Psalm 10:12-18
SS Lesson for 01/05/2025
Devotional Scripture: 1 Tim 1:12-17
The Christian confession is that God’s pursuit of the good does not suffer in the same way. God consistently seeks the good for all creation. The search can be complicated, however, because humans are complicated. Sometimes, injustice and evil seem to prevail, and we wonder if God is. We wonder whether he hears the cries for help that vulnerable people utter. This question carries some urgency for believers in the God of the Bible. If God is active in the world, what is that activity? Does God sit around listening to praise songs and cheering on our church growth plans or pious sermons? Or do these things sometimes offend God when they don’t result in (or from) our assistance to the poor or oppressed? Today’s text points us to the correct answers.
Psalms 9 and 10 were originally a single poem. It was split apart to serve separate purposes. Ancient Hebrew manuscripts count them as two psalms, while the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, counts them together as one. The entire poem falls into four roughly equally sized sections: Psalms 9:1-10; 9:11-20; 10:1-9; and 10:10-18. Each part contributes something to the overall picture as the poem moves toward a request for God’s help in a world of suffering and struggle. Psalms 9 and 10 form a partial acrostic as they use 17 letters of the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet, successively, as the lines progress. (A complete example of using all 22 letters to form the acrostic is Psalm 37.) It is unclear whether the incomplete nature of the acrostic of Psalms 9 and 10 was deliberate. Many digital Bibles label the titles or headings of the Psalms as “verse zero.” So, if you’re using an electronic Bible, these headings can offer additional context or insight into the following psalm. Many psalms, however, lack a superscription, and Psalm 10 is one of those. However, the superscription of Psalm 9 applies to Psalm 10 as well, given the unitary nature of the two passages. That superscription reads, “For the director of music. To the tune of ‘The Death of the Son.’ A psalm of David.” The son in question is perhaps David’s son Absalom. David, “the man anointed by the God of Jacob” (2 Samuel 23:1), is credited as the writer of about half the 150 psalms.
Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear
(Scriptural Text from the New King James Version; cross-references from the NIV)
12 Arise, O Lord! O God, lift up Your hand! Do not forget the humble.
13 Why do the wicked renounce God? He has said in his heart, "You will not require an account."
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the Day of Judgment, while continuing their punishment.
17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment, because in this world we are like him.
14 But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief, To repay it by Your hand. The helpless commits himself to
You; You are the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and the evil man; Seek out his wickedness until You find none.
5 "Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise," says the Lord. "I will protect them from those who malign them."
1 Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors, and they have no comforter.
12 Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says: "Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, 13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. 14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern."
9 "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'
5 "So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the Lord Almighty.
35 It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them."
2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.
30 For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
16 The Lord is King forever and ever; The nations have perished out of His land.
17 Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear,
18 To do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, That the man of the earth may oppress no more.
5 "The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.
22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
11 Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter, when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Verse 1
The psalm begins with two questions that voice the psalmist’s frustration as much as his ignorance. David could not understand why God did not act for His afflicted people. The word "why" occurs four times in this psalm, twice here and twice in Psalms 10:13 (as reflected in the NIV translation).
The emphasis in this part of the psalm is the problem of theodicy, the justice of God in the face of the prosperity of wicked Israelites. Like the Book of Job, the psalm does not resolve the problem but refocuses on God (Psalms 10:14).
This psalm is a prayer for immediate help in affliction. It contains a powerful description of the wicked who oppose God and attack His people. The focus of the previous psalm was on the judgment to come, but in this one it is on the present.
"The problem in Psalms 9 is the enemy invading from without, while the problem in Psalms 10 is the enemy corrupting and destroying from within." [Note: Wiersbe, The . . . Wisdom . . ., p. 106.]
Verses 2-7
David pictured the wicked who oppress the righteous in graphic terms in this section of verses. They are proud, boastful, greedy, blasphemous, arrogant, haughty, self-sufficient, prosperous, careless about God, belligerent, self-confident, complacent, abusive, deceitful, oppressive, destructive, mischievous, and wicked. They opposed both God and His people with their speech, as well as in their actions.
