The Lord is a defender against enemies. Not because He has undertaken to help us under every circumstance: because of our sins, He may also withdraw from us. But when we call upon Him in our distress, He comes to our aid.
The psalmist’s negative words about hostile nations may seem like an ordinary expression of national enmity. Yet the outlook of the human transmitters of biblical revelation, though initially bounded by place and time, grows beyond those limits. The enemies’ wickedness does not lie in the fact that they “come against us”; because of our lawlessness, their actions may even be permitted from above. But if we are faithful to the Lord while the enemies intend to trample His commandments, their cause becomes wickedness. We may therefore place our hope in the justice of God, who judges the world with righteousness.
