Psalms 10: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm opens by asking why the LORD stands far off and hides when trouble comes. Most of it describes the wicked man in detail: his pride, his boasting, his lying mouth, his ambushes against the poor, and his conviction that God has forgotten and will never call him to account. The psalm then calls on God to rise up, break the arm of the wicked, and search out his wickedness. It closes by saying the LORD is King forever, that he hears the desire of the humble, and that he will give justice to the fatherless and the oppressed.

Claim by Claim

1. 10:1
   • The speaker asks the LORD why he stands far off.
   • The speaker asks the LORD why he hides himself in times of trouble.
2. 10:2
   • The wicked man in his pride hotly pursues the afflicted.
   • The speaker asks that they be caught in the schemes they themselves devised.
3. 10:3
   • The wicked man boasts about the craving of his soul.
   • The one who takes gain by greed is blessed.
   • The LORD is spurned; it is ambiguous whether the greedy man blesses himself and reviles the LORD or whether the LORD abhors the one blessed.
4. 10:4
   • The wicked man, in the haughtiness of his face, does not seek God.
   • It is ambiguous whether 'there is no God' is the sum of all his thoughts or whether God is absent from all his schemes.
5. 10:5
   • It is ambiguous whether his ways are said to be firm and prosperous at all times or to be grievous at all times.
   • God's judgments are on high, out of the wicked man's sight.
   • He puffs at all his adversaries.
6. 10:6
   • He has said in his heart that he will not be moved.
   • He has said that from generation to generation he will not be in adversity.
7. 10:7
   • His mouth is full of cursing.
   • His mouth is full of deceit and oppression.
   • Under his tongue are trouble and iniquity.
8. 10:8
   • He sits in ambush near the villages.
   • In hiding places he kills the innocent.
   • His eyes secretly watch for the helpless.
9. 10:9
   • He lies in wait in a hiding place, like a lion in its lair.
   • He lies in wait to seize the afflicted.
   • He seizes the afflicted by dragging him into his net.
10. 10:10
    • He crouches and bows himself down; the Hebrew is unclear whether the wicked man crouches or the victim is crushed and beaten down.
    • The helpless fall by his strength.
11. 10:11
    • He has said in his heart that God has forgotten.
    • He has said that God has hidden his face.
    • He has said that God will never see.
12. 10:12
    • The speaker calls on the LORD to arise.
    • The speaker calls on God to lift up his hand.
    • The speaker asks God not to forget the afflicted.
13. 10:13
    • The speaker asks why the wicked man spurns God.
    • The wicked man has said in his heart that God will not call him to account.
14. 10:14
    • God has seen it.
    • God looks upon trouble and grief in order to repay it with his hand.
    • The helpless commits himself to God.
    • God has been the helper of the fatherless.
15. 10:15
    • The speaker asks God to break the arm of the wicked man and the evil man.
    • The speaker asks God to seek out his wickedness until none is found.
16. 10:16
    • The LORD is King forever and ever.
    • The nations have perished out of his land.
17. 10:17
    • The LORD has heard the desire of the humble.
    • God will make their heart firm.
    • God will incline his ear to hear.
18. 10:18
    • God will judge the fatherless and the oppressed.
    • The purpose is that mortal man from the earth may no more strike terror.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

10:1

Psalm 10 has no heading of its own in the Hebrew, and it continues an alphabet acrostic begun in Psalm 9, where successive stanzas open with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Greek and Latin Bibles count 9 and 10 as a single psalm, which is why their numbering runs one behind the King James from here onward.

10:2

"Devices that they have imagined" means the schemes they have thought up. In 1611 a "device" was a plot or contrivance, and to "imagine" something was to plan or plot it, not to daydream about it.

10:3

The Hebrew of the second half is compressed and can be read two ways: "he blesses the greedy man, whom the LORD abhors" (the King James reading), or "he blesses the greedy and curses the LORD." Translations divide, and the rendering follows the first.

10:4

"The pride of his countenance" is literally the height of his nose, a Hebrew idiom for a man with his face tilted up in arrogance. The closing clause is also open: it can mean the wicked man concludes "there is no God," or that God simply never figures in any of his calculations.

10:5

"Grievous" here does not mean painful or distressing. The King James uses an older sense in which his ways are solid and hold firm; the Hebrew says his ways prosper at all times. "He puffeth at them" describes a gesture of contempt, blowing or snorting at an opponent to dismiss him as nothing.

10:6

"I shall not be moved" has nothing to do with emotion. To be moved is to be shoved out of your place or toppled, so he is saying that nothing can shift him.

10:7

In the King James "mischief" means serious harm or injury, not a prank, and "vanity" means emptiness or worthlessness, not conceit. "Under his tongue" pictures words kept ready in the mouth, the way a snake's venom or a hidden weapon is kept ready.

10:8

"Privily" means secretly. The "villages" are unwalled hamlets and open settlements with no defenses, the easiest places for a predator to work.

10:9

The picture shifts inside the verse: first a lion crouched in cover, then a hunter hauling in a net. In both halves the poor man is being treated as game.

10:10

The Hebrew of this verse is among the most obscure in the book, and translations differ widely. "His strong ones" may mean the predator's own limbs and claws, continuing the lion image, or the strong men who work for him.

10:11

"He hideth his face" is a standard Hebrew idiom for deliberately withholding attention or favor, not hiding from view, but refusing to look.

10:12

"Lift up thine hand" is the gesture of someone raising an arm to strike. To ask God to lift his hand is to ask him to step in and act.

10:13

"Contemn" is an old word meaning to despise or treat as worthless; it is not a misprint for "condemn." "Require it" is legal language: to demand a reckoning, to call someone to account for what he has done.

10:14

"Requite" means to pay back. "The fatherless" is the orphan, who in ancient Israel, along with the widow and the resident foreigner, belonged to the standard class of people with no male relative to defend them in court or protect their property, and whom Israel's law placed under God's own protection.

10:15

"Break the arm" is figurative: the arm stands for a person's capacity to act, so breaking it means stripping him of the power to do harm.

10:16

"The heathen" translates a Hebrew word meaning simply the nations, the peoples other than Israel. In 1611 the word carried no more contempt than that.

10:17

"Prepare their heart" does not mean get them ready. The Hebrew verb means to make firm or steady, so the sense is that God strengthens the resolve of those who are beaten down.

10:18

"The man of the earth" renders a Hebrew phrase that is open to more than one reading: a mere mortal made of dust, or a man who belongs to the land. Either way the phrase is set against the God who is King forever in the previous verse.