There is a contrast in this psalm between the unjust judges of the earth, and God the righteous Judge of all men (vers. 1, 2, and ver. 11). "Do ye really, O ye gods, speak righteousness? Do ye in uprightness judge the children of men? Nay, in heart ye work iniquities, in the land ye weigh out the violence of your hands" (Delitzsch). This indignant protest is just. Judges have often been false to their trust. They have prostituted their power to selfish ends. They have increased instead of diminished the evils of society, and made confusion worse confounded by their wicked deeds. There are signal examples of this in the Bible, and though the lines have fallen unto us, in these last days, in pleasant places, our fathers, in the days of Bonner and Jeffries and Claverhouse, and in days of persecution, suffered grievously. But how different is it with God the Judge of all the earth! His judgments are all righteous. Even the wicked cannot complain. In their punishment they only receive, as their own consciences testify, "the just reward of their deeds." Our attention is specially concentrated on the wicked.
I. THEIR CHARACTER IS PORTRAYED. (Vers. 1-5.) Character is a growth. No man becomes of a sudden either very bad or very good. There is gradation - "first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." We are shown wickedness in its germ. It has its source in a bad heart - a heart not right with God. From within it works toward without. Evil may for a time be concealed or held in check, but it is sure to show itself. People may be worse than they seem. God only knows the evil that lies hidden and rooted in the heart. Then we see wickedness in its development. It has been said that "tongue sins are our first transgressions." But how quickly do we proceed from "lies" to other and more flagrant forms of wickedness! The more the will of the flesh is indulged, the stronger it becomes. The poison spreads through all the veins.
"The soul grows clothed by contagion,
Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The Divine property of her first being."
(Milton) Then cometh the consummation. All checks and warnings and remonstrances are in vain. Men become "more deaf than adders to the voice of true decision." Like Saul, they choose the evil instead of the good. Like Rehoboam, they persist in their sins. Like Ahab, they sell themselves to work iniquity. Like Israel, they harden their hearts against all teaching and rebuke, till in the end there is no remedy (2 Chronicles 36:16).
II. THEIR JUDGMENT IS PREDICTED. (Vers. 6-11.) God is long suffering and merciful. How excellent his counsels! how tender his rebukes I how gracious his calls to repentance! But when evil men knowingly and obstinately persist in their evil ways, judgment must be done. The psalmist adds image to image to strengthen the argument, and to set forth the more vividly the awful doom of the wicked.
1. Judgment, is required in the interests of humanity. In all good governments there are laws for the protection of society. If evil doers will not repent, they must be restrained. Their power to do injury must be stopped.
2. Besides, judgment is demanded in accordance with righteousness. There is nothing arbitrary in the procedure. Even evil must be dealt with fairly.
3. Judgment also is necessary for the vindication of Goers truth. There is a moral necessity why it should be "ill with the wicked." "God is not a man, that he should lie." But evil on itself shall back recoil, And mix no more with goodness, when at last. Gather'd like scum, and settled to itself, It shall be in eternal restless change, Self-fed and self-consumed; if this fail, The pillar'd firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble. (Milton.) W.F.
Yea, in heart ye work wickedness.
There once sailed from the city of Orleans a large and noble steamer, laden with cotton, and having a great number of passengers on board. While they were taking in the cargo, a portion of it became slightly moistened by a shower of rain that was falling. This circumstance, however, was not noticed; the cotton was stowed away in the hold, and the hatches fastened down. All went well at first, but one day an alarm of fire was made, and in a few moments the whole ship was enveloped in flames. The damp and closely packed bale of cotton had become heated, and it smouldered and got into a more dangerous state every day, until it burst forth into a large sheet of flame, and nothing could be done to "quench" it. Now, that heated cotton, smouldering in the hull of the vessel, is like sin in the heart. Do not let us think lightly of sin, speaking of little sins and big sins, white lies and black lies. Sin is sin in God's sight, and God hates sin.
