Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 9:16
The LORD is known [by] the judgment [which] he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.
16. Jehovah hath made himself known, he hath executed judgment,
Snaring the wicked in the work of his own hands.
For God’s revelation of Himself in judgment comp. Psa 48:3 (R.V.): Exo 7:5; Exo 14:4; Exo 14:18; Eze 38:23.
Higgaion ] A musical term, rendered a solemn sound in Psa 92:3, and here in conjunction with Selah directing the introduction of a jubilant interlude, to celebrate the triumph of the divine righteousness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth – By what; he does in his dealings with men, in dispensing rewards and punishments, bestowing blessings upon the righteous, and sending punishments upon the ungodly. That is, his character can be learned from his dealings with mankind; or, by studying the dispensation of his Providence, we may learn what he is. This is always a fair and proper way of estimating character, alike in regard to God and man; and it is proper, at all times, to study what God does, to learn what he is.
The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands – The same sentiment which is expressed here occurs in Psa 7:16. The idea is that the wicked are the cause of their own destruction; their own devices and designs are the means of their ruin, and they are made their own executioners. It is this to which the writer seems particularly to refer in the former part of the verse, when he says that the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth. This great principle is brought out in his dealings with human beings, that the course which wicked men pursue is the cause of their own ruin. The laws of God in a great measure execute themselves, and men bring upon themselves their own destruction. It is the highest perfection of government to make ttle laws execute themselves.
Higgaion – Margin, Meditation. This word occurs elsewhere only in the following places, Psa 19:14, rendered meditation; Psa 92:3, rendered solemn sound; Lam 3:62. rendered device. Its proper meaning is, murmur; muttering; the utterance of a low sound, as the low sound of a harp; or the murmuring or muttering of one who talks to himself; and then meditation. Compare the notes at Psa 2:1, on the word imagine, Margin, meditate, – the verb from which this is derived. Gesenius supposes that it is here a musical sound. So it is understood by the Septuagint – ode diapsalmatos. It is not known why it is introduced here. There seems to be nothing in the sense which demands it, as there is no particular reason why the reader should pause and meditate here rather than in any other place in the psalm. It is doubtless a mere musical pause, though perhaps indicating the kind of pause in the music, as some special sound or interlude on the musical instrument that was employed.
Selah – Another musical term, see the notes at Psa 3:2. This indicates a general pause; the word Higgaion denotes the particular kind of pause.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 9:16
With long life will I satisfy him.
Healthy religion
Through the mistake of its friends religion has been chiefly associated with sickbeds and grave yards. It is high time this thing were changed, and that religion, instead of being represented as a hearse to carry out the dead, should be represented as a chariot in which the living are to triumph. Religion, so far from subtracting from ones vitality, is a glorious addition. It is sanative, curative, hygienic. It is good for every part of man. Religion has only just touched our world. Give it full power for a few centuries, and who can tell what will be the strength of man, and the beauty of woman, and the longevity of all! Practical religion is ever the friend of longevity.
I. It makes the care of our health a positive Christian duty. Whether we shall keep early or late hours, take food digestible or indigestible, etc., is often referred to the realm of whimsicality; but the Christian man lifts this whole problem of health into the accountable and the Divine. The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and to deface its altars, or mar its walls, or crumble its pillars, is a God-defying sacrilege.
II. It is a protest against dissipations which injure and destroy the health. Bad men and women live very short lives. Their sins kill them. There are many aged ones who would have been dead twenty-five years ago but for the defences and equipoise of religion.
III. It takes the worry out of our temporalities. It is not work but worry that kills men. When a man becomes a Christian he makes over to God not only his affections but his family, his business, his reputation, his body, his mind, his soul–everything. He gives God the management of his affairs. If the nervous and feverish people of the world would try this almighty sedative, they would live twenty-five years longer under its soothing power. It is not chloral or morphine that they want; it is more of the Gospel of Christ.
IV. It removes all corroding care about a future existence. Everyone wants to know what is to become of him. There are people who fret themselves to death for fear of dying. The Gospel offers you perfect peace now and hereafter. What do you want in the future? This is the robust, healthy religion that will tend to make you live long in this world, and in the world to come give you eternal life. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. The Lord is known by the judgment] It is not every casualty that can properly be called a judgment of God. Judgment is his strange work; but when he executes it, his mind is plainly to be seen. There are no natural causes to which such calamities can be legally attributed.
