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Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 10:1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? Psalm 10:1-18 Psalm 9:1-20 ; Psalm 10:1-18 are alike in their imperfectly acrostic structure, the occurrence of certain phrases- e.g. , the very uncommon expression for "times of trouble," { Psalm 9:9 ; Psalm 10:1 } "Arise, O Lord" { Psalm 9:19 ; Psalm 10:12 } -and the references to the nation’s judgment. But the differences are so great that the hypothesis of their original unity is hard to accept. As already remarked, the enemies are different. The tone of the one psalm is jubilant thanksgiving for victory won and judgment affected; that of the other is passionate portraiture of a rampant foe and cries for a judgment yet unmanifested. They are a pair, though why the psalmist should have bound together two songs of which the unlikenesses are at least as great as the likenesses it is not easy to discover. The circumstances of his day may have brought the cruelty of domestic robbers close upon the heels of foreign foes, as is often the case, but that is mere conjecture. The acrostic structure is continued into Psalm 10:1-18 , as if the last stanza of 9 had begun with the regular Kaph instead of the cognate Qoph; but it then disappears till Psalm 10:12 , from which point it continues to the end of the psalm, with the anomaly that one of the four stanzas has but one verse: the unusually long Psalm 10:14 . These four stanzas are allotted to the four last letters of the alphabet. Six letters are thus omitted, to which twelve verses should belong. The nine non-acrostic verses ( Psalm 10:3-11 ) are by some supposed to be substituted for the missing twelve, but there are too many verbal allusions to them in the subsequent part of the psalm to admit of their being regarded as later than it. Why, then, the break in the acrostic structure? It is noticeable that the (acrostic) Psalm 9:1-20 is wholly addressed to God, and that the parts of 10 which are addressed to Him are likewise acrostic, the section Psalm 10:3-11 being the vivid description of the "wicked," for deliverance from whom the psalmist prays. The difference of theme may be the solution of the difference of form, which was intended to mark off the prayer stanzas and to suggest, by the very continuity of the alphabetical scheme and the allowance made for the letters which do not appear, the calm flow of devotion and persistency, of prayer throughout the parenthesis of oppression. The description of the "wicked" is as a black rock damming the river, but it flows on beneath and emerges beyond. The psalm falls into two parts after the introductory verse of petition and remonstrance: Psalm 10:3-11 , the grim picture of the enemy of the "poor"; and Psalm 10:12-18 , the cry for deliverance and judgment. The first stanza ( Psalm 10:1-2 ) gives in its passionate cry a general picture of the situation, which is entirely different from that of Psalm 9:1-20 . The two opposite characters, whose relations occupy so much of these early psalms, "the wicked" and "the poor," are, as usual, hunter and hunted, and God is passive, as if far away, and hiding His eyes. The voice of complaining but devout remonstrance is singularly like the voice of arrogant godlessness ( Psalm 10:4-11 ), but the fact which brings false security to the one moves the other "to prayer. The boldness and the submissiveness of devotion are both throbbing in that "Why?" and beneath it lies the entreaty to break this apparent apathy. Psalm 10:2 spreads the facts of the situation before God. "Through the pride of the "wicked the afflicted is burned," i.e. , with anguish, pride being the fierce fire and burning being a vigorous expression for anguish, or possibly for destruction. The ambiguous next clause may either have "the wicked" or "the poor" for its subject. If the former (R.V), it is a prayer that the retribution which has been already spoken of in Psalm 9:1-20 may fall, but the context rather suggests the other construction, carrying on the description of the sufferings of the poor, with an easy change to the plural, since the singular is a collective. This, then, being how things stand, the natural flow of thought would be the continuance of the prayer; but the reference to the enemy sets the psalmist on fire, and he "burns" in another fashion, flaming out into a passionate portraiture of the wicked, which is marked as an interruption to the current of his song by the cessation of the acrostic arrangement. The picture is drawn with extraordinary energy, and describes first the character ( Psalm 10:3-6 ) and then the conduct of the wicked. The style reflects the vehemence of the psalmist’s abhorrence, being full of gnarled phrases and harsh constructions. As with a merciless scalpel the inner heart of the man is laid open. Observe the recurrence of "saith," "thoughts," and "saith in his heart." But first comes a feature of character which is open and palpable. He "boasts of his soul’s desire." What is especially flagrant in that? The usual explanation is that he is not ashamed of his shameful lusts, but glories in them, or that he boasts of succeeding in all that he desires. But what will a good man do with his heart’s desires? Psalm 10:17 tells us, namely breathe them to God; and therefore to boast of them instead is the outward expression of godless self-confidence and resolve to consult inclination and not God. The word rendered boast has the two significations of pray and boast, and the use of it here, in the worse one, is parallel with the use of bless or renounce in the next clause. The wicked is also "rapacious," for "covetous" is too weak. He grasps all that he can reach by fair or foul means. Such a man in effect and by his very selfish greed "renounces, contemns God." He may be a worshipper; but his "blessing" is like a parting salutation, dismissing Him to whom it is addressed. There is no need to suppose that conscious apostacy is meant. Rather the psalmist is laying bare the under meaning of the earth-bound man’s life, and in effect anticipates Christ’s "Ye cannot serve God and mammon" and Paul’s "covetousness which is idolatry." The next trait of character is practical atheism and denial of Divine retribution. The Hebrew is rough and elliptical, but the A.V misses its point, which the R.V gives by the introduction of "saith." "The pride of his countenance" is literally "the elevation of his nose." Translate those upturned nostrils into words, and they mean that God will not require (seek, in the sense of punish). But a God who does not punish is a dim shape, through