Verses 8-11
Using the figures of a predatory animal, like a lion, and a hunter, like a fisherman, David described how the wicked cunningly pursue and ensnare the righteous in their traps. The fact that God does not punish them more quickly encourages them to continue their destructive work.
Verses 12-15
David appealed to God to act for the righteous against the wicked (Psalms 10:12; Psalms 10:15; an inclusio). He could not understand why God allowed the wicked to continue to spurn Him. It was not because their actions had escaped the Lord’s notice. Beside this, the righteous were trusting in Him, and He had helped the helpless in the past. David wanted God to break the power (symbolized by the arm) of the wicked and to search out and destroy all their wickedness until it disappeared. Compare Psalms 9:12 where the same Hebrew word occurs. The translators have rendered it "requires blood" or "avenges" there, and "seek out" or "call to account" here.
Verses 12-18
These closing verses express the psalmist’s confidence that God had heard his petition. Because Yahweh is sovereign, the ultimate authority in the universe, the nations that refused to submit to Him would perish. God’s land was Canaan, but in a larger sense the whole world is His land since He is King of all creation. In view of who God is, David was confident that, even though God did not judge the wicked immediately, He would do so eventually.
Some scholars believed that the "nations" here stand for the wicked in Israel who behaved like the heathen nations. [Note: E.g., John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms , 1:155; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms , 1:61; and VanGemeren, p. 129.] This is possible.
This psalm, as the preceding one, ends with a reference to the frail mortality of man (’enosh, Psalms 10:18; cf. Psalms 8:4; Psalms 9:19-20; et al.), who is bound to the earth, in contrast to God. In view of God’s power it is not right for Him to allow frail man to terrorize his fellows. Nevertheless, since God is sovereign, only He can decide when to step in and judge the wicked. [Note: See Allen, Rediscovering Prophecy, pp. 89-107.]
God’s delay in executing justice frustrates the righteous. We can live with this frustration because we know God is powerful enough to avenge the defenseless. He is also sovereign and just. Furthermore, His past acts of deliverance should encourage us as we wait for Him to bring justice to pass in the world.
(Adapted from URL:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dcc/psalms-10.html)
People cry out to God during times of distress and count on him to rescue them from that trouble (Psalm 30:10). We may find ourselves without any human helper in various situations as we cry out to God in our isolation and fear. We cry for help even when the distress originates in our stubbornness and sinfulness. When that happens, God sometimes turns a deaf ear to our prayers (Jeremiah 7:16; 11:14; 14:11; Lamentations 3:8, 44). At such times, we need to examine the motives of our hearts, and Psalm 10 helps us do so. Psalm 10 speaks of the God who helps. This image of God appears frequently in the book of Psalms and elsewhere in the Bible. It is fundamental to the understanding of God that the church inherited from ancient Israel. God is neither distant nor indifferent. His level of concern for suffering humanity far exceeds our own. His interest does not ebb and flow like the fictitious pagan gods. We may feel that God is distant when our prayers are not answered on our timetable. Such was the case with a particular Bible college professor who realized the need to make a transition in his teaching ministry. A teaching position at a different college seemed to be a good fit, but after an interview, the possibility fell through when one faculty member voted no for the applicant. The following year, however, the professor was called to a different position for which he was ideally suited. God’s timing was perfect, but it took 20/20 hindsight to see that fact. “God’s timing is perfect” is still the answer to the church’s cry, “O Lord, how long?” (compare Psalms 6:3; 13:1-2; etc.). The confession that God is a helper is an acknowledgment that leads to great confidence in our hearts. It comforts us during times of terror; it equips us to live holy lives. As the helper, God allows us to remember that no human abuse can ultimately destroy us or diminish the value of our lives. “The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies” (Psalm 118:6-7). Such confidence does not come from a sense of pride or the idle belief in our superiority. It comes instead from an awareness that we serve a trustworthy God who aids those in need as long as we recognize our own needs and the shared needs of others. We cannot claim grace for ourselves but deny it to others. The divine helper stands ready to equip those seeking his mercy with a pure heart. We cry out not only for our own needs but also on behalf of others who are oppressed in some way. However, we should anticipate that God may expect his help to that person to come through your hands!