Ps. 58 THE ARGUMENT This Psalm was composed, as very many others were, upon the occasion of those wicked calumnies, and unjust censures and sentences, which were passed upon him by Saul and his courtiers. David, reproving wicked judges, describeth their nature, Ps.

Do ye indeed speak righteousness? the question implies a denial. You censure me freely, without any regard to truth or justice. Congregation: the word signifies a band or company of men, and seems to point at Saul’s judges and counsellors; who met together to consult what they should do against…

In heart; or, with your heart; with free choice and consent, and not only by constraint, and out of compliance with Saul. Ye weigh the violence of your hands; or, you weigh violence or injustice with your hands.

Estranged, to wit, from God, Eph. 4:18, and from all goodness. From the womb; either, 1. Hyperbolically; even from their tender years. Or, 2. Strictly and properly.

Their poison, their virulent and malicious disposition, is like the poison of a serpent; partly in itself, being natural, and inveterate, and incurable; and partly in its most pernicious effects.

This similitude doth neither justify the practice of charming, which, in the very word here used, is condemned, Deut. 18:11, no more than those which are drawn from the unjust steward, Luke 16:1;c. Luke 18:2;c., and from a thief, Rev.

Their teeth; their power and instruments of doing mischief. He mentions teeth, partly because the adder’s poison lies in its teeth; and partly to make way for the following metaphor.

As waters which run continually; as waters arising from melted snow, or great showers, or some other extraordinary cause, which at first run with great force and noise, and throw down all that stands in their way, but are suddenly gone, and run away and vanish, and return no more.

Which melteth; Which thrusts forth, and seems to threaten with its horns, but is quickly dissolved; for when it goes out of its shell, it spends its vital moisture, until by degrees it waste away and perish.

Feel the thorns, i.e. the heat of the fire kindled by the thorns put under them for that purpose; before your pots can be thoroughly heated. Take them away, to wit, mine enemies; whose sudden destruction he describes under this similitude. As with a whirlwind, i.e. violently and irresistibly.

The vengeance, i.e. the vengeance of God upon his implacable enemies; not simply for himself, but for the blessed effects of it, the vindication of God’s honour, and the deliverance of himself and of all good men. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, i.e.

And these administrations of God’s providence shall be so evident and convincing, that not only good men shall be sensible thereof, but any man that sees them, yea, even such as were apt to dispute or doubt of God’s providence, shall upon this eminent occasion break forth into such exclamations as…