John Calvin Commentary Psalms 94

O Jehovah! God of vengeances! We know that the Jews were surrounded by many neighbors who were not well-disposed towards them and were thus continually subject to the assaults and oppression of bitter enemies. As this internal persecution was even more distressing than the rampant and unrestrained violence of the wicked, we should not be surprised that the Psalmist would earnestly ask God for deliverance from it.

The expressions he uses, calling upon God to shine forth conspicuously and lift himself up on high, essentially mean that God would give some actual demonstration of His character as judge or avenger. For in that case, He is seen ascending His tribunal to exact the punishment due to sin and demonstrate His power in preserving order and government in the world.

This wording is used only in reference to ourselves, as we are inclined to feel as if He overlooked us unless He extends His hand to help us in some visible and open way. In calling Him twice in succession the God of vengeances, and then, judge of the earth, the Psalmist uses these titles as applicable to the present situation in which he stood, in a way reminding Him of the office that belonged to Him, and saying—O Lord! It is Yours to take vengeance upon sinners and judge the earth—see how they take advantage of the impunity extended to their guilt and triumph audaciously in their wickedness!

It is not that God needs to be reminded of His duty, for He never succumbs to indifference. Even when He seems to delay His judgments, He is only timing them according to what He knows to be the best season. But His people perceive Him in this way and use this as an occasion to embolden and stir themselves to greater fervency in prayer.

The same may be said of the repetition the Psalmist uses. When the wicked then indulge in unrestrained excesses, we must remember that God can never cease to assert His character as the judge of the earth who takes vengeance upon iniquity. Does He seem in our fleshly perception to have at any time withdrawn and hidden Himself? Let us offer without hesitation the prayer taught us here by the Holy Spirit: that He would shine forth.

O Jehovah! how long shall the wicked? The Psalmist justifies himself in this verse for the fervent persistence he showed in prayer. Immediate help was needed, as the wicked had reached such a level of insolence. The urgency of our situation can rightly make us bold in our requests, which are all the more likely to be heard because they are reasonable. Here, the Psalmist insists that his complaints were not without cause, nor did they arise from insignificant reasons, but were forced from him by injuries of the most blatant kind.

The length of time their persecutions had lasted is noted as an aggravating circumstance. They had become hardened under God's long-continued patience and, as a result, had developed a shamelessness and stubbornness of spirit, imagining that He looked upon their wickedness favorably. The phrase how long, repeated twice, implies the extent of impunity they had been allowed. This shows it was not as if they had just begun their wicked course, but that they had been tolerated for a long time and had become outrageously wicked.

In this way, wicked men in former times tyrannized over the Church to such a degree, while God did not yet intervene to provide a remedy. Therefore, we should not be surprised if He subjects the Church now to prolonged persecutions, nor should we conclude that He has utterly forsaken her just because He does not immediately act to remedy existing evils.

The term triumph denotes that full, bold, and boasting exultation which the wicked feel when they are carried away by continued prosperity, and imagine they can indulge in every excess without restraint.

They pour forth, they speak hard things. He shows in still clearer terms how their fierceness in persecution was such that they did not scruple to glory in their guilt. The Hebrew verb נבע, nabang, means more than to speak. Literally, it signifies to rush or boil forth, and comes to denote figuratively the uttering of reckless or rash words.

We see how wicked men are instigated by pride and vainglory to demean and disgrace themselves so far as to boast vaingloriously of their power, breathing out threats of bloodshed, violence, and monstrous cruelty. It is to such ebullitions that the Psalmist refers, when men who are lost to all sense of shame and modesty boast of the wickedness which they can perpetrate at will.

This is what he means by their speaking hard things, uttering discourse that is under no restraint of fear or prudential consideration, but which launches into the most unbridled license. As the Lord’s people formerly had to endure the heavy trial of seeing the Church subjected to this wild tyranny and misrule, we should not consider it strange to see the Church still suffering under miserable misgovernment or positive oppression, but should pray for help from God, who, though He connives at wickedness for a time, eventually comes to the deliverance of His children.

They break in pieces thy people, O Jehovah! Having spoken of their discourse or language as vain-glorious and shameless, he proceeds to speak of their deeds in cruelly persecuting the Church. It is hard that even the subjects of heathen princes should be subjected to unjust persecution, but it is a more intolerable thing still that those who are God’s own people, His special inheritance, should be trampled under the foot of tyranny.

The prayer before us is one which, as I have already remarked, is given with the intention that we should offer it ourselves when we or others may be persecuted by wicked men, and especially by internal enemies. Our safety is dear to the Lord, not only as we are men, the workmanship of His hand, but also as we are His special heritage; and this should lead us, when wronged at any time, to turn to God with greater confidence.

It is further added—that they do not spare the widow, and the orphan, and murder the stranger. God, while He has commanded us in general to cultivate equity and justice in our common dealings, has commended the orphan, widow, and stranger to our special care, as they are more exposed to injury and therefore more entitled to humane treatment and compassion.

To treat such individuals with cruelty demonstrates an exceptional degree of impiety and contempt for divine authority. This is not only an outrage against common justice but also a violation of a privilege of special protection which God has condescended to extend to them. Those who are guilty of such conduct particularly provoke divine anger.

Regarding little children especially, their helplessness and tender age often protect them even from being attacked by dogs and wild beasts. What, then, shall we think of the monstrous inhumanity of men who would make them the targets of their assault? We have here an example of the dreadful state of affairs that must have prevailed at that time in the Church of God.

The Law was there, and the ordinances of divine appointment, yet we see to what an awful extent every kind of wickedness abounded. Let us beware that we do not fall into a similar state of corruption. And if it should happen under our own observation that men persecute the stranger, seize the widow, and rob the fatherless, let us, in imitation of the Psalmist, who would have us alleviate their misfortunes, pray that God would undertake their defense.

And they have said, God shall not see. When the Psalmist speaks of the wicked as taunting God with blindness and ignorance, we are not to think of them as literally entertaining this idea about Him in their hearts; rather, they despise His judgments as much as if He took no cognizance of human affairs.

If the truth were engraved on people's hearts that they cannot elude God's eye, this would serve as a check and restraint on their conduct. When they proceed to such audacity in wickedness as to commit violence against their fellow human beings, to rob, and to destroy, it shows that they have fallen into a state of brutish security, in which they virtually consider themselves hidden from the Almighty's view.

This security, at least, sufficiently proves that they act as if they never expected to be called to account for their conduct.

Although they may not be guilty of the gross blasphemy of asserting in so many words that God is ignorant of what happens in the world—a mere nothing in the universe—the Psalmist very properly charges them with denying God’s providential government. Indeed, they are openly stripping Him of the power and function of judge and governor.

For if they were truly persuaded, as they should be, of His superintending providence, they would honor Him by feeling a reverential fear—as I have observed elsewhere at greater length.

He intends to describe the lowest and most abandoned stage of depravity, in which the sinner casts off the fear of God and rushes into every excess. Such infatuated conduct would have been inexcusable even in heathens, who had never heard of a divine revelation; but it was monstrous for those who had been brought up from infancy in the knowledge of the Word to show such mockery and contempt of God.