View Psalms 58 in the note window.
David describes his enemies, ver. 1 - 5.
Foretells their ruin, ver. 6 - 9.
Which would be to the comfort of good men, and to the glory of God,
ver. 10, 11.
To the chief musician, Al - taschith, Michtam of David.
1: O congregation - The word seems to point at Saul's judges and
counsellors; who met together to consult what they should do against
David. Sons of men - So he calls them; to mind them that they were
men, and must give an account to God for all their hard speeches.
2: Heart - With free choice and consent. Hands - He intimates that
they did great wrong under the pretence of justice, and while they seemed
exactly to weigh the true proportion between the actions and the recompenses
allotted to them, they turned the scale; and pronounced an unjust sentence.
Land - Or, in this land, where God is present, and where you have
righteous laws to govern you.
3: Estranged - From God, and from all goodness. Their very natures
are corrupt, even from their birth: they are the wicked offspring of sinful
parents. Astray - By actual sins, from their childhood, as soon as ever
they were capable of the exercise of reason.
4: Poison - Their malicious disposition.
5: Not hearken - As they commonly say of the adders, such really
are these men: deaf to all my counsels, to their own consciences, and
to God's law. Of the charming or enchanting of serpents, mention is
made both in other places of scripture, and in all sorts of authors,
ancient and modern, Hebrew and Arabick, and Greek and Latin.
And particularly the Arabick writers (to whom these creatures were best
known) name some sorts of serpents, among which the adder is one, which
they call deaf, not because they are dull of hearing, but, as one of
them expressly faith, because they will not be charmed.
6: Their teeth - Their powerful instruments of doing mischief.
7: Melt away - As waters arising from melted snow, which at first run
with great force, but are suddenly gone.
8: Melteth - Which is quickly dissolved.
9: Before - Before your pots can be heated. Take them - Violently
and irresistibly. Living - Alive, as he did Korah.
10: Rejoice - For the blessed effects of it; the vindication of God's
honour, and the deliverance of himself and of all good men. Wash - There
shall be so great a slaughter of his enemies that he might, if he pleased,
wash his feet in their blood.