which the empty sky is seen, and the denial (or forgetfulness) of God’s retributive judgment is equivalent to denying that there is a God at all. Thus armed, the wicked is in fancied security. "His ways are firm"- i.e ., he prospers-and, in the very madness of arrogance, he scoffs at God’s judgments as too high up to be seen. His scoff is a truth, for how can eyes glued to earth see the solemn lights that move in the heavens? Purblind men say, We do not see them, and mean, They are not; but all that their speech proves is their own blindness. Defiant of God, he is truculent to men, and "snorts contempt at his enemies." "In his heart he says, I shall not be moved." The same words express the sane confidence of the devout soul and the foolish presumption of the man of the earth; but the one says, "because He is at my right hand," and the other trusts in himself. "To all generations I shall not be in adversity" (R.V). The Hebrew is gnarled and obscure; and attempts to amend the text have been made (compare Cheyne, Gratz in loc .), but needlessly. The confidence has become almost insane, and has lost sight altogether of the brevity of life. "His inward thought is that he shall continue forever". { Psalm 49:1-20 } "Pride stifles reason. The language of the heart cannot be translated into spoken words without seeming exaggeration" (Cheyne). He who can be so blind to facts as to find no God may well carry his blindness a step further and wink hard enough to see no death, or may live as if he did not. Following the disclosure of the inner springs of life in the secret thoughts comes, in Psalm 10:7-10 , the outcome of these in word and deed. When the wicked "lets the rank tongue blossom into speech," the product is affronts to God and maledictions, lies, mischiefs, for men. These stuff the mouth full, and lie under the tongue as sweet morsels for the perverted taste or as stored there, ready to be shot out. The deeds match the words. The vivid picture of a prowling lion seems to begin in Psalm 10:8 , though it is sometimes taken as the unmetaphorical description of the wicked man’s crime. The stealthy couching of the beast of prey, hiding among the cover round the unwalled village or poorly sheltered fold, the eyes gleaming out of the darkness and steadfastly fixed on the victim with a baleful light in them, belong to the figure, which is abruptly changed in one clause { Psalm 10:9 c} into that of a hunter with his net, and then is resumed and completed in Psalm 10:10 , where the R.V is, on the whole, to be preferred-"He croucheth; he boweth down"-as resuming the figure at the point where it had been interrupted and finishing it in the next clause, with the helpless victim fallen into the grip of the strong claws. With great emphasis the picture is rounded off { Psalm 10:11 } with the repetition of the secret thought of God’s forgetfulness, which underlies the cruel oppression. This whole section indicates a lawless condition in which open violence, robbery, and murder were common. In Hosea’s vigorous language, "blood touched blood," the splashes being so numerous that they met, and the land was red with them. There is no reason to suppose that the picture is ideal or exaggerated. Where in the turbulent annals of Israel it is to be placed must remain uncertain; but that it is a transcript of bitter experience is obvious, and the aspect which it presents should be kept in view as a corrective of the tendency to idealise the moral condition of Israel, which at no time was free from dark stains, and which offered only too many epochs of disorganisation in which the dark picture of the psalm could have been photographed from life. The phrases for the victims in this section are noteworthy: "the innocent"; "the helpless"; "the poor." Of these the first and last are frequent, and the meaning obvious. There is a doubt whether the last should be regarded as the designation of outward condition or of disposition, i.e . whether "meek" or "poor" is the idea. There are two cognate words in Hebrew, one of which means one who is bowed down, i.e . by outward troubles, and the other one who bows himself down, i.e. is meek. The margin of the Hebrew Bible is fond of correcting these words when they occur in the text and substituting the one for the other, but arbitrarily; and it is doubtful whether in actual usage there is any real distinction between them. "Helpless" is a word only found in this psalm ( Psalm 10:8 , Psalm 10:10 , Psalm 10:14 ), which has received various explanations, but is probably derived from a root meaning to be black, and hence comes to mean miserable, hapless, or the like. All the designations refer to a class-namely, the devout minority, the true Israel within Israel-and hence the plurals in Psalm 10:10 , Psalm 10:12 , and Psalm 10:17 . The second part of the psalm ( Psalm 10:12-18 ) is the prayer, forced from the heart of the persecuted remnant, God’s little flock in the midst of wolves. No trace of individual reference appears in it, nor any breath of passion or vengeance, such as is found in some of the psalms of persecution; but it glows with indignation at the blasphemies which are, for the moment, triumphant, and cries aloud to God for a judicial act which shall shatter the dream that He does not see and will not requite. That impious boast, far more than the personal incidence of sufferings, moves the prayer. As regards its form, the reappearance of the acrostic arrangement is significant, as is the repetition of the prayer and letter of Psalm 9:19 , which binds the two psalms together. The acrostic reappears with the direct address to God. The seven verses of the prayer are divided by, it into four groups, one of which is abnormal as containing but one verse, the unusual length of which, however, somewhat compensates for the irregularity ( Psalm 10:14 ). The progress of thought in them follows the logic of emotional prayer rather than of the understanding. First, there are a vehement cry for God’s intervention and a complaint of His mysterious apparent apathy. The familiar figure for the Divine flashing forth of judgment, Arise, O Lord, is intensified by the other cry that He would "lift His hand." A God who has risen from His restful throne and raised His arm is ready to bring it down with a shattering blow; but before it falls the psalmist spreads in God’s sight the lies of the scornful men. They had said ( Psalm 10:11 ) that He forgot; the prayer pleads that He would not forget. Their confidence was that He did not see nor would requite; the psalmist is bold to ask the reason for the apparent facts which permit such a thought. The deepest reverence