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Read the Bible
THE MESSAGE
Psalms 12:8
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- AmericanEncyclopedias:
- InternationalParallel Translations
The wicked prowl all around,and what is worthless is exalted by the human race.
The wicked walk on every side, When what is vile is exalted among the sons of men.
The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of man.
But the wicked are all around us; everyone loves what is wrong.
for the wicked seem to be everywhere, when people promote evil.
The wicked strut about [in pompous self-importance] on every side, As vileness is exalted and baseness is prized among the sons of men.
The wicked strut about on every side When vileness is exalted among the sons of mankind.
The wicked walk on every side, When what is vile is exalted among the sons of men.
The wicked walke on euery side: when they are exalted, it is a shame for the sonnes of men.
The wicked strut about on every sideWhen vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
The wicked wander freely, and vileness is exalted among men.
But all who are wicked will keep on strutting, while everyone praises their shameless deeds.
You, Adonai , protect us; guard us forever from this generation — the wicked strut about everywhere when vileness is held in general esteem.
The wicked walk about on every side, when vileness is exalted among the children of men.
The wicked are all around us, and everyone thinks evil is something to be praised!
For the wicked walk everywhere with contemptible pride like the children of Edom.
The wicked prowl about when vileness is exalted among the children of humankind.
The wicked walk around on every side, when vileness is exalted by the sons of men.
And why? when vanite and ydylnes getteth the ouer hande amonge the children of men, all are full of ye vngodly.
The wicked walk on every side, When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
The sinners are walking on every side, and evil is honoured among the children of men.
Thou wilt keep them, O LORD; Thou wilt preserve us from this generation for ever. The wicked walk on every side, when vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
The wicked walke on euery side, when the vilest men are exalted.
The vngodly walke on euery side: when the worst sort be exalted amongst the chyldren of men.
The ungodly walk around: according to thy greatness thou has greatly exalted the sons of men.
The wicked walk on every side, when vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
Wickid men goen in cumpas; bi thin hiynesse thou hast multiplied the sones of men.
The wicked walk on every side, When vileness is exalted among the sons of man.
The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
The wicked prowl on every side, When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
even though the wicked strut about, and evil is praised throughout the land.
The sinful walk on every side when bad actions are held in honor among the sons of men.
On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among humankind.
On every side, the lawless, march about, - when worthlessness is exalted by the sons of men.
(11-9) The wicked walk round about: according to thy highness, thou hast multiplied the children of men.
On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
Around the wicked walk continually, According as vileness is exalted by sons of men!
The wicked strut about on every side When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
wicked: Proverbs 29:12, Hosea 5:11, Micah 6:16
when: Judges 9:18-57, 1 Samuel 18:17, 1 Samuel 18:18, Esther 3:6-15, Isaiah 32:4-6, Mark 14:63-65
men: Heb. of the sons of men, Job 30:8, Daniel 11:21
Reciprocal: 1 Kings 18:10 - they found thee not 2 Kings 11:3 - And Athaliah 2 Kings 21:9 - seduced 2 Chronicles 22:12 - Athaliah Esther 3:1 - promote Haman Job 22:8 - But as Job 34:30 - General Proverbs 26:1 - so Ecclesiastes 10:6 - Folly Jeremiah 26:22 - men Daniel 4:17 - the basest
Cross-References
When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians took one look and saw that his wife was stunningly beautiful. Pharaoh's princes raved over her to Pharaoh. She was taken to live with Pharaoh.
Because of her, Abram got along very well: he accumulated sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, men and women servants, and camels. But God hit Pharaoh hard because of Abram's wife Sarai; everybody in the palace got seriously sick.
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and worshiped God there, praying to the Eternal God. Abraham lived in Philistine country for a long time.
Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai (The Ruin), which is near Beth Aven just east of Bethel. He instructed them, "Go up and spy out the land." The men went up and spied out Ai.
Joshua and all his soldiers got ready to march on Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand men, tough, seasoned fighters, and sent them off at night with these orders: "Look sharp now. Lie in ambush behind the city. Get as close as you can. Stay alert. I and the troops with me will approach the city head-on. When they come out to meet us just as before, we'll turn and run. They'll come after us, leaving the city. As we are off and running, they'll say, ‘They're running away just like the first time.' That's your signal to spring from your ambush and take the city. God , your God, will hand it to you on a platter. Once you have the city, burn it down. God says it, you do it. Go to it. I've given you your orders."
