John Calvin Commentary Psalms 10:16

"Jehovah is King for ever and ever: The nations are perished out of his land." — Psalms 10:16 (ASV)

Jehovah is King for ever and ever. David now, as if he had obtained the desires of his heart, rises up to holy rejoicing and thanksgiving. When he calls God King for ever and ever, it is a sign of his confidence and joy.

By the title of King, he vindicates God’s claim to the government of the world. When he describes Him as King for ever and ever, this shows how absurd it is to think of confining Him within the narrow limits of time.

As the course of human life is short, even those who sway the scepter over the greatest empires, being but mortal men, very often disappoint the expectations of their servants, as we are taught in Psalm 146:3-4:

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

Often the power of giving assistance to others fails them, and while they are delaying to give it, the opportunity slips away from them. But we should hold more exalted and honorable conceptions of our heavenly King; for although He does not immediately execute His judgments, yet He always has the full and the perfect power of doing so.

In short, He reigns, not for Himself in particular; it is for us that He reigns for ever and ever. As this, then, is the duration of His reign, it follows that a long delay cannot hinder Him from stretching forth His hand in due season to help His people, even when they are, as it were, dead, or in a condition which, from a human perspective, is hopeless.

The heathen are perished out of the land. The meaning is, that the holy land was finally purged from the abominations and impurities with which it had been polluted. It was a dreadful profanation, when the land which had been given for an inheritance to the people of God, and allotted to those who purely worshipped Him, sustained ungodly and wicked inhabitants.

By the heathen he does not mean foreigners, and those who did not belong to the race of Abraham according to the flesh, but hypocrites, who falsely boasted that they belonged to the people of God, just as today many, who are Christians only in name, occupy a place within the Church.

It is nothing new for the prophets to call apostates, who have degenerated from the virtues and holy lives of their fathers, by the reproachful name of heathen, and to compare them not only to the uncircumcised, but also to the Canaanites, who were the most detestable among all the heathen.

Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite, (Ezekiel 16:3).

Many other similar passages can be found in Scripture. David, therefore, in applying the dishonorable name of heathen to the false and bastard children of Abraham, gives God thanks for having expelled such a corrupt class out of His Church. By this example we are taught, that it is nothing new if we see today the Church of God polluted by profane and irreligious men. We should, however, implore God quickly to purge His house, and not leave His holy temple exposed to the desecration of swine and dogs, as if it were a dunghill.