Psalms 58

Do you really speak what is right, you who hold power? Do you judge people fairly, you sons of men?

1Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

NoteThe word behind "congregation" (KJV) and "rulers" (modern versions) is a single obscure Hebrew word that scribes read in different ways: as "in silence," as "gods" or "mighty ones," or as "rulers." The psalm is addressed to whoever holds the power to give verdicts, human judges, or the unseen powers thought to stand behind them. "Sons of men" is a standard Hebrew way of saying "human beings," and here it presses the point that these judges are only mortal.

2No. In your hearts you plan wrong, and with your hands you deal out violence in the land.

2Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

Note"Weigh" is a merchant's or a judge's word: to measure something out on a balance scale. The insult is that men whose job is to weigh evidence carefully instead measure out violence with the same deliberate care.

3The wicked are strangers to what is right from the womb. They wander off from the day they are born, telling lies.

3The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

4Their poison is like the poison of a snake. They are like a deaf cobra that stops up its ears,

4Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;

NoteThe "adder" or cobra was believed in the ancient world to be able to shut its ears against a charmer's music. Here deafness is willful, the snake is not injured, it refuses to hear.

5so that it will not listen to the voice of the snake charmer, no matter how skillfully he works his spell.

5Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.

NoteSnake charming was a familiar trade across Egypt and the Near East: a handler used music, chanting and movement to control a venomous snake. "Charming never so wisely" is old English for "however skillfully he casts his spell." The point of comparison is that the charmer's skill is wasted.

6God, break the teeth in their mouths. LORD, tear out the great fangs of the young lions.

6Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.

NoteBreaking the teeth of a predator was a standard image for disarming a violent enemy, taking away the weapon without killing the animal. "Young lions" means lions in their prime and full strength, not cubs.

7Let them drain away like water that runs off and is gone. When he aims his bow, let his arrows be blunted.

7Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.

NoteTwo images of things that simply cease. Water in a desert wadi runs hard after rain and then drains into the ground and is gone. The second line is uncertain in the Hebrew; it can mean the arrows are blunted, or that they are cut off, or that the archer's shot falls harmless.

8Let each of them pass away like a snail that melts as it goes. Let them be like a baby born dead, that never sees the sun.

8As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

NoteA snail leaving a slime trail behind it was thought in the ancient world to be dissolving as it moved, wearing itself away to nothing. "Untimely birth" is old English for a stillborn child or a miscarriage, a life that ends before it ever sees daylight.

9Before your cooking pots can even feel the heat of the burning thorns under them, he will sweep them away, the green branches and the burning ones alike.

9Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

NoteThis verse is one of the most obscure in the Psalms and no translation is certain. The picture is of a cooking fire lit under a pot with dry thorn branches for fuel: thorns catch fast and blaze, but the pot has barely begun to warm before they are spent. The final phrase can be read as "green wood and burning wood alike," or "whether raw or cooked," or "both living, and in his wrath" as the King James takes it. The sense in every reading is speed: it is over before the meal is started.

10Those who do right will be glad when they see the wicked paid back. They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.

10The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

NoteWading through a battlefield until one's feet were red was a conventional image of total victory in ancient Near Eastern poetry, not a description of a ritual. The same picture appears in Psalm 68:23. The Hebrew word behind "vengeance" covers the redress a court or a ruler owes to someone wronged, closer to "the wrong put right" than to private revenge.

11Then people will say, "There really is a reward for those who do right. There really is a God who judges the earth."

11So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

Note"Verily" is old English for "truly" or "it is so after all", the speakers are conceding a point they had doubted. "Judges the earth" carries the wider Hebrew sense of judging: not only handing down verdicts but governing and setting things right, answering the failed human judges of verse 1.