Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 10:16
The LORD [is] King forever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.
16. The second clause has been variously explained to refer (1) to the past, or (2) to the future (prophetic perfect). If (1) it refers to the past, the Psalmist finds the guarantee for the fulfilment of his prayers and hopes in the extermination of the Canaanites, or, it may be, in the repulse of ‘the nations’ referred to in Psa 9:5-6; Psa 9:15 ff. As the nations have been driven out before God’s people, so the wicked must ultimately give place to the godly, and Jehovah’s land will become in fact what it is in name, the Holy Land. Cp. the frequent warnings to Israel that the fate of the Canaanites might be theirs (Deu 8:19-20, &c.). If (2) the clause refers to the future, it is a confident anticipation (expressed as though it were already realised) of the ultimate destruction of the foreign oppressors of Israel, including, it may be supposed, all the godless of whom they are typical.
The first explanation suits the context best. The complaint and prayer of the psalm are directed against wicked oppressors within the nation of Israel, not against foreign enemies. An anticipation of the destruction of such external enemies is foreign to the line of thought. But an appeal to history as the ground of hope for the future is quite in place.
his land ] Cp. Lev 25:13; Joe 2:18.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord is King forever and ever – That is, he reigns, and he will reign forever. This is one of the instances which frequently occur in the Psalms, where, though there is a desponding spirit, or an apprehension of danger expressed in the beginning of the poem, it ends with the language of exultation and triumph. The psalmist speaks here as if what he had desired was actually accomplished, and as if the enemies that had encompassed him, and all the enemies of the Lord, were actually overthrown, and God now reigned supreme. He was so confident that this would be so, that he speaks of it as if it were already done. Compare Rom 4:17; see also Psa 6:8-9; Psa 7:17; Psa 9:18.
The heathen are perished out of his land – That is, this would so certainly occur that he might speak of it as if it were actually done. The word heathen here refers to the enemies of God and of his cause, who are the principal subjects of the psalm. Compare Psa 9:5. The land, here, refers to the land of Palestine, or the holy land, regarded as a land sacred to God, or in the midst of which he himself dwelt.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 10:16
The heathen are perished out of His land.
An encouragement to prayer
Does this sentence point back to the great instance of exterminating justice in the destruction of the Canaanite? It may do so, but it is rather to be taken as referring to the victories celebrated in the previous and companion Psalm. Note the recurrence of the words nations and perished, which are drawn from it. The connection between the two Psalms is thus witnessed, and the deliverance from foreign enemies, which is the theme of Psa 9:1-20, is urged as a plea with God, and taken as a ground of confidence by the Psalmist himself for the completion of the deliverance by making domestic oppressors powerless. This lofty height of faith is preserved in the closing stanza, in which the agitation of the first part and the yearning of the second are calmed into serene assurance that the Ecclesia pressa has not cried, and never can cry, in vain. Into the praying, trusting heart the peace of God which passeth understanding steals, and the answer is certified to faith long before it is manifest to sense. To pray and immediately to feel the thrilling consciousness Thou hast heard, is given to those who pray in faith. The wicked makes a boast of his desire; the humble makes a prayer of it, and so has it fulfilled. Desires which can be translated into petitions will be converted into fruition . . . The prayer of the humble, like a whisper amid the avalanches, has power to start the swift, white destruction on its downward path; and when once that gliding mass has way on it, nothing which it smites can stand. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. The Lord is king for ever] He has, and ever will have, the supreme power.
The heathen are perished out of his land.] They are all either cut off or converted. This may refer to the Canaanites. What a mercy that we can say this of our own country! Once it was entirely heathen; now not one heathen family in the whole land.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The Lord is King; to whom it belongs to protect his subjects. Therefore thou wilt save the humble, and punish the oppressors.
For ever and ever; therefore his peoples case is never desperate, seeing he ever lives and reigns to help them, and therefore he will help them in his time sooner or later.
The heathen; either,
1. Those impious Israelites who oppressed David and other good men, whom, although they were reputed Israelites by themselves and others, yet he might call them heathens for their heathenish opinions of God and his providence, and for their ungodly and unrighteous lives. Compare Isa 1:9; Amo 9:7. Or,
2. The Canaanites, whom God as King of the world did expel or destroy, and gave their land to his people; by which great example he confirms his faith and hope for the future.
