"Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5 His ways prosper at all times;
your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9 he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
and fall by his might.
11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”
12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
call his wickedness to account till you find none.
16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more."
Psalm 10
In the second part of the Psalm (11-18), the prayer of the Psalmist is for God to manifest Himself, and vindicate His Name in the breaking of the power of the enemy. He glows with indignation at the blasphemies which seem for the moment to be triumphant, and cries to God to prove that He does see and will requite. First there is the cry to 'arise' (12) and the complaint at God's seeming apathy (13). Next, prayer fastens on the facts of faith (14): 'Thou hast seen...Thou beholdest'. Faith argues from these facts into a blessed assurance. God sees it (to requite it with Thy hand, i.e. 'to take it in hand'). In 15, 16, faith in the sovereignty of God is expressed in the cry for His hand to break the power of evil, and to set it at naught. Finally, there is the assurance (17, 18) that prayer has been heard, and the entrance into peace.
The Psalm may be applied in a number of ways, as for example to national situations and times of pressure. How relevant this would have been in the days of the Covenanters, when men were persecuted for the Faith. How often the question 'Why does He not do something?' must have been asked in those days! Application can also be made to the inward pressures of the devil in our spiritual lives. One readily thinks of Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 1:8, 9, 'pressed out of measure, despairing even of life, the sentence of death upon him' - the seemingly never-ending run of pressure on the spirit. The same may be said of the work of the gospel, and the seeming silence of God when it seems so needful for Him to vindicate and honour the testimony of His Word, when men scoff, and criticise and oppose. We shall say something further about God's silences in the next Note.