Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Psalms 58:9

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Psalms 58:9. Before your pots can feel the thorns — Ye shall be destroyed with a sudden destruction. From the time that the fire of God's wrath is kindled about you, it will be but as a moment before ye be entirely consumed by it: so very short will be the time, that it may be likened to the heat of the first blaze of dry thorns under a pot, that has not as yet been able to penetrate the metal, and warm what is contained in it.

A whirlwind — Or the suffocating simoon that destroys life in an instant, without previous warning: so, without pining sickness-while ye are living-lively and active, the whirlwind of God's wrath shall sweep you away.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Psalms 58:0 Corrupt judges

In Psalms 10-17 the psalmist considered the problem of the poor and innocent being trampled underfoot by people of power and wealth. (See notes on these psalms, including the special note that follows Psalms 10:0.) In Psalms 58:0 the psalmist deals more specifically with those who make such a situation possible, the corrupt judges. Evil in thoughts and actions, they are deaf to any pleas for justice (1-5). The psalmist appeals to God to break their power and destroy them, so that they disappear from human society (6-9). The righteous will rejoice when corruption and oppression receive their fitting judgment from God (10-11).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

THE TYRANTS PRAYED AGAINST

“Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah. Let them melt away as water that runneth apace: When he aimeth his arrows, let them be as though they were cut off Let them be as a snail which melteth and passeth away Like the untimely birth of a woman that hath not seen the sun. Before your pots can feel the thorns, He will take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.”

This prayer against the hardened and unrepentant wicked men of this passage reveals a seven-fold curse upon them.

1. Break their teeth (Psalms 58:6).

2. Break out (pull) the teeth of lions (Psalms 58:6).

3. Let them melt away as water that runs off (Psalms 58:7).

4. His arrows… let them be cut off (Psalms 58:7).

5. Let them be as a snail that melteth (Psalms 58:8).

6. Let them be like an aborted fetus (Psalms 58:8)

7. Let their `pot’ be carried away by a tornado (Psalms 58:9).

We have paraphrased these, but we have retained the meaning. These are some of the boldest and most dramatic statements in the Bible; and they adequately describe the judgment that God will at last execute upon the incorrigibly wicked.

Some have thought the reference to a snail’s melting away was due to an ancient mistaken opinion that the snail’s slimy trail destroyed him; but we think this might be a reference to the fact that ordinary salt sprinkled upon a snail literally dissolves him; and it is foolish to believe that the ancients did not know this or to think that the psalmist might not here have referred to it.

The metaphor of the “pot” in Psalms 58:9 is difficult, due to the various translations proposed. “The `pot’ here is the means by which the enemies of the psalmist mature their plans; but Yahweh sweeps it all away with a tempest.”W. E. Addis, p. 383. As we might say, “They cooked up all kinds of schemes which God frustrated.”

Rawlinson wrote, “The general meanings seems to be that before the wicked judges can mature their plans the wrath of God will come upon them like a tempest and sweep both them and the product of their villainy away.”The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 8-B, p. 9.

The other judgmental curses here seem to us as rather obvious. Every one of these metaphors means exactly the same thing. “All wicked men shall become the objects of God’s righteous judgment upon them.”C. Short in The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 8-B, p. 11.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Before your pots can feel the thorns - The word “thorns” here - אטד 'âṭâd - refers to what is called “Christ’s thorn,” the southern buckthorn. “Gesenius.” The fire made of such thorns when dry would be quick and rapid, and water would be soon heated by it. The idea is, that what is here referred to would occur “quickly” - sooner than the most rapid and intense fire could make an impression on a kettle and its contents. The destruction of the wicked would be, as it were, instantaneous. The following quotation from Prof. Hackitt (Illustrations of Scripture, p. 135) will explain this passage: “A species of thorn, now very common near Jerusalem, bears the name of Spina Christi, or Christ’s thorn. The people of the country gather these bushes and plants, and use them as fuel. As it is now, so it was of old. ‘As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool,’ Ecclesiastes 7:6 ‘Before your pots can feel the thorns,’ namely, the fire of them, ‘he shall sweep them away,’ Psalms 58:9 The figure in this case is taken from travelers in the desert, or from shepherds tenting abroad, who build a fire in the open air, where it is exposed to the wind; a sudden gust arises and sweeps away the fuel almost before it has begun to burn. ‘As thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire’ Isaiah 33:12. The meaning is that the wicked are worthless - their destruction shall be sudden and complete.”

He shall take them away - The word rendered “shall take them away” means properly “to shiver, to shudder;” and it is then applied to the commotion and raging of a tempest. They shal be taken away as in a storm that makes everything shiver or tremble; Job 27:21. It would be done “suddenly” and “entirely.” A sudden storm sent by God would beat upon them, and they would be swept away in an instant.