Out of his land, i.e. out of Canaan, which God calls his land, Lev 25:23, because he spied it out for them, Eze 20:6, and gave it to them, and fixed his presence and dwelling in it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16-18. God reigns. The wicked,if for a time successful, shall be cut off. He hears and confirms thehearts of His suffering people (Ps112:7), executes justice for the feeble, and represses the prideand violence of conceited, though frail, men (compare Ps9:16).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Lord [is] King for ever and ever,…. Christ was King from everlasting, and during the Old Testament dispensation he was promised and prophesied of as King; and he had a kingdom when he was here on earth, though not of this world; nor was it with observation. At his ascension to heaven, and session at the right hand of God, he sat down upon the same throne with his Father, and was made or declared Lord and Christ, and appeared more visibly in his kingly office; and in the latter day it will be yet more manifest that he is King of saints, and when indeed he will be King over all the earth, and his kingdom will be an everlasting one: he will have no successor in it, nor will any usurper obtain any more; the devil, beast, and false prophet, will be cast into the lake of fire; all antichristian states will be destroyed, and all authority, rule, and power, put down; nor can his kingdom ever be subverted, he must reign till all enemies are put under his feet; he will reign to the end of the present world, and with the saints a thousand years in the new heaven and earth, and in the ultimate glory to all eternity; nor will his government cease when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father, only the mode of the administration of it. Here begins the song of praise; the reign of Christ is matter of joy; see Ps 97:1;
the Heathen are perished out of his land: not the seven nations which were driven out of the land of Canaan, to make way for the people of Israel, that was long ago; nor the wicked and degenerate Jews, called the Heathen, Ps 2:1; compared with Ac 4:27; on whom, and on whose temple, city, and nation, Christ’s native land, wrath is come to the uttermost; and they are perished out of it: nor hypocrites out of churches, which are Christ’s property; but the antichristian party out of the world, which is Christ’s land by creation, as God, and by the gift of his father to him, as Mediator. The followers of antichrist are called Gentiles, and the nations of the earth, Re 11:2; and these will be no more; they will be utterly destroyed, when the man of sin shall be consumed with the breath of Christ’s mouth and the brightness of his coming. The seventh vial will clear the world of all the remains of Christ’s enemies: this also is cause of rejoicing,
Ps 132:16.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
16. Jehovah is King for ever and ever. David now, as if he had obtained the desires of his heart, rises up to holy rejoicing and thanksgiving. When he calls God King for ever and ever, it is a token of his confidence and joy. By the title of King, he vindicates God’s claim to the government of the world, and when he describes him as King for ever and ever, this shows how absurd it is to think to shut him up within the narrow limits of time. As the course of human life is short, even those who sway the scepter over the greatest empires, being but mortal men, very often disappoint the expectations of their servants, (234) as we are taught in Psa 146:3,
“
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”
Often the power of giving assistance to others fails them, and while they are delaying to give it, the opportunity slips away from them. But we ought to entertain more exalted and honorable conceptions of our heavenly King; for although he does not immediately execute his judgments, yet he has always the full and the perfect power of doing so. In short, he reigns, not for himself in particular; it is for us that he reigns for ever and ever. As this, then, is the duration of his reign, it follows that a long delay cannot hinder him from stretching forth his hand in due season to succor his people, even when they are, as it were, dead, or in a condition which, to the eye of sense and reason, is hopeless. — The heathen are perished out of the land The meaning is, that the holy land was at length purged from the abominations and impurities with which it had been polluted. It was a dreadful profanation, when the land which had been given for an inheritance to the people of God, and allotted to those who purely worshipped him, nourished ungodly and wicked inhabitants. By the heathen he does not mean foreigners, and such as did not belong to the race of Abraham according to the flesh, (235) but hypocrites, who falsely boasted that they belonged to the people of God, just as at this day many, who are Christians only in name, occupy a place in the bosom of the Church. It is no new thing for the prophets to call apostates, who have degenerated from the virtues and holy lives of their fathers, by the reproachful name of heathen, and to compare them not only to the uncircumcised, but also to the Canaanites, who were the most detestable among all the heathen.
“
Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite,” (Eze 16:3)
Many other similar passages are to be met with in Scripture. David, therefore, in applying the dishonorable name of heathen to the false and bastard children of Abraham, gives God thanks for having expelled such a corrupt class out of his Church. By this example we are taught, that it is no new thing if we see in our own day the Church of God polluted by profane and irreligious men. We ought, however, to beseech God quickly to purge his house, and not leave his holy temple exposed to the desecration of swine and dogs, as if it were a dunghill.
