Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 82:3

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

3. Judge the weak and fatherless:

Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Defend the poor and fatherless – literally, judge; that is, Pronounce just judgment; see that right is done to them. This is required everywhere in the Scriptures. The meaning is not that judgment is to be pronounced in their favor because they are poor, or because they are orphans, for this would be to do what they had just been charged with as in itself wrong, accepting of persons; that is, showing favor on account of condition or rank, rather than on account of a just claim. The idea is, that the poor and the fatherless, having no natural protectors, were likely to be wronged or oppressed; that they had none to defend their claims; and that magistrates, therefore, as if they were their natural protectors, should see that their rights were maintained. See the notes at Isa 1:17.

Do justice to the afflicted and needy – See that justice is done them; that they are not wronged by persons of wealth, of power, and of rank. Such care does religion take of those who have no natural guardians. The poor and the needy – the widow and the fatherless – owe to the religion of the Bible a debt which no language can express.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 82:3-4

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

The magistrates duty

This counsel of God, saith Luther, is worthy to be written in letters of gold on the walls of all judicatories. It may fitly be termed Gods charge to magistrates. As if the Lord had said, This is your main business, and therefore let it be your great care, to defend the poor, succour the afflicted, and support the fatherless, and to help him who hath no helper. As the proper work of the physician is to cure the sick, and of a minister to comfort the weak, so of a magistrate to defend the poor, and vindicate the oppressed from the violence of the oppressor.

1. Magistrates must be a defence to the poor and fatherless, to the afflicted and the needy. They are that great tree which must shelter such as are under them from storms (Dan 4:20-22).

2. As magistrates must administer justice unto all, so especially to the afflicted and distressed. These are most liable for injury; and therefore, if justice incline to any side with favour, it should be towards the poor. This is the very end why rulers are set up, viz., to execute judgment, and do justice amongst the people (Isa 56:1; Hos 12:6; Amo 5:24; Zec 7:9). Do justice–

(1) Discreetly;

(2) Speedily;

(3) Impartially and universally;

(4) Resolutely and courageously;

(5) Righteously and exactly;

(6) Soberly;

(7) Diligently.

3. Good duties need much pressing. Such is the dulness and indisposition of our natures to the best things, that without much pressing they take little or no impression upon us; hence it is that the Lord here calls on judges again and again to defend the poor and fatherless, and to deliver the needy out of trouble.

4. Magistrates must administer justice orderly. They must not go preposterously to work, and condemn a man before he is heard.

(1) They must fully, freely, patiently, with a sedate, quiet, composed spirit, free from passion, prejudice, and precipitancy, hear both parties speak for themselves, for the law doth not use to condemn men till their cause be heard (Joh 7:51; Act 25:15-16).

(2) When, upon hearing, he hath found out the depth and truth of the cause, then he must justify and absolve the innocent, and rescue him out of the jaws of the wicked, by executing justice on him according to his demerits. (T. Hall, B. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 3. Defend the poor] You are their natural protectors under God. They are oppressed: punish their oppressors, however rich or powerful: and deliver them.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Defend the poor and fatherless; so far as justly you may; as this clause must be limited, by comparing this with Lev 19:15.

Do justice to, Heb. justify, to wit, when his cause is just, and he is oppressed by a potent adversary.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

3, 4. So must good judges act(Psa 10:14; Job 29:12).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Defend the poor and fatherless,…. Or, judge d them; such as have no money to enter and carry on a suit, and have no friends to assist and advise them, and abide by them; these should be taken under the care and wing of judges; their cause should be attended to, and justice done them; their persons should be protected, and their property defended and secured for, since they are called gods, they ought to imitate him whose name they bear, who is the Father of the fatherless, the Judge of the widows, and the helper of the poor that commit themselves to him, Ps 10:14, such a righteous judge and good magistrate was Job; see Job 29:12,

do justice to the afflicted and needy; or “justify” e them, pronounce them righteous, give the cause for them, not right or wrong, nor because they are poor and needy, but because they are in the right; for, if wicked, they are not to be justified, this is an abomination to the Lord; see Le 19:15.

