John Calvin Commentary Psalms 94:15

"For judgment shall return unto righteousness; And all the upright in heart shall follow it." — Psalms 94:15 (ASV)

But judgment will return unto righteousness. In the dark season of affliction, it is not easy to recognize the secret love that God even then bears to his own children, and the Psalmist presents another ground of comfort, in the fact that God will eventually put an end to the confusions that perplex them, and bring matters to order.

The form of expression used by the Psalmist is a little obscure, and this has led some to read the first part of the verse as if it contained two distinct clauses—justice will return at the end, and then, judgment will return. This is a violent distortion of the context.

I have no doubt the Psalmist meant to say that judgment would be fitted or conformed to justice. And judgment here means, as in many other places, the government or public state of affairs. The confusion that prevails in the world seems to suggest some defect or unrighteousness of administration; and he holds out to us that it will be well in the end.

More is said than merely that people who indulged in reckless oppression would be brought back to equitable dealing. A deeper meaning is intended: that God, when he intervened to restore the condition of his people, would bring forth openly to the light his justice that had lain concealed.

By this, we are not to understand that he ever deviates in the least in his providence from the strictest rectitude. It is only that there is not always that harmony and arrangement that might make his righteousness apparent to human view, and the correction of this inequality is here called justice of government.

As the sun’s light is hidden from view at night, or in a cloudy season, so when the wicked persecute the righteous and are allowed to indulge in iniquity without restraint, the Divine justice is obscured by the clouds that are thus interposed between us and the providence of God, and judgment is, in a way, separated from justice.

But when things are brought back to their proper state, justice and government are seen to harmonize perfectly together in the equality that prevails. Faith, no doubt, should enable us to discern the justice of God even when things are most dark and disordered; but the passage speaks of what would be obvious to sense and actual observation, and asserts that the justice of God would shine as the sky when all is calm and serene.

And all that are upright in heart after him. Some read, after it, that is, after righteousness; but as by righteousness here we are to understand the equal and harmonious government that prevails when God takes vengeance upon the wicked and delivers his own people, this rendering will hardly suit. It would rather seem that God himself is to be understood, so that the relative is here without an antecedent.

In Hebrew, when God is mentioned, the relative is not unfrequently put instead of his name. The words then mean that upon God’s restoring order in the world, his people would be encouraged to follow him with greater alacrity. Even when called to bear the cross, they sigh after him under their troubles and distresses, but it binds them more closely to his service when they see his hand stretched forth in this visible manner and sensibly experience his deliverance.