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People
David,
Psalmist,
SaulPlaces
JerusalemTopics
Cruel, Deal, Devise, Doings, Evil, Full, Hands, Heart, Hearts, Iniquities, Injustice, Measure, Mete, Nay, Plot, Ponder, Purposes, Unrighteousness, Violence, Weigh, Wickedness, Wrongs, Yea, YesOutline
1. David reproves wicked judges3. describes the nature of the wicked6. devotes them to God's judgments10. whereat the righteous shall rejoiceDictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 58:2 5156 hand
Psalm 58:1-2
5346 injury
5568 suffering, causes
Library
Of Internal Acts
Of Internal Acts Acts are distinguished into External and Internal. External acts are those which bear relation to some sensible object, and are either morally good or evil, merely according to the nature of the principle from which they proceed. I intend here to speak only of Internal acts, those energies of the soul, by which it turns internally to some objects, and averts from others. If during my application to God I should form a will to change the nature of my act, I thereby withdraw myself …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of PrayerEpistle vi. To Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
To Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari). Gregory to Januarius, &c. The Jews who have come hither from your city have complained to us that Peter, who has been brought by the will of God from their superstition to the worship of Christian faith, having taken with him certain disorderly persons, on the day after his baptism, that is on the Lord's day of the very Paschal festival, with grave scandal and without your consent, had taken possession of their synagogue in Caralis, and placed there the …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great
Peaceable Principles and True: Or, a Brief Answer to Mr. D'Anver's and Mr. Paul's Books against My Confession of Faith, and Differences in Judgment About Baptism no Bar to Communion.
WHEREIN THEIR SCRIPTURELESS NOTIONS ARE OVERTHROWN, AND MY PEACEABLE PRINCIPLES STILL MAINTAINED. 'Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?'--Psalm 58:1 SIR, I have received and considered your short reply to my differences in judgment about water baptism no bar to communion; and observe, that you touch not the argument at all: but rather labour what you can, and beyond what you ought, to throw odiums upon your brother for reproving you for your error, …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3
Faith the Sole Saving Act.
JOHN vi. 28, 29.--"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." In asking their question, the Jews intended to inquire of Christ what particular things they must do, before all others, in order to please God. The "works of God," as they denominate them, were not any and every duty, but those more special and important acts, by which the creature might secure …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man
Augustin's Part in the Controversy.
Both by nature and by grace, Augustin was formed to be the champion of truth in this controversy. Of a naturally philosophical temperament, he saw into the springs of life with a vividness of mental perception to which most men are strangers; and his own experiences in his long life of resistance to, and then of yielding to, the drawings of God's grace, gave him a clear apprehension of the great evangelic principle that God seeks men, not men God, such as no sophistry could cloud. However much his …
St. Augustine—Anti-Pelagian Writings
Moral Depravity.
VIII. Let us consider the proper method of accounting for the universal and total moral depravity of the unregenerate moral agents of our race. In the discussion of this subject, I will-- 1. Endeavor to show how it is not to be accounted for. In examining this part of the subject, it is necessary to have distinctly in view that which constitutes moral depravity. All the error that has existed upon this subject, has been founded in false assumptions in regard to the nature or essence of moral depravity. …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
An Address to the Regenerate, Founded on the Preceding Discourses.
James I. 18. James I. 18. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. I INTEND the words which I have now been reading, only as an introduction to that address to the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, with which I am now to conclude these lectures; and therefore shall not enter into any critical discussion, either of them, or of the context. I hope God has made the series of these discourses, in some measure, useful to those …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration
The Necessity of Actual Grace
In treating of the necessity of actual grace we must avoid two extremes. The first is that mere nature is absolutely incapable of doing any thing good. This error was held by the early Protestants and the followers of Baius and Jansenius. The second is that nature is able to perform supernatural acts by its own power. This was taught by the Pelagians and Semipelagians. Between these two extremes Catholic theology keeps the golden mean. It defends the capacity of human nature against Protestants and …
Joseph Pohle—Grace, Actual and Habitual
The Mystery
Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness. The woman delivered of a child, when the dragon was overcome, from thenceforth dwelt in the wilderness, by which is figured the state of the Church, liberated from Pagan tyranny, to the time of the seventh trumpet, and the second Advent of Christ, by the type, not of a latent, invisible, but, as it were, an intermediate condition, like that of the lsraelitish Church journeying in the wilderness, from its departure from Egypt, to its entrance into the land …
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse
The Justice of God
The next attribute is God's justice. All God's attributes are identical, and are the same with his essence. Though he has several attributes whereby he is made known to us, yet he has but one essence. A cedar tree may have several branches, yet it is but one cedar. So there are several attributes of God whereby we conceive of him, but only one entire essence. Well, then, concerning God's justice. Deut 32:4. Just and right is he.' Job 37:23. Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity
The Wrath of God
What does every sin deserve? God's wrath and curse, both in this life, and in that which is to come. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.' Matt 25: 41. Man having sinned, is like a favourite turned out of the king's favour, and deserves the wrath and curse of God. He deserves God's curse. Gal 3: 10. As when Christ cursed the fig-tree, it withered; so, when God curses any, he withers in his soul. Matt 21: 19. God's curse blasts wherever it comes. He deserves also God's wrath, which is …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments
Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament
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