will question God in a fashion which would be daring, if it were not instinct with the assurance of the clearness of His Divine knowledge of evil and of the worthiness of the reasons for its impunity. "Wherefore doest Thou thus?" may be insolence or faith. Next, the prayer centres itself on the facts of faith, which sense does not grasp ( Psalm 10:14 ). The specific acts of oppression which force out the psalmist’s cry are certainly "seen" by God, for it is His very nature to look on all such ("Thou" in Psalm 10:14 is emphatic); and faith argues from the character to the acts of God and from the general relation of all sin towards Him to that which at present afflicts the meek. But is God’s gaze on the evil an idle look? No; he sees, and the sight moves Him to act. Such is the force of "to take it into Thy hand," which expresses the purpose and issue of the beholding. What He sees He "takes in hand," as we say, with a similar colloquialism. If a man believes these things about God, it will follow of course that he will leave himself in God’s hand, that uplifted hand which prayer has moved. So Psalm 10:14 is like a great picture in two compartments, as Raphael’s Transfiguration. Above is God, risen with lifted arm, beholding and ready to strike; beneath is the helpless man, appealing to God by the very act of "leaving" himself to Him. That absolute reliance has an all-prevalent voice which reaches the Divine heart, as surely as her child’s wail the mother’s: and wherever it is exercised the truth of faith which the past has established becomes a truth of experience freshly confirmed. The form of the sentence in the Hebrew (the substantive verb with a participle, "Thou hast been helping") gives prominence to the continuousness of the action: It has always been Thy way, and it is so still. Of course "fatherless" here is tantamount to the "hapless," or poor, of the rest of the psalm. Then at last comes the cry for the descent of God’s uplifted hand ( Psalm 10:15-16 ). It is not invoked to destroy, but simply to "break the arm" of the wicked, i.e. , to make him powerless for mischief, as a swordsman with a shattered arm is one blow from God’s hand lames, and the arm hangs useless. The impious denial of the Divine retribution still affects the psalmist with horror; and he returns to it in the second clause of Psalm 10:15 : in which he prays that God would "seek out"- i.e ., require and requite, so as to abolish, and make utterly nonexistent-the wicked man’s wickedness. The yearning of every heart that beats in sympathy with and devotion to God, especially when it is tortured by evil experienced or beheld flourishing unsmitten, is for its annihilation. There is no prayer here for the destruction of the doer; but the reduction to nothingness of his evil is the worthy aspiration of all the good, and they who have no sympathy with such a cry as this have either small experience of evil, or a feeble realisation of its character. The psalmist was heartened to pray his prayer, because "the nations are perished out of His land." Does that point back to the great instance of exterminating justice in the destruction of the Canaanites? It may do so, but it is rather to be taken as referring to the victories celebrated in the companion psalm. Note the recurrence of the words "nations" and "perished," which are drawn from it. The connection between the two psalms is thus witnessed, and the deliverance from foreign enemies, which is the theme of Psalm 9:1-20 , is urged as a plea with God and taken as a ground of confidence by the psalmist himself for the completion of the deliverance by making domestic oppressors powerless. This lofty height of faith is preserved in the closing stanza, in which the agitation of the first part and the yearning of the second are calmed into serene assurance that the Ecclesia pressa has not cried nor ever can cry in vain. Into the praying, trusting heart "the peace of God, which passeth understanding," steals, and the answer is certified to faith long before it is manifest to sense. To pray and immediately to feel the thrilling consciousness, "Thou hast heard," is given to those who pray in faith. The wicked makes a boast of his "desire"; the humble makes a prayer of it, and so has it fulfilled. Desires which can be translated into petitions will be converted into fruition. If the heart is humble, that Divine breath will be breathed over and into it which will prepare it to desire only what accords with God’s will, and the prepared heart will always find God’s ear open. The cry of the hapless, which has been put into their lips by God Himself, is the appointed prerequisite of the manifestations of Divine judgment which will relieve the earth of the incubus of "the man of the earth." "Shall not God avenge His own elect, though He bear long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily." The prayer of the humble, like a whisper amid the avalanches, has power to start the swift, white destruction on its downward path; and when once that gliding mass has way on it, nothing which it smites can stand. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord? Psalm 10 A theological difficulty, a haughty impiety, an earnest prayer D. Thomas, D. D. I. A THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY. — "Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord?" Some great enormity was now under the eyes of David. We know not what. He had witnessed many such scenes. They have a tendency to suggest that God is indifferent. Even Christ felt this. "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Why does not God interfere? We cannot fully answer the question, but we may consider — 1. That God respects that freedom of action with which He has endowed man. 2. The sufferings which the wicked inflict upon the good are often disciplinary. Faith rests itself deeper. 3. There will be a period of retribution, "For all these things God will bring thee into judgment." II. A HAUGHTY IMPIETY. "The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. See this impiety — 1. In its conduct towards men. It is cruel — "persecutes." It is fraudulent — "his mouth is full of deceit and fraud," both in speech — "under his tongue," etc., and practice — "he sitteth in the lurking places," etc. 2. In its conduct towards God.There is here — 1. An expressed contempt for the Eternal. "For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire," etc. 2. A practical disregard for the Eternal, "God is not in all his thoughts." He is without God. 3. An awful calumny on the Eternal. "He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten me." Haughty impiety indeed. III. AN EARNEST PRAYER. Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Thine hand. He desires — 1. A merciful interposition on behalf of the good. "Forget not the humble." Piety ever breathes its prayers to heaven for such. 2. A righteous interposition against the wicked. "Break Thou the arm," etc. "Seek out his wickedness," etc. We cannot justify this part of David's prayers, which were often as imperfect as many parts of his conduct. IV. AN EXULTANT FAITH. "The Lord is King forever and ever." David believed — 1. In the perpetuity of God's Kingdom. 2. In His attention to human entreaties. "Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble." 3. In His vindication of the right. "To judge the fatherless," etc. The wicked man is in an especial sense "the man of the earth." Sprung from, living by and for it, and it only. ( D. Thomas, D. D. ) Man's cry for a solution of the felt distance of his Maker J. Parker, D. D. There are many other passages which express the same sentiment ( Jeremiah 14:8 ). This cry implies — 1. That the distance is unnatural; and 2. Undesirable. Hence the question, How can this distance be explained? There are three sources to which alone we can look for light. I. HUMAN PHILOSOPHY. It may theorise thus — 1. That God is too great to allow of close connection with Him. This is the Epicurean view. But no true thinker can accept it. 2. That the cause of the felt distance is God's method of agency. This is mediatory and uniform; not direct, but indirect. He stands concealed behind the machinery of the universe. But this no satisfactory explanation. He acts mediatorially in heaven, and yet all there feel His presence. And there is uniformity in heaven also, but neither does that hinder the realisation of His presence. II. SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. This says that man by sin has offended God, and hence God has in anger withdrawn from men, and will not return until His wrath is appeased by sacrifice. But this explanation fails — 1. Because inconsistent with the immutability of the Divine character. He cannot pass from love to anger, from the placid to the furious. It is impossible. 2. And inconsistent also with the moral excellence of God. Can what is unamiable with man be right with God? I trow not. III. DIVINE REVELATION. It teaches that we by our sin have departed from God. The sinner is the prodigal son. Now, 1. This is a satisfactory solution. When we have sinned we feel God distant from us, and, moreover, indignant with us. So He appears to the sinful mind. In reality God is near him and loves him infinitely. But the Bible often presents God as He appears to the mind, as it speaks of natural objects as they appear to our senses. And 2. It is a vital solution. Knowing the cause is indispensable to its removal. And this the Bible teaches. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God. Psalm 10:4 The wicked, from pride, refuse to seek God E. Payson, D. D. In this Psalm we have a full-length portrait of a careless, unawakened sinner, drawn by the unerring pencil of truth. Two of the features which compose this portrait are delineated in our text. 1. An unwillingness to seek after God. 2. Pride, which causes that unwillingness. I. THE WICKED WILL NOT SEEK AFTER GOD. They do not, because they will not. To this purpose they obstinately and unalterably adhere, unless their wills are subdued by Divine grace. 1. The wicked will not seek after the knowledge of God. This is evident from Scripture statement, and from the experience of all ages. The wicked will not pray for the knowledge of God, nor improve their opportunities for acquiring the knowledge of God. 2. The wicked will not seek the favour of God. Knowing nothing experimentally of His excellence and perfections, and ignorant of their entire dependence on Him for happiness, they cannot of course realise that the favour of God is life, and His loving kindness is better than life. 3. The wicked will not seek after the likeness of God. That they do not at all resemble Him is certain. They do not wish or endeavour to resemble Him. There is, indeed, in their view, no reason why they should. There are but two motives which can make any being wish to resemble another. A wish to obtain the approbation of the person imitated; or admiration of something in his character, and a consequent desire to inscribe it into our own. But the wicked can be influenced by neither of these motives to seek after conformity to God. 4. The wicked will not seek after communion with God. Communion supposes some degree of resemblance to the being whose communion is sought, and a participation of the same nature, views, and feelings. II. THE REASON WHY THE WICKED WILL NOT SEEK GOD. 1. Pride renders God a disagreeable object of contemplation to the wicked, and a knowledge of Him as undesirable. Pride consists in an unduly exalted opinion of one's self. It. is therefore impatient of a rival, hates a superior, and cannot endure a master. 2. The pride of the wicked prevents them from seeking the knowledge of God, by rendering them unwilling to be taught. Pride is almost as impatient of a teacher as of a master. 3. Pride renders the wicked unwilling to use the means by which alone the knowledge of God can be acquired. It renders them unwilling to study the Bible in a proper manner. Pride also renders the man unwilling to pray. And it prevents him from improving public and private opportunities for acquiring religious instruction. The pride of the wicked will not allow them to seek after the favour or the likeness of God. It makes them unwilling to seek after communion with God.Reflections — 1. How evident it is that salvation is wholly of grace, and that all the wicked, if left to themselves, will certainly perish. 2. How depraved, how infatuated, how unreasonable do the wicked appear! 