John Calvin Commentary Psalms 59:11

"Slay them not, lest my people forget: Scatter them by thy power, and bring them down, O Lord our shield." — Psalms 59:11 (ASV)

Slay them not, lest my people forget. David very properly suggests this to his own mind as a consideration that should produce patience. We are apt to think, when God has not annihilated our enemies at once, that they have escaped from His hands altogether; and we look upon it as not truly a punishment that they should be gradually and slowly destroyed.

Since almost everyone, without exception, has such an extravagant desire to see their enemies exterminated at once, David checks himself and dwells upon the judgment of God to be seen in the lesser calamities that overtake the wicked. It is true that if our eyes were not blinded, we would behold a more evident display of divine retribution in cases where the destruction of the ungodly is sudden. However, these instances are so apt to fade from our remembrance that he had good reason to express his desire that the spectacle might be constantly renewed, so that our knowledge of God’s judgments might be more deeply engraved on our hearts.

He arms and fortifies himself against impatience with delays in the execution of divine judgment by the consideration that God has an express design in them; for if the wicked were exterminated in a moment, the remembrance of the event might quickly be effaced. An indirect censure is conveyed to the people of Israel for failing to learn from the more striking judgments of God.

But this sin is too prevalent in the world even today. Those judgments that are so evident that no one can fail to observe them without shutting their eyes, we sinfully allow to pass into oblivion, so that we need to be brought daily into that theater where we are compelled to perceive the divine hand.

We must never forget this when we see God subjecting His enemies to a gradual process of destruction, instead of launching His thunders instantly upon their heads. He prays that God would make them to wander, like men under poverty and misery who seek in every direction, but in vain, for a remedy for their misfortunes.

The idea is still more forcibly described in the words that follow, make them descend, or cast them down. He wished that they might be dragged from the position of honor which they had until then occupied and thrown to the ground, so as to present, in their wretchedness and degradation, a constant illustration of the wrath of God.

The word בחילך, becheylcha, which we have translated in Your power, some render with Your army, understanding this to mean the people of God. But it is more probable that David calls to his assistance the power of God for the destruction of his enemies, and this is because they deemed themselves invincible through those worldly resources in which they trusted.

As a further argument for obtaining his request, he suggests at the end of the verse that he was now pleading the cause of the whole Church, for he uses the plural phrase, O God our shield. Indeed, having been chosen king by divine appointment, the safety of the Church was connected with his person.

The assault made on him by his enemies was not an assault on him merely as a private individual, but on the whole people, whose common welfare God had considered in choosing him. And this suggested another reason why he should patiently submit to see the judgments of God measured out in the manner that might best engage their minds in diligent meditation.