Psalms 10

1 God, are you avoiding me? Where are you when I need you?

2 Full of hot air, the wicked are hot on the trail of the poor. Trip them up, tangle them up in their fine-tuned plots.

3 The wicked are windbags, the swindlers have foul breath.

4 The wicked snub God, their noses stuck high in the air. Their graffiti are scrawled on the walls: "Catch us if you can!" "God is dead."

5 They care nothing for what you think; if you get in their way, they blow you off.

6 They live (they think) a charmed life: "We can't go wrong. This is our lucky year!"

7 They carry a mouthful of hexes, their tongues spit venom like adders.

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 Commentary

Chapter 10

The psalmist complains of the wickedness of the wicked. (1-11) He prays to God to appear for the relief of his people. (12-18)

Verses 1-11 God's withdrawings are very grievous to his people, especially in times of trouble. We stand afar off from God by our unbelief, and then complain that God stands afar off from us. Passionate words against bad men do more hurt than good; if we speak of their badness, let it be to the Lord in prayer; he can make them better. The sinner proudly glories in his power and success. 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 objects and devices, but think not of the Lord in any of them; they have no submission to his will, nor aim for his glory. The cause of this is pride. Men think it below them to be religious. They could not break all the laws of justice and goodness toward man, if they had not first shaken off all sense of religion.

Verses 12-18 The psalmist speaks with astonishment, at the wickedness of the wicked, and at the patience and forbearance of God. God prepares the heart for prayer, by kindling holy desires, and strengthening our most holy faith, fixing the thoughts, and raising the affections, and then he graciously accepts the prayer. The preparation of the heart is from the Lord, and we must seek unto him for it. Let the poor, afflicted, persecuted, or tempted believer recollect, that Satan is the prince of this world, and that he is the father of all the ungodly. The children of God cannot expect kindness, truth, or justice from such persons as crucified the Lord of glory. But this once suffering Jesus, now reigns as King over all the earth, and of his dominion there shall be no end. Let us commit ourselves unto him, humbly trusting in his mercy. He will rescue the believer from every temptation, and break the arm of every wicked oppressor, and bruise Satan under our feet shortly. But in heaven alone will all sin and temptation be shut out, though in this life the believer has a foretaste of deliverance.

Chapter Summary

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.