(234) “ Bien souvent frustrent leurs serviteurs de leur attente.” — Fr.
(235) “ Et des personnes qui ne fussent de la race d’Abraham selon la chair.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) The Lord is King.If the psalm has hitherto been personal, it here swells out into a larger strain of national hope and faith.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. The Lord is King Strong faith in the government of God triumphs. It breaks through the darkness like the sun through the rifted cloud.
The heathen The goyim, gentile nations, clearly designating who these wicked oppressors are. See Psa 9:5; Psa 9:15; Psa 9:19
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘YHWH is King for ever and ever,
The nations are perished out of his land.
YHWH, you have heard the desire of the meek:
You will establish their heart,
You will cause your ear to hear,
To judge on behalf of the fatherless and the oppressed,
That man who is of the earth,
May strike terror no more.
The psalm, which began with such hopelessness, finishes with the triumphant picture of the everlasting kingdom, with YHWH established as everlasting king, all adversaries and unrighteous thrust out and dealt with, and the meek and the fatherless and the oppressed living quiet lives in full confidence of true justice, and treated with respect by all. In Isaiah’s words, the lions will lay down with the lambs, for no one will any longer strike terror into anyone else. It will not be men of the earth who control things, but God. Righteousness will reign supreme. The picture is of total divine dominance by God, dwelling in His light.
‘YHWH is King for ever and ever.’ His enthronement will be revealed and His rule over His own will from then on be permanent for ever.
‘The nations are perished out of his land.’ The land that He promised His people will now be free of all enemies, of all who defile it and of all unrighteous men. The first thought is probably of the final fulfilling of God’s requirement that ‘the nations’ who had dwelt in Canaan should be thrust out as God had previously commanded, so that all pernicious influences would be removed. But it can also include any nations who had trespassed on God’s land and introduced pernicious influences. And with them would be thrust out all who followed in their ways and thus identified with them.
So those who are without, and even more importantly, the quislings within, will be removed from the land, which will thus be purified. The thought is clearly that the unrighteous were seen as unrighteous because they did not respond to YHWH but submitted to subversive influence, the ways of the godless nations. Thus all these will now have been destroyed out of the land (compare Deu 8:19-20). It will be the land of His inheritance as it was intended to be, a land of eternal bliss, where all worship YHWH and are obedient to His will. Ancient Israel had no conception of a possible heavenly kingdom and thought in terms of permanent and fruitful possession for ever of the land that God had given them and a possession which was under God’s personal rule, where all responded to Him.
And this will be because YHWH has heard the cries of the meek and lowly. Though they had cried to Him day and night for what had seemed so long, now He would avenge them speedily (Luk 18:8). In the end His will will be done. All fear will be done away. The future will be eternally secure in righteousness.
Jesus and the Apostles reinterpreted this in terms of the everlasting heavenly kingdom of which His own were citizens.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Nothing can be more beautiful than this close. By strong faith in the divine goodness, though the Psalm began under the deepest sorrow, in the apprehension of God’s withdrawing, yet now, taking confidence in the faithfulness of Jehovah, here is full triumph. The cause of Christ, his Church, his redeemed, is God’s own cause; and while the Lord Jehovah is preparing mercy for his redeemed, and deliverance from all their enemies, he is preparing their hearts to receive it. And the deliverance shall be so great, their triumphs so complete, and their salvation so finished, that the man of sin shall no more be permitted to oppress them. Hallelujah. Amen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 10:16 The LORD [is] King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.
Ver. 16. The Lord is King for ever and ever ] Therefore he will doubtless do whatsoever hath been before desired, and much more than we can ask or think. Many kings have been long lived, as was Artaxerxes Mnemon, who reigned 62 years; Augustus Caesar, 56; Queen Elizabeth, 44, &c.; but died at length, to the great grief of their subjects and servants, who are ready to wish (as once the Romans did concerning Augustus) that either they had never been or never died. But God is the King immortal, invisible, &c.
The heathen are perished out of his land
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 10:16-18
16The Lord is King forever and ever;
Nations have perished from His land.
17O Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble;
You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear
18To vindicate the orphan and the oppressed,
So that man who is of the earth will no longer cause terror.