d “judicate”, V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Junius & Tremellius, Gejerus, Michaelis. e “justificate”, V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Musculus, Cocceius, &c.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

3 Determine the cause of the poor and the orphan. We are here briefly taught that a just and well-regulated government will be distinguished for maintaining the rights of the poor and afflicted. By the figure synecdoche, one part of equitable administration is put for the whole; for it cannot be doubted that rulers are bound to observe justice towards all men without distinction. But the prophet, with much propriety, represents them as appointed to be the defenders of the miserable and oppressed, both because such persons stand in need of the assistance of others, and because they can only obtain this where rulers are free from avarice, ambition, and other vices. The end, therefore, for which judges bear the sword is to restrain the wicked, and thus to prevent violence from prevailing among men, who are so much disposed to become disorderly and outrageous. According as men increase in strength, they become proportionally audacious in oppressing the weak; and hence it is that rich men seldom resort to magistrates for help, except when they happen to fall out among themselves. From these remarks, it is very obvious why the cause of the poor and needy is here chiefly commended to rulers; for those who are exposed an easy prey to the cruelty and wrongs of the rich have no less need of the assistance and protection of magistrates than the sick have of the aid of the physician. Were the truth deeply fixed in the minds of kings and other judges, that they are appointed to be the guardians of the poor, and that a special part of this duty lies in resisting the wrongs which are done to them, and in repressing all unrighteous violence, perfect righteousness would become triumphant through the whole world. Whoever thinks it not beneath him to defend the poor, instead of allowing himself to be carried hither and thither by favor, will have a regard only to what is right. We may farther learn from this passage, that although magistrates may not be solicited for succor, they are accounted guilty before God of negligence, if they do not, of their own accord, succor those who stand in need of their interference. When iniquity openly prevails, and when, on account of it, sighs and lamentations are everywhere heard, it is in vain for them to pretend that they cannot redress wrongs, unless complaints are addressed to them. Oppression utters a sufficiently loud cry of itself; and if the judge, sitting on a high watch-tower, seems to take no notice of it, he is here plainly warned, that such connivance shall not escape with impunity.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(3) Poor.Rather, miserable. (See Psa. 41:1.) This verse recalls the solemn curse in Deu. 27:19.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

3. Defend the poor Hebrew, Judge the poor; administer to them righteously; give them a fair trial; send them not away unheard because they are poor, and have no gift or bribe to offer, the crying sin of Asiatic governments to this day. The word, , ( shaphat,) to judge, give judgment, should here be understood generically of the manner of conducting a trial. Their whole code of procedure was corrupt and needed reform. The poor and fatherless describe a temporal condition without reference to moral character; but afflicted, in the next clause, often takes the accessory idea of meek, pious. Psa 72:2; Psa 140:12; Isa 66:2.

Do justice Hebrew, Make righteous; that is, acquit before the law, justify. This they are commanded to do to the meanest citizen, his cause being right, no less than to the greatest. This was the ideal perfection of the divine government. Psa 72:12-14

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

While we pay all due respect to the important truths here set forth, concerning earthly courts of justice, I would not overlook the occasion, the very idea of judgment and justice sets forth, to call to mind that throne of judgment which the Lord sets up in the conscience, by which he seems to deal with sinners according to the covenant of works, but in effect to lead them to Christ. Reader! doth not the blessed work of salvation by Jesus begin in the soul in a consciousness, inwrought in the heart, of our guilt and ruin, and total inability of being found just before God? And is it not by this process that Jesus and his great salvation are endeared to the soul?

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 82:3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

Ver. 3. Defend the poor and fatherless ] These are God’s clients, and this is God’s counsel, worthy to be written with letters of gold on the walls of all judicatories, as having in it better direction for a statesman than all Lipsius’ beehive or Machiavel’s spider web. These two Latin verses are said to be written over the judgment seat in Xante,

Hic locus odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat,

Nequitiam, pacem; crimina, iura, bonos.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)