3. How foolish, absurd, ruinous, blindly destructive of its own object does pride appear! The subject may be applied for purposes of self-examination. ( E. Payson, D. D. ) The pride of man restrains seeking after God J. Hamilton, D. D. Christianity made but few converts amongst the disciples of Zeno. Why should it have been so? With their simple and self-denying habits, why were they not attracted by the purer morals of the Gospel? and with their superiority to the surrounding superstitions, why did they not hail that unknown God whom Cleanthus had sung, and whom Paul now preached? The answer we fear is to be found in that little word PRIDE — that little word which is still so great a hindrance to many wise men after the flesh. Amongst the Greeks and Romans the Stoics occupied the same place as the Pharisees amongst the Jews. The very foundation of their theory was to make the virtuous man self-sufficing, and usually they got so far as to make him self-sufficient. In cutting off all other vices the Stoic, like the cynic before him, fostered to enormous magnitude pride or self-complacency, and, as Archer Butler says in his Ancient Philosophy , sought not so much to please the Deity as to be His equal. ( J. Hamilton, D. D. ) God is not in all his thoughts The sinfulness of forgetting God T. Scott, MA. A characteristic mark of the ungodly man. Forgetfulness of God is the concealed spring from which the evil and bitter streams of outward wickedness derive their origin. I. WHAT IS INTENDED BY HAVING GOD IN ALL OUR THOUGHTS. It is not meant that we should have our meditations constantly and invariably fixed upon God. Nor that the most pious and spiritual state of mind will disqualify a man for transacting the proper business of his station. We are here reminded of the necessity of an abiding and habitual impression of our obligations and accountableness to God. The text implies that we should take God as our portion, and expect our highest and best happiness from Him. Whatever it be from which a man expects his chief good, to that his thoughts naturally revert whenever he is not compelled to fix them upon some other object. It will be the favourite topic of his meditations. II. THE CONSEQUENCE OF THE WANT OF THIS PRINCIPLE. The man described here is one who lives in a state of habitual forgetfulness of God; acts without an abiding sense of his obligation and accountableness to Him; lives to please himself, rather than Him who made him. This state of mind is the very thing that leads to every act of gross outward sin. Conclusion: 1. Learn not to be satisfied with ourselves, because men approve of us. They cannot at all look at our motives. 2. If, in order to our being approved of God, it is necessary that we should have such a constant regard to Him, is it not clear that the retrospect of our lives will show us that we have been lamentably defective in His sight? Our subject may remind us of our exceeding sinfulness, and of our need of the mercy and grace of God as revealed in the Gospel of His Son. ( T. Scott, MA. ) Who are the wicked J. H. Hamilton, M. D. ? — The text says that God is not in their thoughts. 1. This is because of practical atheism. God is put out of the way by various theories. One makes the world ten thousand years old, and another ten million. The Bible is sneered at as an old, antiquated book. 2. Ignorance of God's character is another reason why God is not in men's thoughts. We, as sinful and blinded creatures, cannot justly comprehend a holy God. Even Christ's disciples but poorly comprehended God's character as revealed in Christ. Much more in the case of the sinner is it true that God is not in his thoughts on account of the blindness of sin. Justice and holiness are obscured. 3. A misconception of their own moral condition follows. They lose sight of God because they are not awake to their own ill-desert. 4. Another reason why God is not in the wicked man's thought is because of absorption in the things of the world. The demands of business should be met, but those of God are not to be forgotten. Men know that there is a future life, though some may argue against it. The Sabbath is given as one preparative. ( J. H. Hamilton, M. D. ) The place where God is not D. Thomas, D. D. God is everywhere, and yet the verse tells us where He is not — in the thoughts of wicked men. This is — 1. A notorious fact. Millions live day by day as if God were not. 2. An astounding fact. It is unnatural, impious, calamitous. Why, then, is God not in their thoughts? I. NEGATIVELY. 1. It is not because there can be any doubt as to the importance of thinking of God. 2. Nor because there is any lack of means to remind men of Him. All things are full of Him. 3. Nor because of the unbroken regularity of the material world. In heaven, where there is the same regularity, their minds ever delight in Him. 4. Nor because man has no consciousness of restraint in action. But all holy souls are equally free. II. POSITIVELY. The cause is in the heart. 1. Fear — the guilty conscience. 2. Dislike; hence men exclude God from their thoughts. Learn, the appalling wickedness of man, and his need of Christ. ( D. Thomas, D. D. ) A searching description of the wicked Christian Observer. The heart of the wicked is the only place in the creation of God whence, if we may so speak, the Creator is banished. Inquire — I. INTO THE CAUSES OF SUCH A STATE OF MIND. They penetrate deeper than may at first sight appear. It is nothing temporary or accidental that causes the forgetfulness of which the Psalmist complains; the evil is general and radical. It has its source in our original apostasy; it extends to us all by nature; no man is free from its influence. Subordinate to this primary and leading cause there are individual causes which, though but results of the former, become in their turn new and fruitful causes of the same effect. The constant pressure of worldly concerns, even when lawful, tends to banish God from our thoughts. But mere inattention is not the whole cause why God is not more in the hearts of men. They wilfully and deliberately banish Him from their thoughts. They are anxious to forget Him. And the reason is that they do not truly love God. What we love is always welcome to our thoughts. II. INTO THE EVILS RESULTING THEREFROM. In fact, all the vice that exists among mankind arises from their not having God in their thoughts. Did men seriously think upon God they would not dare to sin as they too often do. III. INTO THE METHOD OF OVERCOMING THIS UNHAPPY STATE OF CHARACTER. 1. Learn to contemplate the Almighty in the magnitude of His terrors, 2. Let us view God in the abundance of His love. ( Christian Observer. ) A discourse on habitual devotion J. Priestley, LL. D. It is characteristic of a good man that he "sets the Lord always before him," whereas it is said of the wicked, "God is not in all their thoughts." This seems to furnish a pretty good test of the state of a man's mind with respect to virtue and vice. The wicked man is a practical atheist. The good man sees God in everything, and everything in God. An habitual regard of God is the most effectual means of advancing us from the more imperfect to the more perfect state. Recommend this duty by an enumeration of its happy effects. 