The Benjaminites from Geba lived in: Micmash Aijah Bethel and its suburbs Anathoth Nob and Ananiah Hazor Ramah and Gittaim Hadid, Zeboim, and Neballat Lod and Ono and the Valley of the Craftsmen. Also some of the Levitical groups of Judah were assigned to Benjamin.
You Who Legislate Evil Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims— Laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, Exploiting defenseless widows, taking advantage of homeless children. What will you have to say on Judgment Day, when Doomsday arrives out of the blue? Who will you get to help you? What good will your money do you? A sorry sight you'll be then, huddled with the prisoners, or just some corpses stacked in the street. Even after all this, God is still angry, his fist still raised, ready to hit them again. "Doom to Assyria, weapon of my anger. My wrath is a cudgel in his hands! I send him against a godless nation, against the people I'm angry with. I command him to strip them clean, rob them blind, and then push their faces in the mud and leave them. But Assyria has another agenda; he has something else in mind. He's out to destroy utterly, to stamp out as many nations as he can. Assyria says, ‘Aren't my commanders all kings? Can't they do whatever they like? Didn't I destroy Calno as well as Carchemish? Hamath as well as Arpad? Level Samaria as I did Damascus? I've eliminated kingdoms full of gods far more impressive than anything in Jerusalem and Samaria. So what's to keep me from destroying Jerusalem in the same way I destroyed Samaria and all her god-idols?'" When the Master has finished dealing with Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he'll say, "Now it's Assyria's turn. I'll punish the bragging arrogance of the king of Assyria, his high and mighty posturing, the way he goes around saying, "‘I've done all this by myself. I know more than anyone. I've wiped out the boundaries of whole countries. I've walked in and taken anything I wanted. I charged in like a bull and toppled their kings from their thrones. I reached out my hand and took all that they treasured as easily as a boy taking a bird's eggs from a nest. Like a farmer gathering eggs from the henhouse, I gathered the world in my basket, And no one so much as fluttered a wing or squawked or even chirped.'" Does an ax take over from the one who swings it? Does a saw act more important than the sawyer? As if a shovel did its shoveling by using a ditch digger! As if a hammer used the carpenter to pound nails! Therefore the Master, God -of-the-Angel-Armies, will send a debilitating disease on his robust Assyrian fighters. Under the canopy of God's bright glory a fierce fire will break out. Israel's Light will burst into a conflagration. The Holy will explode into a firestorm, And in one day burn to cinders every last Assyrian thornbush. God will destroy the splendid trees and lush gardens. The Assyrian body and soul will waste away to nothing like a disease-ridden invalid. A child could count what's left of the trees on the fingers of his two hands. And on that Day also, what's left of Israel, the ragtag survivors of Jacob, will no longer be fascinated by abusive, battering Assyria. They'll lean on God , The Holy—yes, truly. The ragtag remnant—what's left of Jacob—will come back to the Strong God. Your people Israel were once like the sand on the seashore, but only a scattered few will return. Destruction is ordered, brimming over with righteousness. For the Master, God -of-the-Angel-Armies, will finish here what he started all over the globe. Therefore the Master, God -of-the-Angel-Armies, says: "My dear, dear people who live in Zion, don't be terrorized by the Assyrians when they beat you with clubs and threaten you with rods like the Egyptians once did. In just a short time my anger against you will be spent and I'll turn my destroying anger on them. I, God -of-the-Angel-Armies, will go after them with a cat-o'-nine-tails and finish them off decisively—as Gideon downed Midian at the rock Oreb, as Moses turned the tables on Egypt. On that day, Assyria will be pulled off your back, and the yoke of slavery lifted from your neck." Assyria's on the move: up from Rimmon, on to Aiath, through Migron, with a bivouac at Micmash. They've crossed the pass, set camp at Geba for the night. Ramah trembles with fright. Gibeah of Saul has run off. Cry for help, daughter of Gallim! Listen to her, Laishah! Do something, Anathoth! Madmenah takes to the hills. The people of Gebim flee in panic. The enemy's soon at Nob—nearly there! In sight of the city he shakes his fist At the mount of dear daughter Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. But now watch this: The Master, God -of-the-Angel-Armies, swings his ax and lops the branches, Chops down the giant trees, lays flat the towering forest-on-the-march. His ax will make toothpicks of that forest, that Lebanon-like army reduced to kindling.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
The wicked walk on every side,.... Of the poor and needy, of the righteous ones, to watch them, lay snares for them, and hurt them; therefore, Lord, keep and preserve them: the wicked are everywhere in great numbers, the whole world lies in wickedness; and the men of it are like their father the devil, they go about to do all the mischief they can to the saints; wherefore they stand in need continually of divine preservation;
