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Why would David write this psalm for all to read when he was no longer God’s greatest king, but rather God’s greatest sinner?
Psalm 10 is a reverse mirror of Psalm 9. Immediately after David rejoices in Psalm 9: “You have not forsaken us!” he experienced God’s strange, awful work of hiding: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble, O Lord?”
Luther thought this was a dismal psalm that cut to the heart of sin: “There is not, in my judgment, a Psalm which describes the mind, the manners, the works, the words, the feelings, and the fate of the ungodly, with so much propriety, fullness, and light, as this Psalm.” Augustine believed it was a Psalm written by the Antichrist, as Paul warned would come, in his letter to the Thessalonians. David’s outburst (or that of the Antichrist!) was repeated later by the Prophet Isaiah when God made the awful Persian King Cyrus into the Messiah of Israel: “Truly, you are a God who hides himself!” (Isa. 45:15).
Why would David write this psalm for all to read when he was no longer God’s greatest king, but rather God’s greatest sinner? How can God grant the victory to David in Psalm 9, then snatch it away in the “mirror” verses of Psalm 10?
When God hides from us, we wonder if our enemy is really God himself: “Why O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide your face in times of trouble?” (Ps. 10:1). When God goes silent, a host of false prophets arises. David had to endure these bad preachers, just as we do today. The only way to get through such torment is to wait in God’s silence with the assurance that he will finally stop the shouting of the evildoers “magnifying themselves on earth” (Ps. 10:18). What is left in the end is God’s word alone. That means that God hides from us, as he did from David, to suffer us into the true faith that clings only to his word of the gospel, not the law. Only then do we cease to believe the lies of this world and its many false prophets.
1 Why dost thou stand afar off, O LORD? Why dost thou hide thyself in times of trouble? [Why hast thou departed afar off, O Lord, thou disregardest us in opportunities in trouble].
No wonder that Augustine thought this unnamed Psalm was the “Psalm of Antichrist.” The God who hides from us is God without (and even opposed to) Christ. However, as Luther observed, this Psalm bears the unmistakable imprint of David, the Warrior King’s special characteristic: “Zeal has consumed me!” David’s primary attribute was zeal that cried out to God for justice: “Why do you stand so far away, O Lord” (as Jerome translated it). That is the sound of the conscience in tribulation under the tyranny of the godless: “Don’t you care, O Lord?” Habakkuk opened his book the same way: “How long shall I cry, O Lord?” This is how it feels when we suffer “undeservedly.” Isaiah dared to scold and humiliate God: “Where is the gurgling of your lower bowels when I need it?” (Isa. 63:15). This is what suffering sounds like from the mouth of the righteous—they know they are not alone even when they cannot bear their cross any longer. Yet, they trust that God will overcome the final enemies of the cross and death for us.
Why has God hidden himself from me? It is an opportunity for faith to be firmed, and an opportunity for God to hear my plea, and rise to help me.
The old Vulgate perceptively translated the second line: “You disregard us in opportunities of trouble” (rather than the common version: “times of trouble”). Why has God hidden himself from me? It is an opportunity for faith to be firmed, and an opportunity for God to hear my plea, and rise to help me: “God, here is your opportunity—take it!” Help me!
2 While the wicked is in pride, the poor is consumed: they are taken in the devices [schemes] in which they have imagined.
The standard version of verse two says, “in arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor,” but Jerome noticed it really meant: “in the pride of the wicked the poor is a burnt sacrifice.” David is saying: “O Lord, when you do not take the opportunity of my suffering to come and relieve me, the wicked sweep in and turn me into burnt toast! My enemies exercise the sin called “pride.” They toy with the law, and put me into it like a burnt sacrifice, presenting me—burnt up—as proof that they have no sin at all. That’s a real sinner: one who is so proud that he does not think he sins, especially when he tramples on me and uses me as his offering to God.
The proud never admit their sin; instead, they find comfort in their own iniquities, or “good intentions” (as the old doctrine of Contrition put it). They become captivated by the gifts they offer to God through their good works. Luther calls this the “sacrifices of fools.” The haughty become victims of their own schemes; they are taken in by their own imaginations. The man “in pride” is a liar who especially lies to himself, yet God is not fooled.
3 For the sinner glories in the desires of his soul, and the wicked is blessed; he hath exasperated the Lord.
Worse becomes worst as a prideful sinner glories in his own sin while those gathered around bless him for it. Yet the Lord does not endure this behavior forever. He is finally exasperated—the wind nearly sucked out of his divine lungs until God finally calls a halt. Paul said, “Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. 1:10-11). This verse is why Augustine believed the Psalm referred to the Antichrist: the Antichrist prefers his own words to those of Christ, and so exasperates God beyond all measure through his blasphemy: “My word is greater than Christ’s!”
