NOTES for Psa 58

¹Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

²Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

³The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

⁴Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;

⁵Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.

⁶Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.

⁷Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.

⁸As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

⁹Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

¹⁰The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

The reproaches addressed to unjust judges are severe. Of course, they apply not only to judges who hand down sentences as part of their office, but also to all of us who are quick to pass judgment. Although we often recall the famous words, “And who are the judges?”, they do not apply here. The character in “Woe from Wit” asks whether particular people have the right to judge; the psalmist, without making it personal, speaks about the problem of unjust judgment itself.

The psalmist is driven by hope that justice will be done. But here once again we encounter a difficult passage: the thirst for justice appears as a desire for vengeance, in dreams of bathing in the blood of enemies. This is difficult to reconcile with the Gospel commands of love and forgiveness; today many people are more likely to be repelled by such dreams.

That is true. But the path to the Good News has not yet been completed; only the foundation for receiving it is being laid. People of that era were far more accustomed to witnessing the bloody triumph of injustice. Therefore, hope in the triumph of justice, even when expressed so militantly, strengthened confidence in evil’s inevitable defeat.

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