The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.] There is nothing that a wicked man does that is not against his own interest. He is continually doing himself harm, and takes more pains to destroy his soul than the righteous man does to get his saved unto eternal life. This is a weighty truth; and the psalmist adds: Higgaion; Selah. Meditate on this; mark it well. See on Ps 3:3. Some think that it is a direction to the musicians, something like our Presto, Largo, Vivace, Allegro, “Play briskly and boldly; beat away; and let sense and sound accompany each other.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The Lord is known, or, hath made himself known, or famous even among his enemies, by his most wise counsels and wonderful works.
By the judgment which he executeth upon the wicked, as it followeth.
Higgaion is either a musical term, or a note of attention, a kind of behold, intimating that the matter deserves deep and frequent meditation, or consideration, as the word signifies.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. Higgaionmeans”meditation,” and, combined with Selah, seems todenote a pause of unusual solemnity and emphasis (compare Ps3:2). Though Selah occurs seventy-three times, this is theonly case in which Higgaion is found. In the view which isgiven here of the retribution on the wicked as an instance of God’swise and holy ordering, we may well pause in adoring wonder andfaith.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Lord is known [by] the judgment [which] he executeth,…. The judgment which God will execute upon antichrist, and the antichristian powers, will be a means of making known his name, his glory, his perfections, in all the earth; as his wisdom, power, justice, and goodness; see Ex 9:16. The destruction of antichrist will be the Lord’s doing, and it will be a righteous one; it will be a just retaliation; as he has killed with the sword, multitudes of his followers shall be killed with the sword; as he has led captive, he shall be taken captive at the battle of Armageddon; as he has burnt, many of the martyrs of Jesus, he shall be cast into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. Some read these words as two sentences, “The Lord is known; he hath executed judgment” n: the latter of these refers not to the ministration of justice in the providential government of the world, or at the last day in the general judgment; but to the judgment of the great whore, or antichrist, at which time the Lord will be known in his Gospel in all the world; the earth will be tilled with the knowledge of him, and he, and he alone, will be exalted; his name will be great and glorious throughout the earth; all shall know him, from the least to the greatest; and their knowledge of him will be very clear and comprehensive;
the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands; not Goliath, as Kimchi thinks, who was slain by David with his own sword, though this was true of him in the letter and type; but the wicked one, the man of sin and son of perdition, antichrist, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all craftiness and wily stratagems, called the depths of Satan, Re 2:24; but his own sins shall take him, and he shall be holden with the cords of his iniquities, and be rewarded double for all his sins; what is before figuratively expressed is here literally declared; or, “he hath snared the wicked in or by the work of his hands” o, that is, God.
Higgaion. Selah; of the latter of these words, [See comments on Ps 3:2]; the former signifies “meditation”; Jarchi paraphrases it , “let us meditate on this, selah”; Aben Ezra interprets it, “I will show forth this in truth”; the Chaldee paraphrase is, “the righteous shall rejoice for ever”; the note of Kimchi and Ben Melech is, “this salvation is to us meditation and praise”; upon the whole the sense seems to be this, that God’s judgments upon antichrist, and the antichristian states, and the deliverance of his people from their yoke and tyranny, are things worthy of the meditation of the saints, and afford just matter of joy, praise, and thanksgiving.
n “notus est Dominus; judicium fecit”, Pagninus, Montanus, Gussetius; so Vatablus, Musculus, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis, and Ainsworth. o “illaqueavit iniquum per opus (vel in opere) manunm ipsius”, Gussetius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
16. The Lord is known in executing judgment. The reading of the words literally is this, The known Lord has done judgment. This manner of speech is abrupt, and its very brevity renders it obscure. It is therefore explained in two ways. Some explain it thus:- God begins then to be known when he punishes the wicked. But the other sense suits the passage better, namely, that it is a thing obvious and manifest to all that God executes the office of judge, as often as he ensnares the wicked in their own maliciousness. In short, whenever God turns back upon themselves whatever schemes of mischief they devise, David declares that in this case the divine judgment is so evident, that what happens can be ascribed neither to nature nor to fortune. If God, therefore, in this way manifestly display, at any time, the power of his hand, let us learn to open our eyes, that from the judgments which he executes upon the enemies of his Church our faith may be confirmed more and more. As to the word Higgaion, which properly signifies meditation, I cannot at present assign a better reason why it has been inserted than this, that David intended to fix the minds of the godly in meditation upon the judgments of God. The word Selah was intended to answer the same purpose, and as I have said before, regulated the singing in such a manner as to make the music correspond to the words and the sentiment.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) The Lord.Better, Jehovah hath made himself known. He hath executed judgment, snaring the wicked in the work of his own hands.