4 The wicked in the height [pride] of his anger [or of his face] will not seek: God is not in his sight. [There is no God!]
The “height of anger” is what, in the Church’s teaching of repentance, was called “good intention.” How many slithery confessors have said, “I had a good intention”? They give themselves their own assurance that they imagine purifies their elated, inflated mind. They won’t even bother trying to seek God, since they are sure they possess God and he is always on their side. Luther says, there are three colors of the sinner on display here: their pride, their contempt, and finally their total neglect of God. “Why bother?” they think, “God is in my pocket, I need not seek or call out to him.”
5 His ways are polluted at all times: thy judgments are removed away from his sight: he will proudly rule over his enemies.
No fear of God! A polluted man pours out polluted works, yet thinks his filth is gold. He has no compass or measure for determining God’s true judgments. The sinner knows nothing of the judgment of the law that condemns him, or the gospel that frees him. He follows his own drummer, always thinking the best of himself since he sees all things through the lenses of his good works—adhering to them as if they were medals of honor given by God himself. Yet his good and evil works are so mixed together that he can’t tell the difference between them.
The sinner knows nothing of the judgment of the law that condemns him, or the gospel that frees him.
In truth, a truly righteous man is made righteous without the law, and consequently that righteous man does not hoard, count, or proudly display his good works—but becomes fearful of them. To the contrary, the polluted, proud man tries to trust his good works and make God his debtor: “You owe me your goodwill and rewards, O Lord, because of my condign works (or at least, according to your promised mercy for my congruent works in cooperation with your mercy). Your own rules tell me that, by merit or by grace, you owe me!”
The judgments that are removed from this proud man are, in Hebrew, a “meditation of the mind” that were placed there to teach him how to speak properly about a subject. But for the sinner, God’s way of speaking has been entirely ignored. “His ways are polluted,” because he puts his faith and security in precisely the wrong thing—and then proudly puts his enemies beneath his own power in high haughtiness. Such self-liars feel they are untouchable.
6 For he hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved from generation to generation, without evil.
The key here, in verse six, is the word raha (Hebrew) or kaka (Greek), meaning “evil.” The translation is misleading, however, as upon first reading, it sounds like David is referring to the proud man (who had somehow put himself over David), doing away with evil. In truth, however, the sinner is virtually swimming in evil. The better translation goes: “For he hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved from generation to generation, as not being in evil.” David’s opponent thinks he has overcome evil through his good works and controls it as if ruling over it. He imagines he is evil-free, when in fact he has immersed himself in kaka. He does not know God’s promise of forgiveness, and so, rather than being without evil, he is drowned by it.
7 His mouth is full of cursing and bitterness [deceit]; and under his tongue is pain, labor, and grief.
Finally, we see what kind of man has been tormenting David—he is a man whose “work is his mouth.” Out of his foul mouth comes not only cursing and bitterness but, in Hebrew, it is “deceit” or “false teaching”. Aha! It is a priest—or what we call a “pastor” or “minister.” He is the one of whom Paul speaks: “who by good works and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom. 16:18). It is true that in the church, or in David’s sanctuary, to have false speech is the worst possible curse. When they utter God’s words, a preacher’s mouth is the most powerful imaginable, but when he has a mouth full of deceit, then his tongue produces nothing but pain, labor, and grief, saying:
“Do this!”
But I can’t!
“Then work harder!”
This leaves a man in grief. We previously addressed the final Hebrew word Amal, in Psalm 7 (that we translate here as “pain” or “grief”). Luther says, “I was subjected to this pain, as was the whole Christian Church, for at least three hundred years (and much more)!” Devoid of faith, the church taught human works, or the law without Christ. But the end of this is destruction and misery: “Under their tongue it appears good, but delivers nothing but pain.”
8 He setteth in lurking places [in ambush] with the rich; in secret places, that he might murder the innocent: his eyes are set against the poor.
Not only do false preachers (the “great” and the “learned” teachers) pour their own teachings from their mouths, but they also feel the need to confute all others who are contrary to them, even violently. Augustine noted that the church goes through three phases in its life on earth: first, it is persecuted by the violence of the sword from the rulers of this world, especially the Roman emperors. Then, the church is persecuted “from within” by heretics like Pelagius or Arius—spewing falsehood and fraud about free will or about a Christ who is not fully divine. Finally (as in Luther’s day), the two power roles of Pope and Emperor coalesce to remove true teaching in the church—a time we call the “day of Antichrist.”
