of harm. The prayer that these "arrows" be "cut in pieces" is a metaphorical plea for the complete frustration and failure of all their evil designs. The entire verse, within the context of Psalm 58, is an example of Imprecation, a prayer calling upon God to bring judgment and destruction upon the wicked, reflecting a deep longing for divine justice to prevail.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Psalms 58:7 stands as a powerful testament to the psalmist's unwavering belief in God's ultimate sovereignty and perfect justice. It articulates a profound human cry for divine intervention in the face of pervasive evil and corruption, affirming that God is not indifferent to injustice but will, in His time, decisively act to dismantle wicked systems and frustrate the designs of the unrighteous. This verse underscores the transient nature of wickedness and the futility of human rebellion against God's moral order, assuring believers that though evil may seem formidable for a season, it is ultimately destined to "melt away" before the righteous judgment of the Almighty. It channels the righteous indignation felt when justice is perverted, directing it not toward personal vengeance, but toward a confident appeal to the only One capable of true and perfect retribution, fostering a deep trust in God's ultimate vindication of His people and His name.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
While the direct imprecations of this psalm can be challenging for a modern audience, particularly in light of New Testament teachings on loving enemies and praying for those who persecute us, Psalms 58:7 still offers profound insights for the believer. It reminds us that there is a God who sees every injustice, hears every cry of the oppressed, and will ultimately bring all things to account. When confronted with overwhelming evil, corruption, or personal wrong, this verse encourages us to channel our righteous anger and frustration not into bitterness or personal vengeance, but into fervent prayer, entrusting the outcome to God's perfect justice. It legitimizes praying for the dismantling of wicked systems and the frustration of evil intentions, seeking God's intervention to protect the innocent and uphold righteousness, rather than seeking harm upon individuals. Ultimately, it strengthens our faith in God's sovereign control over all things, assuring us that the power and influence of the wicked are ultimately transient and will "melt away" before His divine decree, giving us hope for a future where righteousness reigns.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
How do we reconcile the imprecatory nature of Psalms 58:7 with New Testament teachings on loving our enemies?
Answer: Reconciling imprecatory psalms like Psalms 58:7 with New Testament commands to love enemies (e.g., Matthew 5:44) requires careful theological understanding. First, these psalms express a profound longing for divine justice, not personal vengeance. The psalmist appeals to God, the ultimate righteous Judge, to act, rather than taking matters into his own hands. This aligns with the New Testament principle that vengeance belongs to the Lord (Romans 12:19). Second, the "enemies" in the psalms often represent systemic evil, oppression, and injustice that threaten God's people and His righteous order, rather than merely personal adversaries. The prayer is for the dismantling of these wicked forces and schemes, so that righteousness might prevail. While Christians are called to love individuals and pray for their salvation, they are also called to hate evil and pray for its defeat. The New Testament fulfills and transforms this longing for justice by revealing that Christ Himself is the one who ultimately judges evil and establishes perfect righteousness, rendering all wicked schemes powerless through His cross and resurrection.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Psalms 58:7, with its fervent plea for the dissolution of wickedness and the frustration of evil schemes, finds its ultimate and most profound fulfillment in Jesus Christ. He is the righteous Judge who perfectly embodies the divine justice longed for by the psalmist. While the psalm calls for the wicked to "melt away" and their "arrows" to be "cut in pieces," Christ's work on the cross and His subsequent resurrection represent the decisive victory over all principalities and powers of darkness. Through His death, He disarmed the spiritual forces of evil, making a public spectacle of them (Colossians 2:15). The "melting away" of the wicked's power is realized in Christ's triumph over sin and death, which ensures that all evil is ultimately temporary and futile. His resurrection guarantees that the schemes of those who oppose God—represented by the "arrows" that are "cut in pieces"—will never ultimately succeed, for He has conquered the grave and the power of the enemy (Hebrews 2:14). Indeed, every knee will one day bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11), signifying the complete and final dissipation of all opposition to His righteous reign. The longing for God to intervene and bring justice is fully met in Christ, who will return to judge the living and the dead, establishing His eternal kingdom where righteousness dwells (Revelation 20:11-15).