9Then all men will fear,
         And they will declare the work of God,
         And will consider what He has done.

10The righteous man will be glad in the LORD and will take refuge in Him;
         And all the upright in heart will glory.

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
So they will make him stumble; Their own tongue is against them; All who see them will shake the head.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
They will trip over their own tongues. Everyone who sees them will shake his head.

King James Bible
So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.

Douay-Rheims Bible
and their tongues against them are made weak. All that saw them were troubled;

Darby Bible Translation
By their own tongue they are made to fall over one another: all that see them shall flee away.

English Revised Version
So they shall be made to stumble, their own tongue being against them: all that see them shall wag the head.

Webster's Bible Translation
So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.

World English Bible
Their own tongues shall ruin them. All who see them will shake their heads.

Young's Literal Translation
And they cause him to stumble, Against them is their own tongue, Every looker on them fleeth away.

Cross References

Psalm 9:3 When my enemies turn back, They stumble and perish before You.

Psalm 22:7 All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,

Psalm 44:14 You make us a byword among the nations, A laughingstock among the peoples.

Proverbs 12:13 An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, But the righteous will escape from trouble.

Proverbs 18:7 A fool's mouth is his ruin, And his lips are the snare of his soul.

Jeremiah 18:16 To make their land a desolation, An object of perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head.

Jeremiah 48:27 "Now was not Israel a laughingstock to you? Or was he caught among thieves? For each time you speak about him you shake your head in scorn.

Lamentations 2:15 All who pass along the way Clap their hands in derision at you; They hiss and shake their heads At the daughter of Jerusalem, "Is this the city of which they said, 'The perfection of beauty, A joy to all the earth '?"

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 7-10

We may observe here,

I. The judgments of God which should certainly come upon these malicious persecutors of David. Though they encouraged themselves in their wickedness, here is that which, if they would believe and consider it, was enough to discourage them. And it is observable how the punishment answers the sin. 1. They shot at David secretly and suddenly, to wound him; but God shall shoot at them, for the ordains his arrows against the persecutors (Ps. 7:13), against the face of them, Ps. 21:12. And God's arrows will hit surer, and fly swifter, and pierce deeper, than theirs do or can. They have many arrows, but they are only bitter words, and words are but wind: the curse causeless shall not come. But God has one arrow that will be their death, his curse which is never causeless, and therefore shall come; with it they shall be suddenly wounded, that is, their wound by it will be a surprise upon them, because they were secure and not apprehensive of any danger. 2. Their tongues fell upon him, but God shall make their tongues to fall upon themselves. They do it by the desert of their sin; God does it by the justice of his wrath, v. 8. When God deals with men according to the desert of their tongue-sins, and brings those mischiefs upon them which they have passionately and maliciously imprecated upon others, then he makes their own tongues to fall upon them; and it is weight enough to sink a man to the lowest hell, like a talent of lead. Many have cut their own throats, and many more have damned their own souls, with their tongues, and it will be an aggravation of their condemnation. O Israel! thou hast destroyed thyself, art snared in the words of thy mouth. If thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. Those that love cursing, it shall come unto them. Sometimes men's secret wickedness is brought to light by their own confession, and then their own tongue falls upon them.

II. The influence which these judgments should have upon others; for it is done in the open sight of all, Job 34:26.

1. Their neighbours shall shun them and shift for their own safety. They shall flee away, as the men of Israel did from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Num. 16:27. Some think this was fulfilled in the death of Saul, when not only his army was dispersed, but the inhabitants of the neighbouring country were so terrified with the fall, not only of their king but of his three sons, that they quitted their cities and fled, 1 Sa. 31:7.

2. Spectators shall reverence the providence of God therein, v. 9. (1.) They shall understand and observe God's hand in all (and, unless we do so, we are not likely to profit by the dispensations of Providence, Hos. 14:9): They shall wisely consider his doing. There is need of consideration and serious thought rightly to apprehend the matter of fact, and need of wisdom to put a true interpretation upon it. God's doing is well worth our considering (Eccl. 7:13), but it must be considered wisely, that we put not a corrupt gloss upon a pure text. (2.) They shall be affected with a holy awe of God upon the consideration of it. All men (all that have any thing of the reason of a man in them) shall fear and tremble because of God's judgments, Ps. 119:120. They shall fear to do the like, fear being found persecutors of God's people. Smite the scorner and the simple shall beware. (3.) They shall declare the work of God. They shall speak to one another and to all about them of the justice of God in punishing persecutors. What we wisely consider ourselves we should wisely declare to others, for their edification and the glory of God. This is the finger of God.

