John Calvin Commentary Psalms 59:13

"Consume them in wrath, consume them, so that they shall be no more: And let them know that God ruleth in Jacob, Unto the ends of the earth. Selah" — Psalms 59:13 (ASV)

Consume, consume them in wrath, that they may not be David may seem to contradict himself in praying for the utter destruction of his enemies, when immediately before he had expressed his desire that they might not be exterminated at once. What else could he mean when he asks that God would consume them in wrath, if not that He would cut them off suddenly, and not by a gradual and slower process of punishment?

But he evidently refers in what he says here to a different point of time, and this removes any apparent inconsistency. He prays that when they had been set up for a sufficient period as an example, they might eventually be devoted to destruction. It was customary with victorious Roman generals, first to lead the captives who had been kept for the day of triumph through the city, and afterwards, upon reaching the Capitol, to give them over to the lictors for execution.

Now David prays that when God had, in a similar manner, reserved his enemies for an interval sufficient to illustrate His triumph, He would then consign them to summary punishment. The two things are not at all inconsistent. First, divine judgments might be prolonged for a considerable period to ensure they are better remembered. Then, once sufficient evidence has been given to the world of the certainty with which the wicked, in God’s displeasure, are subjected to the slower process of destruction, He would in due time bring them forth to final execution. This demonstration of His power would better awaken the minds of those who may be more complacent than others, or less affected by witnessing moderate inflictions of punishment.

He adds, accordingly, that they may know, even to the ends of the earth, that God ruleth in Jacob. Some would insert the copulative particle, reading, that they may know that God rules in Jacob, and in all the nations of the world, an interpretation which I do not approve, and which does violence to the sense.

The allusion is to the deserved nature of the judgment, which would be such that the report of it would reach the remotest regions and strike salutary terror into the minds even of their unenlightened and godless inhabitants. He was especially anxious that God should be recognized as ruling in the Church, as it is preposterous that the place where His throne was erected should present such an aspect of confusion as converted His temple into a den of thieves.