when the vilest men are exalted: either to great dignities and high offices, to be magistrates and rulers; see Proverbs 29:2; or are highly esteemed and caressed; which shows the sad degeneracy and badness of the times, and the unsafe and dangerous condition the people of God are in, unless kept by him; see Malachi 3:15; or else these words may be considered as expressive of the judgment of God upon wicked men, and so confirm what the psalmist had said of God's regard to and preservation of his own people; and the sense be, that the wicked shall walk up and down here and there, as outcasts and vagabonds, in a most desolate, destitute, and miserable condition; and as the latter clause may be rendered, "according to [their] exaltation [shall be] the vileness", depression, or humiliation "of the children of men" r; they shall be brought as low as they have been made high; by how much the more highly they have been exalted, by so much the more deeply they shall be humbled: or else the meaning is, they shall walk about here and there fretting and vexing, when they shall see such who in their opinion are the meanest and basest of men, of low degree, and of a mean extract, exalted to the highest posts of honour and dignity; as David, who was taken from the sheepfold, and placed on the throne of Israel; so Jarchi, who observes that the Haggadah explains it of the Israelites, who will be exalted in time to come.
r כרם זלות "secundum superelevationem, vilitas (erit vel est)", Cocceius.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
The wicked walk on every side - Everywhere. They have full license, or seem to be wholly unrestrained.
When the vilest men are exalted - Margin, “The vilest of the sons of men are exalted.” This expression has been very variously translated. Dr. Horsley renders it, “When the scorn of the sons of men is exalted.” De Wette, “They exalt themselves; terror to the sons of men.” Luther, “Where such wicked people rule among the sons of men.” Hengstenberg, “Like exaltation is disgrace to the sons of men.” Prof. Alexander seems inclined to favor this last view. According to this interpretation, the meaning is, that “although the wicked are now in the ascendant, and the righteous are treated with contempt, this disgrace is realy an exaltation, because only ... in man’s judgment, not in God’s, who will abundantly indemnity his people for the dishonor put upon them.” The word rendered in our version “the vilest” - זלות zûllûth - means, according to Gesenius, “trembling, terror.” It occurs nowhere else in the Scriptures. The verb from which it is derived - זלל zâlal - means to shake, to tremble; then (as one shakes out, or casts away worthless things) to be vile, abject, despised, worthless.
Perhaps, however, the common version expresses the idea more accurately than any of these proposed amendments. I would offer the following as a fair translation of the passage: “The wicked walk on every side; (it is) as the lifting up, or the exaltation of vileness among the sons of men.” That is, the state of things is as if the vilest were exalted, or were honored. It seems to be the very exaltation of wickedness or depravity in the world. A state of things exists in which, from the prevalence of iniquity, the wicked seem to go unrestrained; in which no regard is paid to truth; in which falsehood and flattery abound; and it is as if honor were done to the worst forms of sin, and the most abandoned seem to be the most exalted. This appears to be the reason in the mind of the psalmist why the divine interposition is necessary; with this idea the psalm commences, and with this it appropriately closes. There was a state of widespread depravity and successful iniquity, as if all honor were conferred on wicked and abandoned men, while the virtuous were oppressed and degraded. The psalm expresses “confidence” in God - confidence in his faithful word and promises; but the psalmist sees a state of things wherein it was eminently desirable that God should interpose, for the righteous seemed to have failed out of the earth, and the wicked seemed to be wholly in the ascendancy.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Psalms 12:8. The wicked walk on every side — The land is full of them. When the vilest men are exalted; rather, As villany gains ground among the sons of Adam. See the Hebrew. The Vulgate has, "In circuito impii ambulant; secundum altitudinem tuam multiplicasti filios hominum;" which is thus translated and paraphrased in my old MS.: -
Trans. In umgang wiked gos: eftir thy heenes thu has multiplied the sons of man.
Par. Us thy kepes; bot wiked gas in umgang; that es, in covatyng of erdley gudes, that turned with the whele of seven daies: in the qwilk covatys, thai ryn ay aboute; for that sett nane endyng of thaire syn: and tharfor settes God na terme of thair pyne, but sons of men that lyfs skilwisly and in ryghtwisnes, thu has multiplied, aftir thi heghnes in vertus; aftir the heghnes of thi consayll, thou hast multiplied men bath il and gude; for na man may perfitely witt in erd, qwy God makes so many men, the qwilk he wote well sal be dampned: bot it es the privete of his counsayle, so ryghtwis, that no thyng may be ryghtwiser.
