John Calvin Commentary Psalms 119:126

"It is time for Jehovah to work; [For] they have made void thy law." — Psalms 119:126 (ASV)

It is time for thee, O Jehovah! to be doing. Since the Prophet's object is to call down upon the impious and wicked the vengeance they have deserved, he says that the fitting time for executing it had now arrived, because they had carried their reckless presumption against God to a great extent.

The general verb doing is more emphatic than if one more specific had been used. The language is as if he had said that God would seem to delay too long if he did not now execute the office of a judge. It is the unique work of God to restrain the wicked, and even to punish them severely when he finds that their repentance is utterly hopeless.

If it is alleged that this prayer is inconsistent with the law of charity, it may be replied that David here speaks of reprobates, whose amendment has become desperate. His heart, there is no doubt, was governed by the spirit of wisdom. Besides, it is to be remembered that he does not complain of his own private wrongs.

It is a pure and honest zeal which moves him to desire the destruction of the wicked despisers of God; for he adduces no other reason for the prayer than that the wicked destroyed God’s law. By this he gives evidence that nothing was dearer to him than the service of God, and that nothing was held by him in higher regard than the observance of the law.

I have already repeatedly warned you, in other places, that our zeal is presumptuous and disordered whenever its moving principle is a sense of our own personal injuries. It is, therefore, to be carefully noted that the Prophet’s grief proceeded from no other cause than that he could not endure to see the divine law violated.

In short, this is a prayer that God would restore to order the confused and ruinous state of things in the world. It remains for us to learn from David’s example, whenever the earth is fraught and defiled with wickedness to such a degree that the fear of him has become almost extinct, to call upon him to show himself the maintainer of his own glory.

This doctrine is useful in sustaining our hope and patience whenever God suspends the execution of his judgments longer than we would wish. Before addressing God, the Prophet adopts it as a principle that, although God may seem for a time to take no notice of what his creatures do, yet he never forgets his office, but delays the execution of his judgments for wise reasons, so that at length he may execute them when the seasonable time arrives.