Psa 10:16-18 This strophe affirms the character of the God of Israel, the Creator, Redeemer God.
1. YHWH is King forever and ever (cf. Exo 15:18; Psa 9:7; Psa 29:10; Psa 146:10; Jer 10:10; Lam 5:19). For forever see Special Topic: Forever .
2. YHWH gave the Israelites the land of Canaan (cf. Gen 15:12-21). The focus on the nations resumes the thought from Psa 9:17-20.
3. YHWH hears and acts on behalf of the humble/afflicted believer (note the perfect, YHWH will and does hear).
4. YHWH acts on behalf of the socially powerless and vulnerable (i.e., reflects Deuteronomy).
5. YHWH will remove the arrogant unbeliever and his/her deeds from the earth.
See SPECIAL TOPIC: CHARACTERISTICS OF ISRAEL’S GOD .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
This is a study guide commentary, which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.
These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought-provoking, not definitive.
1. Is Psa 10:4 describing an atheist?
2. What is the person of Psa 10:6 asserting?
3. What is the person of Psa 10:11; Psa 10:13 b asserting?
4. How is Psa 10:18 related to Deuteronomy?
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
The LORD, &C. Quoted in Rev 11:15.
for ever and ever. Compare Psa 9:5.
heathen = nations. Compare Psa 9:5, Psa 9:15.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
The Lord: Psa 29:10, Psa 93:1, Psa 145:13, Psa 146:10, Isa 33:22, Jer 10:10, Lam 5:19, Dan 4:34, Dan 6:26, 1Ti 1:17, 1Ti 6:15, 1Ti 6:16
heathen: Psa 9:5, Psa 9:15, Psa 18:43-45, Psa 44:2, Psa 44:3, Psa 78:55
Reciprocal: Exo 15:18 – General 1Ki 20:29 – seven days Psa 5:2 – my King Psa 34:16 – to cut Psa 94:10 – chastiseth Hos 13:10 – I will be thy king Mat 6:13 – thine Heb 1:11 – thou Rev 14:11 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 10:16. The Lord is king To whom it belongs to protect his subjects. Therefore thou wilt save the humble, and punish the oppressors; for ever and ever Therefore his peoples case is never desperate, seeing he ever lives and reigns to help them, and, therefore, he will help them in his time, sooner or later. The heathen Either, 1st, Those impious Israelites who oppressed David and other good men, whom, although they were reputed Israelites by themselves and others, yet he might call heathen for their heathenish opinions of God and his providence, and for their ungodly and unrighteous lives. Compare Isa 1:9, and Amo 9:7. Or, 2d, The Canaanites whom God, as king of the world, did expel or destroy, and gave their land to his people. By which great example David confirms his faith and hope for the future. Are perished out of his land Out of Canaan, which God calls his land, Lev 25:23, because he chose it for them, Eze 20:6, and gave it to them, and fixed his presence and dwelling in it.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
10:16 The LORD [is] King for ever and ever: the {k} heathen are perished out of his land.
(k) The hypocrites or such as live not after God’s law, will be destroyed.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
These closing verses express the psalmist’s confidence that God had heard his petition. Because Yahweh is sovereign, the ultimate authority in the universe, the nations that refused to submit to Him would perish. God’s land was Canaan, but in a larger sense the whole world is His land since He is King of all creation. In view of who God is, David was confident that, even though God did not judge the wicked immediately, He would do so eventually.
Some scholars believed that the "nations" here stand for the wicked in Israel who behaved like the heathen nations. [Note: E.g., John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms , 1:155; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms , 1:61; and VanGemeren, p. 129.] This is possible.
This psalm, as the preceding one, ends with a reference to the frail mortality of man (’enosh, Psa 10:18; cf. Psa 8:4; Psa 9:19-20; et al.), who is bound to the earth, in contrast to God. In view of God’s power it is not right for Him to allow frail man to terrorize his fellows. Nevertheless, since God is sovereign, only He can decide when to step in and judge the wicked. [Note: See Allen, Rediscovering Prophecy, pp. 89-107.]
God’s delay in executing justice frustrates the righteous. We can live with this frustration because we know God is powerful enough to avenge the defenseless. He is also sovereign and just. Furthermore, His past acts of deliverance should encourage us as we wait for Him to bring justice to pass in the world.