3. Good people shall in a special manner take notice of it, and it shall affect them with a holy pleasure, v. 10. (1.) It shall increase their joy: The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, not glad of the misery and ruin of their fellow-creatures, but glad that God is glorified, and his word fulfilled, and the cause of injured innocency pleaded effectually. (2.) It shall encourage their faith. They shall commit themselves to him in the way of duty and be willing to venture for him with an entire confidence in him. (3.) Their joy and faith shall both express themselves in a holy boasting: All the upright in heart, that keep a good conscience and approve themselves to God, shall glory, not in themselves, but in the favour of God, in his righteousness and goodness, their relation to him and interest in him. Let him that glories glory in the Lord.

Calvin's Commentary

7. And God shall shoot an arrow at them; suddenly shall they be wounded. 8. And they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: and all that see them shall flee away. [441] 9. And all men shall see, and shall declare the work of God, and shall understand [442] what he hath done. 10. The righteous shall be glad in Jehovah, and shall hope in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.

7 And God shall shoot an arrow at them The Psalmist now congratulates himself in the confident persuasion that his prayers have not been without effect, but already answered. Though there was no appearance of God's approaching judgment, he declares that it would suddenly be executed; and in this he affords a remarkable proof of his faith. He saw the wicked hardening themselves in their prosperity, and presuming upon impunity from the divine connivance and forbearance; but instead of yielding to discouragement, he was borne up by the belief that God, according to his usual mode of procedure with the wicked, would visit them at an unexpected moment, when they were flattering themselves with having escaped, and indulging in extravagant confidence. It is a consideration which should comfort us, when subjected to long-continued trial, that God, in delaying to punish the ungodly, does so with the express design of afterwards inflicting judgments of a more condign description upon them, and when they shall say, "Peace and safety," overwhelming them with sudden destruction, (Jeremiah 8:11 [443] )

8 And they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves Pursuing the same subject, he remarks, that the poison concocted in their secret counsels, and which they revealed with their tongues, would prove to have a deadly effect upon themselves. The sentiment is the same with that expressed elsewhere by another figure, when they are said to be caught in their own snares, and to fall into the pit which they have digged themselves, (Psalm 57:6.) It is just that Heaven should make the mischiefs which they had devised against innocent and upright men to recoil upon their own heads. The judgment is one which we see repeatedly and daily exemplified before our eyes, and yet we find much difficulty in believing that it can take place. We should feel ourselves bound the more to impress the truth upon our hearts, that God is ever watching, as it were, his opportunity of converting the stratagems of the wicked into means just as completely effective of their destruction, as if they had intentionally employed them for that end. In the close of the verse, to point out the striking severity of their punishment, it is said that all who saw them should flee away The judgments of God are lifted above out of the sight of an ignorant world, and ere it can be roused to fear and dismay, these must be such as to bear signal marks indeed of a divine hand.

9 And all men shall see, and shall declare the work of God. He insists more fully upon the good effects which would result from the judgment executed in leading such as had formerly overlooked a Divine Providence altogether, to catch a spirit of inquiry from the singularity of the spectacle; and acquaint themselves with, and speak one to another of a subject hitherto entirely new to them. He intimates, that the knowledge of what God had so signally wrought would extend far and wide -- for he says, all men, etc. The Hebrew verb skl, shachal, employed, admits either of the neuter signification, they shall understand, or of the active, they shall cause others to understand. But as it is usual with David to repeat the same thing twice, perhaps the latter or transitive sense is preferable. Another desirable consequence which would flow from the deliverance granted is mentioned in the last verse, that it would afford matter of joy, hope, and holy triumph to the saints, who would be confirmed in expecting the same help from God which he had extended to his servant David. Those formerly called the righteous are now styled the upright in heart, to teach us, that the only righteousness which proves acceptable is that which proceeds from inward sincerity. This truth I have insisted upon at large elsewhere.

Footnotes:

[441] "Ou, trembleront." -- Fr. marg. "Or, shall tremble."

[442] "Ou, feront entendre." -- Fr. marg. "Or, shall cause to understand."

[443] In the French version the reference is changed to 1 Thessalonians 5:3.

Links

Psalm 64 Commentaries: Barnes • Calvin • Clarke • Darby • Gill • Geneva • Guzik • JFB • Keil / Delitzsch • KJV Translators' • Henry's Concise • Matthew Henry • Scofield • TSK • Treasury of David • Wesley

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New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org.

GOD'S WORD® is a copyrighted work of God's Word to the Nations. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by God's Word to the Nations. All rights reserved.

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