That day arrived when heretical teaching was enforced by violence. David’s words all mean that the attack on the gospel comes, whether from inside or outside the church, in a seditious, lying, secretive way, so that a trap is set and their prey is caught. It would be better to be murdered publicly by a Turk than have this indirect, secretive attack on the gospel by lurking liars among the Christians.
9 He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lurks in his snare that he might catch the poor: to catch the poor when he draws him into his net.
This is a spiritual catching. Evil power must control and surveil the “poor” because such poor ones always have one notable attribute: when they hear the gospel for the first time, their hearts are immediately drawn to it! They instantly hear the gospel and then see the tyranny of their Antichrist as it dominates them in the church. So, the powerful must control them and keep the truth from them—but this our Lord will not countenance for long.
10 They stoop, they crouch, and the helpless fall by their might.
These liars laugh at the sins they have committed against God and no longer even think of them as sins. Meanwhile, the poor who have been lied to are silenced and crushed.
11 He has said in his heart, God has forgotten! He hides his face and will never see it.
It feels to those under such false teaching tyranny in the church that God himself has forgotten us. While it is true that when evil prevails in the church under Antichrist, such tyranny could not exist if God had not hidden. Yet, God has not left us on our own, even while his hiding gives an opportunity for unfaith to dominate. So it was when the scoffers at the cross of Christ said, “If he be the Son of God, let him deliver him now if he will have him.”
12 Arise, O Lord, God, and let thine hand be lifted up; forget not the poor.
Yet, faith lays aside the desire for revenge against our tyrants and gives all back to God to do as he wants. Commit your sorrow to God! So David said, “Lift thine hand up” as the sign of God’s coming action and power.
13 Wherefore does the wicked provoke God? He has said in his heart,“He will not require it.”
Meanwhile, the haughty and proud think, “He will never hold me to account!” But you do as David did: hurl this blasphemy back on the blasphemer: “Your day will come! God is not mocked. Indeed, God will use this ignominy as a cause to move more quickly than he first thought.”
14 You see it! For you see the labor and fury, in order that you will deliver them into your own hands. The poor are left to you, and you will be the helper of the Fatherless.
Augustine thought this was the labor and fury of God, and most translators assume it is the labor and “pain” of the oppressed poor. Still, Luther notes that this carries on the previous verses, and it is the ill labor and false fury of the lying preachers that God sees; by it, they will be delivered into God’s hands, where they will be crushed. Meanwhile, the poor (those in the church who have suffered this bad preaching) “are left to you,” and God will help these fatherless. They have no father on earth anymore—especially not the priests and bishops, but they do have one in heaven that will be the “helper” to the helpless.
15 Break thou the arm of the sinner [ungodly] and his sin [ungodliness], his sin shall be sought out until there is nothing left to be found.
The arm of the sinner is to be broken by God, and the sin (or ungodliness) is to be sought and revealed. In the end, we will say of these bad preachers: “Where are they now to be found?” They will disperse like rats.
16 The Lord shall reign forever, and unto all generations; ye nations shall perish from off his earth.
Don’t doubt that Christ alone is King forever. We will not see or feel it until the end, when the wicked and Antichrist are destroyed, yet it will come! As Luther admonished his own people: “We are not immediately to embrace what either the Roman apostolic chair, or any bishop shall come forth and promise–or threaten–under the name and authority of Christ or of his apostles Peter and Paul.” The day of judgment is coming, so that all the power of this verse for our own faith is found in the pronoun “his” since it appears that others rule this earth. But no! Even this earth is his, and his alone. For that reason, our enemies act in this world without fear. Yet, while we are afraid, we aim it all at God alone and so cease worrying about those who claim to have power in this world—but are having it removed even as we speak.
17 The Lord has heard the desire of the poor; thine ear hath listened to their hearts’ song.
The ungodly preachers represent everything contrary to what God is making us and this world into. That is why we live by faith. Faith does not see but instead hears and so endures by clinging to God’s word. It is your ear that hear the gospel, and it is God’s ear that hears your sorrowful cry in this world.
Faith does not see but instead hears and so endures by clinging to God’s word.
18 To Judge for the fatherless and humble; that man may never more oppose you or magnify himself [strike terror] upon this earth.
The poor, fatherless, and humble refer to you, people who have been lied to by false preachers. David, the sinner, ends with his plea (which he knows is already answered): let these liars never magnify themselves, and so strike terror on this earth again. The silencing of the lying preacher is coming! Let it be soon! No King, no fake preacher can remain against those who are in Christ—only our heavenly Father, speaking through his Son, justifying us apart from works. His preaching is a promise that forgives sin, and only so can we cease being sinners and cease being ruled by sinners—even the Antichrist.
