14 A sword have the wicked opened, And they have trodden their bow, To cause to fall the poor and needy, To slaughter the upright of the way.
For lo, the wicked tread a bow, They have prepared their arrow on the string, To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.
An abomination to the righteous `is' the perverse man, And an abomination to the wicked `is' the upright in the way!
`And, my father, see, yea see the skirt of thine upper robe in my hand; for by cutting off the skirt of thy upper robe, and I have not slain thee, know and see that there is not in my hand evil and transgression, and I have not sinned against thee, and thou art hunting my soul to take it!
And he saith unto David, `More righteous thou `art' than I; for thou hast done me good, and I have done thee evil;
All my bones say, `Jehovah, who is like Thee, Delivering the poor from the stronger than he, And the poor and needy from his plunderer.'
Hidest me from the secret counsel of evil doers, From the tumult of workers of iniquity. Who sharpened as a sword their tongue, They directed their arrow -- a bitter word. To shoot in secret places the perfect, Suddenly they shoot him, and fear not. They strengthen for themselves an evil thing, They recount of the hiding of snares, They have said, `Who doth look at it?' They search out perverse things, `We perfected a searching search,' And the inward part of man, and the heart `are' deep.
Men of blood hate the perfect, And the upright seek his soul.
Purer of eyes than to behold evil, To look on perverseness Thou art not able, Why dost Thou behold the treacherous? Thou keepest silent when the wicked Doth swallow the more righteous than he,
and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. So that ye testify to yourselves, that ye are sons of them who did murder the prophets; and ye -- ye fill up the measure of your fathers. `Serpents! brood of vipers! how may ye escape from the judgment of the gehenna? `Because of this, lo, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and of them ye will kill and crucify, and of them ye will scourge in your synagogues, and will pursue from city to city;
which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed those who declared before about the coming of the Righteous One, of whom now ye betrayers and murderers have become,
and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword, and having seen that it is pleasing to the Jews, he added to lay hold of Peter also -- and they were the days of the unleavened food --
not as Cain -- of the evil one he was, and he did slay his brother, and wherefore did he slay him? because his works were evil, and those of his brother righteous.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 37
Commentary on Psalms 37 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 37
This psalm is a sermon, and an excellent useful sermon it is, calculated not (as most of the psalms) for our devotion, but for our conversation; there is nothing in it of prayer or praise, but it is all instruction; it is "Maschil-a teaching psalm;' it is an exposition of some of the hardest chapters in the book of Providence, the advancement of the wicked and the disgrace of the righteous, a solution of the difficulties that arise thereupon, and an exhortation to conduct ourselves as becomes us under such dark dispensations. The work of the prophets (and David was one) was to explain the law. Now the law of Moses had promised temporal blessings to the obedient, and denounced temporal miseries against the disobedient, which principally referred to the body of the people, the nation as a nation; for, when they came to be applied to particular persons, many instances occurred of sinners in prosperity and saints in adversity; to reconcile those instances with the word that God had spoken is the scope of the prophet in this psalm, in which,
In singing this psalm we must teach and admonish one another rightly to understand the providence of God and to accommodate ourselves to it, at all times carefully to do our duty and then patiently to leave the event with God and to believe that, how black soever things may look for the present, it shall be "well with those that fear God, that fear before him.'
A psalm of David.
Psa 37:1-6
The instructions here given are very plain; much need not be said for the exposition of them, but there is a great deal to be done for the reducing of them to practice, and there they will look best.
Psa 37:7-20
In these verses we have,
Psa 37:21-33
These verses are much to the same purport with the foregoing verses of this psalm, for it is a subject worthy to be dwelt upon. Observe here,
Psa 37:34-40
The psalmist's conclusion of this sermon (for that is the nature of this poem) is of the same purport with the whole, and inculcates the same things.