Psalms 10:8-18

8 They hide behind ordinary people, then pounce on their victims.

9 They mark the luckless, then wait like a hunter in a blind; When the poor wretch wanders too close, they stab him in the back.

10 The hapless fool is kicked to the ground, the unlucky victim is brutally axed.

11 He thinks God has dumped him, he's sure that God is indifferent to his plight.

12 Time to get up, God - get moving. The luckless think they're Godforsaken.

13 They wonder why the wicked scorn God and get away with it, Why the wicked are so cocksure they'll never come up for audit.

14 But you know all about it - the contempt, the abuse. I dare to believe that the luckless will get lucky someday in you. You won't let them down: orphans won't be orphans forever.

15 Break the wicked right arms, break all the evil left arms. Search and destroy every sign of crime.

16 God's grace and order wins; godlessness loses.

17 The victim's faint pulse picks up; the hearts of the hopeless pump red blood as you put your ear to their lips.

18 Orphans get parents, the homeless get homes. The reign of terror is over, the rule of the gang lords is ended.

Psalms 10:8-18 Meaning and Commentary

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, Ps 10:1-11,16,18.