1. An habitual regard to God in our actions tends greatly to keep us firm in our adherence to our duty. It has pleased Divine Providence to place man in a state of trial and probation. This world is strictly such. God has placed us under laws. We are certainly less liable to forget these laws, and our obligation to observe them, when we keep up an habitual regard to our great Lawgiver and Judge, when we consider Him as present with us. 2. An habitual regard to God promotes an uniform cheerfulness of mind. It tends to dissipate melancholy and anxiety. 3. Fits a man for the business of this life, giving a peculiar presence and intrepidity of mind, and is therefore the best support in difficult enterprises of any kind. Consider the most proper and effectual methods of promoting this temper of mind. (1) Endeavour to divest your minds of too great a multiplicity of the cares of this world; (2) Do not omit stated times of worshipping God by prayer, public and private; (3) Omit no opportunity of turning your thoughts to God; (4) Never fail to have recourse to God upon every occasion of strong emotion of mind; (5) Labour to free your minds of all consciousness of guilt and self-reproach; (6) Cultivate in your minds just ideas of God. ( J. Priestley, LL. D. ) Thy judgments are far above, out of his sight. Psalm 10:5 Man's judgment at variance with God's H. Grey, M. A. There is an obtuseness and impenetrability that attach to the mind of man respecting the character of moral obligation that prove absolutely invincible to all his powers of meditation and research. This inability is of a moral, not of a natural kind, having its origin not in his natural constitution, but in his adventitious circumstances. The powers of the human mind receive a wrong direction. Reason turns renegade, and to escape a hated conclusion flings itself incontinently into the arms of delusion. It is thus that the stoutest intellect becomes the most impregnable. Numberless are the subterfuges, speculative as well as practical, that are continually held in play by the human mind in order to elude the embarrassment of its untoward circumstances; for there is no middle road to peace once the soul has begun to grapple with the momentous investigation. This obliquity of mind, that likes not to retain the knowledge of God, is the true and only source of all the difficulty that attaches to the reception of religious truth. Truth of this description lies no way more remote from our apprehension than any truth of natural science, till it begins to molest us with the sense of moral obligation, and to make its demands on our acquiescence in the form of duty. Men have not generally disputed much about what is virtue, their approbation of it being required only in the form of encomium. They willingly unite in applauding exemplary specimens of justice, disinterestedness, and generosity, and in the condemnation of their contraries...Our consciences ought not to sit so easy under the sins of our country, or even of mankind. That character in man which separates betwixt him and his Maker, and provokes the Divine judgment, also renders the Divine proceeding in judgment more obscure and unintelligible to him. Conclusion: See the indubitable equity, harmony, and consistency of the Divine administration in judgment. ( H. Grey, M. A. ) The unseen avengers G. Gardner, M. A. On the whole and in the rough, unquestionably sin in this world does not remain unavenged. This is true when society is looked at in the mass; yet in the history of individuals it is constantly found that no such obvious sequence of crime and punishment can be traced. There are plenty of cases in which offenders against the moral law have seemed to get off scot-free. It even almost appears at times as if they were specially favoured in the struggle for existence. Is there some hidden explanation of cases of this kind? The text says, "Thy judgments are far above." They are there, unerring in their action, unslumbering in their determination, but they are too great, too solemn and awful for the Psalmist's sin-dulled eyes to behold. God has many ways of avenging sin. It may in reality be far worse for a man when he is left for a long while to delight in his sins, when they grow round him and in him, like some choking creeper, some deathly parasite that sucks out the vitality from that which it encircles, leaving at last only the mere semblance of life. Trace the action of these unseen avengers. I. AFTER THE COMMISSION OF DOWNRIGHT, UNMISTAKABLE SIN. There are many sins of the flesh that ought to meet with open punishment from the Divine laws which they violate. Yet obviously ill deeds are often not so chastised. Take the case of secret drinking. There may be exposure. Or the habit grows more dominant. Even if its physical consequences are delayed, a degeneration of spiritual faculties sets in. It becomes increasingly difficult for such persons to see any goodness in their fellow creatures. Tell me not that sin is unavenged when the whole character becomes deteriorated, when the will becomes paralysed, when all impulses for good are rendered impotent and sterile, when blindness has come upon the eyes to all that is fair and glorious and uplifting in the world. II. TAKE ANOTHER INSTANCE, THAT OF HYPOCRISY. The Chadbands and Pecksniffs of humanity, the religious and moral humbugs of the world, how do they fare? Are they always discovered? Hypocrisy is of various degrees. It commences in the bud by timid fear of speaking the truth, and it ends in the full-blown flower of brazen dishonesty and imposture. In this necessary development it is ever finding its dreadful reward. Here, again, the sinner may be unable to understand the doom which has fallen upon him. It is supposed that in past generations the blind fishes of subterranean lakes in America found their organs of sight not required, so nature dropped them out. They may be happy in their blindness, but who would exchange conditions with them? We cannot be untrue to what we know to be right without bringing upon ourselves a like Nemesis. The inevitable punishment of doing a false action is the increased difficulty of either doing or seeing what is true. III. WORLDLINESS. For the most part the consequences are obvious enough of devotion to the fancies and fashions of a luxurious, indolent society. Folk become weary and jaded. The upper-class world has, too, its seamy side. There are not often open exposures. The decorum of advancing age smooths over everything. In those cynical words, "We are all respectable after seventy." The wrong is not done with when forgotten. What if the fires of passion and emulation are only banked in temporarily by the worn-out crust of mortality? They. may be ready to flare up in another world. Anyway, their effects ever remain. All that