Deeper Commentary
Psa 58:1
For the Chief Musician. To the tune of Do Not Destroy. A poem by
David-
This Psalm is a criticism of corrupt judges and leadership. Such
criticism of Israel's judges is common in the prophets (Is. 1:16-25; Is.
10:1-4; Jer. 5:26-29; Mic. 3:9-12). So it could refer to the situation in
Israel at the time of Saul or perhaps during Absalom's brief reign. But
the Psalm may well have been reused regarding the corrupt leadership of
Babylon over the exiles, or of the corrupt Jewish leadership within
Babylon.
Do you indeed speak righteousness, silent ones? Do you judge blamelessly,
you sons of men?-
The sin of keeping silence in the face of others' oppression is perhaps
the most common sin of omission. So many who have struggled against
abusive regimes have come to this conclusion- that the real abusers were
all the good people who remained silent and thus empowered abusive
regimes. "Do ye indeed in silence speak righteousness?" (Ps. 58:1 RV).
Speaking and acting righteously whilst keeping silent about others' abuse
is not righteousness.
Psa 58:2
No, in your heart you plot injustice. You measure out the violence
of your hands in the earth-
David again comes over as (overly?) confident of knowing the hearts
of men. It could be argued that he believed that works reflect thoughts,
as the Lord also taught, and therefore reasoned back from actions to
thoughts. Instead of measuring out justice, they measured out violence.
Psa 58:3
The wicked go astray from the womb. They are wayward as soon as
they are born, speaking lies-
This is not true in real time. But for
timeless God, this is His perspective on them. Likewise in other cases He
expresses His timelessness in ways which men can only understand as
predestination.
Psa 58:4
Their poison is like the poison of a snake; like a deaf cobra that
stops its ear-
David presents these people as the seed of the serpent of Gen. 3:15,
abusing the seed of the woman, the righteous. Solomon speaks of the wicked
within Israel as stopping their ears at the cry of the poor (Prov. 21:13
s.w.). He is alluding to how David his father had complained that the
judges of Israel were like cobras who stopped their ear to the voice of
charmers, refusing the voice of God's word (Ps. 58:4 s.w.). Connecting the
ideas, the cry of the poor is the cry of God's word to us; our response to
them is our response to them.
Psa 58:5
which doesn’t listen to the voice of charmers, no matter how
skilful the charmer may be-
Cobras are not actually deaf, but they can appear deaf to attempts to
charm them with words and sounds. This provides some balance to the
hyperbole of :3. The wicked are given the chance to respond to God's word,
but refuse it- and so their biographies appear to be consistently wicked
even from their youth. 'Not listening to the voice' is the phrase so often
used of Israel's refusal to listen to God's voice (s.w. Ps. 81:11; 106:25;
Jer. 3:13 etc.). Even those who are snakes can be charmed by God's word-
if they unstop their ears.
Psa 58:6
Break their teeth, God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth
of the young lions, Yahweh-
Lions are symbolic of Israel's Gentile enemies, as well as of the
leadership of Judah in Ez. 19:3-6. God's apostate people are often likened
to Gentiles; hence the double symbolism of the lion, representing both
them and also the Gentiles.
Psa 58:7
Let them vanish as water that flows away. When they draw the bow,
let their arrows be made blunt-
This could be asking for the judgments of the corrupt judges and
leadership to be somehow rendered powerless. But again we note with
concern that instead of wishing their repentance and salvation, David
seems quite obsessed with wishing their condemnation. Whereas God has no
joy at all in the death of the wicked (Ez. 33:11). In the Hezekiah context
we note that the only other usage of the phrase "vanish as water" is in
Is. 8:6.
Psa 58:8
Let them be like the path of a snail which melts and passes away,
like the stillborn child, who has not seen the sun-
The idea may be that the snail appears to be melting into nothing
during its very path through life; and this was how it was with the
wicked. This idea is developed in :9; judgment is in essence now.
Psa 58:9
Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, he will sweep
away the green and the burning alike-
This suggests that David expected the time of judgment to come very
soon. Divine judgment was to come as a whirlwind from the desert, suddenly
sweeping away the kindling which desert travellers had made to heat their
pots. He saw his enemies as kindling burning, some of it green and not
good kindling; but before they could generate much heat, they were to be
swept away in judgment. This implies that they were as it were on fire
already; the essence of judgment is going on now. Cheyne offers: "Before
your pots can feel the thorns, and while your flesh (i.e. the flesh in the
pots, on which you are about to feast) is still raw, the hot wrath of
Jehovah shall sweep it away".
Psa 58:10
The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall
wash his feet in the blood of the wicked-
Again it seems that David's reveling in the blood of the condemned is
out of step with the God who takes no pleasure [cp. 'rejoicing'] in the
death of the wicked (Ez. 33:11). It was perhaps because of David's
attitude to "blood" rather than simply his shedding of blood which
disqualified him from building the temple; God was not pleased with this
attitude (1 Chron. 22:8).
Psa 58:11
so that men shall say, Most certainly there is a reward for the
righteous. Most certainly there is a God who judges the earth-
David here looks ahead to the day of final judgment. But again as noted on
:10, we wonder at his logic; he appears to think that rejoicing in the
death of the wicked therefore implies there is a great reward for the
righteous. Grace seems not to factor, neither the awareness that the
righteous have done what the wicked have done, and are saved by grace
through faith rather than their works.
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