The Treasury of David

By brucesbiblepage on August 1, 2024

Psalm 94

Exposition
Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village Preacher
Other Works

SUBJECT. The writer sees evil doers in power, and smarts under their oppressions. His sense of the divine sovereignty, of which he had been singing in the previous Psalm, leads him to appeal to God as the great Judge of the earth; this he does with much vehemence and importunity, evidently tingling under the lash of the oppressor. Confident in God's existence, and assured of his personal observation of the doings of men, the psalmist rebukes his atheistic adversaries, and proclaims his triumph in his God: he also interprets the severe dispensation of Providence to be in very deed most instructive chastisements, and so he counts those happy who endure them. The Psalm is another pathetic form of the old enigma—"Wherefore do the wicked prosper?" It is another instance of a good man perplexed by the prosperity of the ungodly, cheering his heart by remembering that there is, after all, a King in heaven, by whom all things are overruled for good.

DIVISION. In Ps 94:1-7 the psalmist utters his complaint against wicked oppressors. From Ps 94:8-11 he reasons against their skeptical notion that God did not notice the actions of men. He then shows that the Lord blesses his people and will deliver them, though they may be chastened for a while, Ps 94:12-15. He again pleads for help in Ps 94:16 and declares his entire dependence upon God for preservation, Ps 94:17-19; yet a third time urges his complaint, Ps 94:20-21; and then concludes with the confident assurance that his enemies, and all other wicked men, would certainly be made to reap the due reward of their deeds,—"yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off."

Verse 23. The natural result of oppression is the destruction of the despot; his own iniquities crush him ere long. Providence arranges retaliations as remarkable as they are just. High crimes in the end bring on heavy judgments, to sweep away evil men from off the face of the earth; yea, God himself interposes in a special manner, and cuts short the career of tyrants while they are in the very midst of their crimes. Wicked men are often arrested by the pursuivants of divine justice red-handed, with the evidence of their guilt upon them. He shall bring upon them their own iniquity and shall cut them off in their own wickedness. While the stolen bread is in their mouths wrath slays them, and while the ill-gotten wedge of gold is yet in their tent judgment overtakes them. God himself conspicuously visits them and reveals his own power in their overthrow, yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off. Here, then, the matter ends; faith reads the present in the light of the future and ends her song without a trembling note.

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