Higgaion. Selah.Higgaion occurs three times in the Psalmshere. Psa. 19:14, and Psa. 92:4 (Heb.). In the two latter places it is translated; in Psa. 19:14, meditation; in Psa. 92:4, solemn sound. Both meanings are etymologically possible, but the word apparently, indicates some change in the music, or possibly, as joined with selah, a direction to some particular part of the orchestra.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 9:16. Higgaion See the note on Psa 3:2.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 9:16 The LORD is known [by] the judgment [which] he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.
Ver. 16. The Lord is known by the judgment, &c. ] The heathen historian Herodotus oberved, that the ruin of Troy served to teach men that God punisheth great sinners with heavy plagues. “Go up to Shiloh,” &c
The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands
Higgaion. Selah
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Higgaion = soliloquy, or meditation. See App-66.
Selah. Connecting the wicked one (singular) of Psa 9:16 with the wicked ones (plural) of Psa 9:17. See App-66.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
known: Psa 48:11, Psa 58:10, Psa 58:11, Psa 83:17, Psa 83:18, Exo 7:5, Exo 14:4, Exo 14:10, Exo 14:31, Deu 29:22-28, Jos 2:10, Jos 2:11, Jdg 1:7, 1Sa 6:19, 1Sa 6:20, 1Sa 17:46, 2Ki 19:19, 2Ki 19:34, 2Ki 19:35
wicked: Psa 11:6, Psa 140:9, Pro 6:2, Pro 12:13, Isa 8:15, Isa 28:13
Higgaion: that is, Meditation, Psa 5:1, Psa 19:14, Psa 92:3, *marg.
Reciprocal: Exo 7:17 – thou shalt Exo 8:10 – there is none Exo 9:27 – the Lord Exo 34:7 – that will by no means clear the guilty Num 31:8 – Balaam Deu 32:4 – all his Jos 3:10 – Hereby ye Jos 8:16 – drawn away 2Sa 17:11 – in thine 2Sa 18:19 – avenged him 2Sa 20:12 – General 1Ki 16:19 – in doing 1Ki 21:19 – In the place 2Ch 22:7 – was of God 2Ch 33:13 – knew Est 7:9 – Hang him thereon Job 5:13 – taketh Psa 5:10 – let Psa 7:15 – and is Psa 10:2 – let Psa 36:12 – There Psa 50:6 – Selah Psa 57:6 – a net Psa 79:6 – not known Psa 79:10 – let him Psa 94:15 – But Psa 94:23 – And he Psa 119:43 – for I have Psa 140:11 – evil Psa 146:7 – executeth Pro 1:18 – General Pro 11:5 – direct Pro 11:27 – he that seeketh Pro 21:7 – robbery Ecc 10:8 – that Isa 5:16 – the Lord Isa 49:26 – and all Jer 16:21 – I will this Eze 7:27 – and they Eze 11:10 – and ye Eze 12:15 – General Eze 15:7 – and ye shall Eze 20:38 – and ye Eze 22:16 – thou shalt know Eze 23:49 – and ye shall know Eze 25:11 – I will Eze 25:17 – they shall Eze 28:22 – I will Eze 30:19 – General Eze 30:25 – they shall know Eze 32:15 – then Eze 33:29 – shall Eze 35:11 – and I Eze 38:23 – and I Eze 39:22 – know Dan 4:17 – that the living Hos 7:2 – their own Mic 6:9 – the man of wisdom shall see thy name Hab 3:3 – Selah Joh 8:9 – went out Act 5:37 – he also 1Co 3:19 – He
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
9:16 {h} The LORD is known [by] the judgment [which] he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.
(h) The mercy of God toward his saints must be declared and the fall of the wicked must always be considered.