Psalms 94:2-12

2 Assert yourself as judge of the earth! Pay back the proud as they deserve!

3 How long are the wicked, ADONAI, how long are the wicked to triumph?

4 They pour out insolent words, they go on bragging, all these evildoers.

5 They crush your people, ADONAI, they oppress your heritage.

6 They kill widows and strangers and murder the fatherless.

7 They say, "Yah isn't looking; the God of Ya'akov won't notice."

8 Take notice, yourselves, you boors among the people! You fools, when will you understand?

9 Will the one who planted the ear not hear? Will the one who formed the eye not see?

10 Will the one who disciplines nations not correct them? Will the teacher of humanity not know?

11 ADONAI understands that people's thoughts are merely a puff of wind.

12 How happy the man whom you correct, Yah, whom you teach from your Torah,

Psalms 94:2-12 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 94

Some, as Jarchi and others, think this psalm was written by Moses; others, with greater probability, assign it to David; as do the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions; and which all but the Syriac version say it was composed to be sung on the fourth day of the week, on which day the Talmudists say it was sung; see the argument of the preceding psalm. This psalm and others, that go before and follow, are without any title in the Hebrew Bible: the title of it in the Syriac version is,

``a Psalm of David, concerning the company of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; but spiritually, concerning the persecution against the church;''

not of the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, as some; nor of the Jews in their present exile, as Kimchi; but rather of the people of God under the tyranny of antichrist; who are represented as complaining of his insults and cruelty, and as comforting themselves in the hopes of deliverance, and in the view of his destruction.