In this we find a number of singular expressions, which, while they elucidate the text, will not be uninteresting to the antiquary. Here, for instance, we see the true etymology of the words righteous and righteousness, i.e., right wise and right wiseness. For we have it above as a noun, rightwisnes: as an adjective, rightwis; and as an adjective in the comparative degree, rightwiser: and we should have had it as an adverb, ryghtwisely, had not the word skilwisly occurred to the author.
Righteousness is right wiseness, or that which is according to true wisdom. A righteous man is one who is right wise; properly instructed in Divine wisdom, and acts according to its dictates; and among them who act rightwisely, there are some who act rightwiser than others; and nothing can be rightwiser than ever to think and act according to the principles of that wisdom which comes from above.
Right, [Anglo-Saxon] rectus, straight, is opposed to wrong, from [A.S.] injury, and that from [A.S.], to twist. As [A.S.] rehtan signifies to direct, so [A.S.] wrangen signifies to twist, or turn out of a straight or direct line. Right is straight, and wrong, crooked. Hence the righteous man is one who goes straight forward, acts and walks by line and rule; and the unrighteous is he who walks in crooked paths, does what is wrong, and is never guided by true wisdom. Such a person is sometimes termed wicked, from the Anglo-Saxon [A.S.], to act by witch-craft, (hence [A.S.] wicca, a witch,) that is to renounce God and righteousness, and to give one's self to the devil, which is the true character of a wicked man. Let him that readeth understand.
The vilest men are exalted — Were we to take this in its obvious sense, it would signify that at that time wickedness was the way to preferment, and that good men were the objects of persecution.
ANALYSIS OF THE TWELFTH PSALM
There are four parts in this Psalm: -
I. A prayer, and the reason of it; Psalms 12:1-2.
II. A prophecy of the fall of the wicked Psalms 12:3, whose arrogance he describes, Psalms 12:4.
III. God's answer to the petition, with a promise full of comfort, Psalms 12:5; ratified, Psalms 12:6.
IV. A petitory, or affirmative conclusion: Keep them; or a confident affirmation that God will keep them from the contagion of the wicked, Psalms 12:7, of which there were too many, Psalms 12:8.
I. The prayer, which is very short, for he breaks in upon God with one word, הושעה Hoshiah! Help! Save, Lord! Psalms 12:1. For which he gives two reasons:-
1. The scarcity of good men: "For the godly man ceaseth," c. There is neither piety nor fidelity among men.
2. The great abundance of the wicked, the licentious times the perfidiousness, hypocrisy, and dissimulation of the men among whom he lived. "They speak vanity every one with his neighbour," c. Psalms 12:2. They take no care to perform what they promise.
II. The prophecy. This shows the end of their dissembling: "The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips;" Psalms 12:3. These are described,
1. As proud boasters: "With our tongues will we prevail," c.
2. As persons restrained by no authority: "Who is the Lord over us?" Psalms 12:4.
III. God's answer to the petition, Help, Lord! is it so that the wicked are so numerous, so tyrannous, so proud, and so arrogant?
1. "I will arise, saith the Lord."
2. I will not delay: "Now I will arise" Psalms 12:5.
3. "I will set him in safety (my followers) from him that puffeth," c.
4. I am moved to it by his sighs and groans: "For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy," c. Psalms 12:5.
I. And of this let no man doubt: "The words of the Lord are pure words." There is no more fallacy in the words of God than there is impurity in silver seven times refined Psalms 12:6.
IV. A petitory, or affirmative conclusion: Thou shalt keep them, O Lord; or, O keep them! The overflowings of wickedness are great.
1. Keep them. For unless God keep them they will be infected.
2. Keep them from this generation. For they are a generation of vipers.
3. Keep them for ever. For unless thou enable them to persevere, they will fall.
4. And keep them. For the power, pride, and influence of these impious men are very great. 1. "The wicked walk on every side." As wolves they seek whom they may devour. 2. And wickedness is the way to preferment: "The vilest men are exalted;" Psalms 12:8.
Thy people call on thee for help; they know thou canst help, and therefore are they confident that thou wilt help, because they know that thou art good.