might have been — all wasted, misused, handed over to the powers of evil! How terrible would these pitiable failures show if seen by eyes purged to discover things in their true reality! Worse thought still, may not this deplorable vision of life's wasted opportunities be forced, branded upon the soul for ever hereafter? ( G. Gardner, M. A. ) Judgments of life Phillips Brooks, D. D. In this Psalm David gives one of his emphatic descriptions of the wicked man, and the fate that awaits him. We in our day are apt to think of every bad man as partly good, and of every good man as partly bad; that character is always mingled. Hence good and bad characters do not stand out so clearly before us as they did before David and, I think I may say, as they stood out before Christ. But whilst our perception of the weakness in every man's character is very good, David's thought is, no doubt, the true one — that there is, after all, in every character determination for right or wrong. The wicked man is he whose face is not away from righteousness and is content with unrighteousness. Now one thing about this man David affirms. Ver. 5: "Thy judgments are far above, out of his sight." It is so. There are regions of which men never think, in which they are being judged every day. A man's life depends much upon the judgments passed upon him. And if he be content with the lower judgments` relating to his earthly condition, be will pass by all the higher ones, and which are judging all his life. In the heavens there is a long series of thrones, growing whiter and whiter, until the great white throne stands above them all. And the richness and sacredness of a man's life depend on his consciousness of these judgments. The condemnation of the wicked is that he has no such consciousness that God's judgments are "out of his sight." How many of us live in the lower judgments — that of pleasure, or profit, or reputation. And all the time there tower above us these great judgment seats of God. Think of some of them. I. THE UNIVERSE. As to whether we have found or are finding our own true place in it. There is such place. Are we filling it? II. ABSOLUTE RIGHTEOUSNESS. That calm abstraction which we call the right, which makes itself known so really in all the operations of the world. It casts us aside for our perversity or it takes us into its embrace. III. ALL THE PURE AND NOBLE MEN. They are forever judging us, not malignantly condemning us, but deciding as each one of us comes into their presence, whether there is any use in us. And above all there is — IV. THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. He, knowing us altogether, is judging whether we are capable of receiving Him. He ever seeking us, and we ever either inviting or rejecting His love. That love which beats at the door of our nature is judging us, the judgment of the soul being in the refusal of the offer of God. How dreadful, then, to live with all these judgments out of our sight. Sometimes you see a man, once content, now full of discontent. The world satisfies him no more. He is seeking the higher judgments. Jesus ever sought the judgment of God — to please Him. ( Phillips Brooks, D. D. ) The wicked hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved. Psalm 10:6 Godless confidence -- its mad arrogance A. Maclaren, D. D. The wicked man said a good many wrong things "in his heart." The tacit assumptions on which a life is based, though they may never come to consciousness, and still less to utterance, are the really important things. I daresay this "wicked man" with his lips was a good Jew, and said his prayers all properly, but in his heart he had two working beliefs. One is thus expressed, "As for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved." The other is put into words thus, "He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten, He hideth His face, He will never see it." That is to say, the only explanation of a godless life, unless the man is an idiot, is that there lie beneath it, as formative principles and unspoken assumptions, guiding and shaping it, one or both of these two thoughts — either "There is no God," or "He does not care what I do, and I am safe to go on for evermore in the present fashion." It might seem as if a man, with the facts of human life before him, could not, even in the insanest arrogance, say, "I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity." But we have an awful power — and the fact that we exercise, and choose to exercise, it is one of the strange riddles of our enigmatical existence and characters — of ignoring unwelcome facts, and going cheerily on as though we had annihilated them, because we do not reflect upon them. So this man, in the midst of a world in which there is no stay, and whilst he saw all around him the most startling and tragical instances of sudden change and complete collapse, stands quietly and says, "Ah! I shall never be moved"; "God doth not require it." That absurdity is the basis of every life that is not a life of consecration and devotion — so far as it has a basis of conviction at all. The "wicked" man's true faith is this, absurd as it may sound when you drag it out into clear distinct utterance, whatever may be his professions. I wonder if there are any of us whose life can only be acquitted of being utterly unreasonable and ridiculous, by the assumption, "I shall never be moved." Have you a lease of your goods? Do you think you are tenants at will, or owners? Which? Is there any reason why any of us should escape, as some of us live as if we believed we should escape, the certain fate of all others? If there is not, what about the sanity of the man whose whole life is built upon a blunder? He is convicted of the grossest folly, unless he be assured that either there is no God, or that He does not care one rush about what we do, and that consequently we are certain of a continuance in our present state. Do you say in your heart, "I shall never be moved"? Then you must be strong enough to resist every tempest that beats against you. Is that so? "I shall never be moved." Then nothing that contributes to your well-being will ever slip from your grasp, but you will be able to hold it tight. Is that so? "I shall never be moved." Then there is no grave waiting for you. Is that so? Unless these three assumptions be warranted, every godless man is making a hideous blunder, and his character is the sentence pronounced by the loving lips of incarnate truth on the rich man who thought that he had "much goods laid up for many years," and had only to be merry — "Thou fool! Thou fool!" If an engineer builds a bridge across a river without due calculation of the force of the winds that blow down the gorge, the bridge will be at the bottom of the stream some stormy night, and the train piled on the fragments of it in hideous ruin. And with equal certainty the end of the first utterer of this speech can be calculated, and is foretold in this Psalm, "The Lord is King forever and ever. The godless are perished out of the land." ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) The false security of the wicked Thomas Brooks. Carnal security opens the door for all impiety to enter into the soul. Pompey, when he had in vain assaulted a city and could not take it by: force, devised this stratagem in way of agreement; he told them he would leave the siege and make peace with them, upon condition that they would let in a few weak, sick, and wounded soldiers among them to be cured. They let in the soldiers, and when the city was secure the soldiers let in Pompey's army. A carnal settled security will let in a whole army of lusts into the soul. ( Thomas Brooks. ) His mouth is full of cursing. Psalm 10:7-18 Black arts W. L. Watkinson. A missionary from Polynesia brought home a "soul trap." It was a series of rings twisted in cocoanut fibre. If a native should commit a great offence, or offend a sorcerer, he proceeds to make a new ring in his chain, so as to form a trap to catch the poor man's spirit. Soon the sorcerer asserts that the soul of the culprit, assuming this form, has passed into the trap. It is immediately known throughout the tribe that a certain man has lost his soul. As a matter of fact, it invariably happens that the soulless man shortly afterwards dies, of course through sheer mental distress at having had his soul thus entrapped. We smile at such traps, but we are all familiar with soul traps of a far more subtle and dangerous character. In the verses before us the Psalmist vividly pictures the crafty schemes of the wicked in order to entrap their victims. They seek by most subtle arts to entangle and destroy. I. IT IS THUS THAT SELFISH MEN SET WRAPS FOR THE YOUNG AND INEXPERIENCED. With lies and enticements the covetous seek to entrap and destroy the young. Soul traps for the young! How numerous they are! How cleverly contrived! The utmost artifice and plausibility. How successful they are (ver. 10). "Crouching down as low as possible, he lies on the watch, and the feeble and defenceless fall into his strong ones, i.e. claws." — Delitzsch. How many thus fall! Our cities are full of fallen young men and women. We have thousands of heartless men in society answering to the vile robber pictured in these verses. For the sake of gain they set traps in which the health, honour, happiness, soul of the youthful perish. The whole civilised world was shocked the other day by the discovery that, by means of an infernal machine, a villain sent ships and their crews to the bottom of the sea for the sake of the insurance money; but thousands of atheistical, covetous men, for the sake of gain, are ingeniously seeking to sink the souls of the people in the gulf of hell. II. IT IS THUS THAT THE WORLD CONTRIVES TRAPS FOR THE GODLY. The world does not like the godly, and in various subtle methods it seeks to worst them. 1. It has traps for their reputation. "His mouth is full of perjury and deceit." He sets a net of cunningly devised speech, that he may be able to bring their good name into discredit. 2. It has traps for their fortune. It will "privily seek" to damage their circumstances. It will adroitly circulate reports, frame laws, to bring them into financial trouble. 3. It has traps for their character. They know the natural weaknesses of a Christian, and they bait their hook, set their net, accordingly. He is short tempered, and they contrive to put in his way occasions of auger; he is given to levity, and they provoke his mirth; he has strong appetites, and they put drink to his lips; he is feeble in faith, and they press him with scepticisms. The world hates the righteous, and when it cannot injure them openly it will secretly. The devil is a wily destroyer, and his children imitate his tactics and seek to murder the innocent. III. IT IS THUS THAT SATAN SETS TRAPS FOR US ALL. He is the great bandit pictured in the text; he is the great sorcerer whose soul traps beset us at every turn. What a clever fowler is he! what a politic huntsman! what a subtle angler! The devil hides himself, he disguises his movements, and in an evil hour men are drawn "into the net." Here he betrays by pleasure. Bates tells us of a spider in South America which looks like a blossom, and insects alighting on it for sweetness find death. So the great foe, under the asp

10:1-11 God's withdrawings are very grievous to his people, especially in times of trouble. We stand afar off from God by our unbelief, and then complain that God stands afar off from us. Passionate words against bad men do more hurt than good; if we speak of their badness, let it be to the Lord in prayer; he can make them better. The sinner proudly glories in his power and success. Wicked people will not seek after God, that is, will not call upon him. They live without prayer, and that is living without God. They have many thoughts, many objects and devices, but think not of the Lord in any of them; they have no submission to his will, nor aim for his glory. The cause of this is pride. Men think it below them to be religious. They could not break all the laws of justice and goodness toward man, if they had not first shaken off all sense of religion. 10:12-18 The psalmist speaks with astonishment, at the wickedness of the wicked, and at the patience and forbearance of God. God prepares the heart for prayer, by kindling holy desires, and strengthening our most holy faith, fixing the thoughts, and raising the affections, and then he graciously accepts the prayer. The preparation of the heart is from the Lord, and we must seek unto him for it. Let the poor, afflicted, persecuted, or tempted believer recollect, that Satan is the prince of this world, and that he is the father of all the ungodly. The children of God cannot expect kindness, truth, or justice from such persons as crucified the Lord of glory. But this once suffering Jesus, now reigns as King over all the earth, and of his dominion there shall be no end. Let us commit ourselves unto him, humbly trusting in his mercy. He will rescue the believer from every temptation, and break the arm of every wicked oppressor, and bruise Satan under our feet shortly. But in heaven alone will all sin and temptation be shut out, though in this life the believer has a foretaste of deliverance.