Both living and in his wrath - Margin, “as living as wrath.” This expression is exceedingly obscure. The Septuagint renders it, “he shall devour them as it were living - as it were in wrath.” The Latin Vulgate: “He shall devour them as living, so in wrath.” Prof. Alexander: “Whether raw or done.” He supposes that the idea is, that God would come upon them while forming their plans; and that the illustration is derived from the act of “cooking,” and that the meaning is, that God would come upon them whether those plans were matured or not - “cooked” or “raw.” This seems to me to be a very forced construction, and one which it is doubtful whether the Hebrew will bear. The word rendered “living” - חי chay - means properly “alive, living;” and then, “lively, fresh, vigorous;” and is applicable then to a plant that is living or green. It “may” be here applied to the “thorns” that had been gathered for the fire, still green or alive; and the idea “here” would be, that even while those thorns were alive and green - before they had been kindled by the fire (or while they were trying to kindle them), a sudden tempest would come and sweep them all away.

It is not, indeed, an uncommon occurrence in the deserts of the East, that while, in their journeyings, travelers pause to cook their food, and have gathered the fuel - thorns, or whatever may be at hand - and have placed their pot over the fire, a sudden tempest comes from the desert, and sweeps everything away. Rosenmuller in loc. Such an occurrence “may” be referred to here. The word rendered “wrath” - חרון chârôn - means properly “burning;” and then it is used to denote anything burning. It is applied to wrath or anger, because it seems to “burn.” Numbers 25:4; Num 32:14; 1 Samuel 28:18. Here, however, it “may” be taken literally as applicable to thorns when they begin to be kindled, though still green. They are seen first as gathered and placed under the pots; then they are seen as still green - not dried up by the kindling flame; then they are seen as on fire; and, in a moment - before the pots could be affected by them - all is swept away by a sudden gust of wind. The “idea” is that of the sudden and unexpected descent of God on the wicked, frustrating their schemes even when they seemed to be well formed, and to promise complete success. This does not mean, therefore, that God would cut off and punish the wicked while “living,” but it refers to the fact that their schemes would be suddenly defeated even while they supposed that all things were going on well; defeated before there was, in fact, any progress made toward the accomplishment, as the arrangements for the evening-meal would all be swept away before even the pot had begun to be warm.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

9.Before your pots can feel the fire of your thorns. Some obscurity attaches to this verse, arising partly from the perplexed construction, and partly from the words being susceptible of a double meaning. ⁽³⁵⁷⁾ Thus the Hebrew word סירות,siroth, signifies eithera pot or a thorn. If we adopt the first signification, we must read, before your pots feel the fire which has been kindled by thorns; if the second, before your thorns grow to a bush, that is, reach their full height and thickness. What, following the former sense, we have translated flesh yet raw, must be rendered, provided we adopt the other, tender, or not yet grown. But the scope of the Psalmist in the passage is sufficiently obvious. He refers to the swiftness of that judgment which God would execute upon his enemies, and prays that he would carry them away as by a whirlwind, either before they arrived at the full growth of their strength, like the thorn sprung to the vigorous plant, or before they came to maturity and readiness, like flesh which has been boiled in the pot. The latter meaning would seem to be the one of which the passage is most easily susceptible, that God, in the whirlwind of his anger, would carry away the wicked like flesh not yet boiled, which may be said scarcely to have felt the heat of the fire.

(357) This verse has been deemed one of the most difficult passages in the Psalter, and has greatly perplexed commentators. Bishop Horsley reads —

“Before your pots feel the bramble,
In whirlwind and hurricane he shall sweep them away.”

He supposes that the language is proverbial, and that the Psalmist describes the sudden eruption of the divine wrath; sudden and violent as the ascension of the dry bramble underneath the housewife’s pot. Walford reads —

“Before your cooking vessels feel the fuel;
Both the green and the dry a whirlwind shall scatter.”

The passage is supposed by this author and others to contain an allusion to the manners of the Arabs, who, when they want to cook their food, collect bushes and brambles, both green and withered, with which they kindle a fire in the open air. But before their culinary vessels are sensibly afflicted with the heat, a whirlwind not unfrequently arises and scatters the fuel. And this strikingly expresses the sudden and premature destruction of the wicked. Fry gives a somewhat different explanation. He reads —

“Sooner than your vessels can feel the blazing thorn,
The hot blast shall consume them, as well the green as the dry.”

And he observes, that “שער, or סער, no doubt expresses the action of the hot wind of the desert.” This wind is eminently destructive, and has not unfrequently been known to entomb and destroy whole caravans. Sidi Hamet, describing his journey across the great desert to Tombuctoo with a caravan consisting of above one thousand men and four thousand camels, relates that, “after travelling upwards of a month they were attacked by the Shume, the burning blast of the desert, carrying with it clouds of sand. They were obliged to lie for two days with their faces on the ground, only lifting them occasionally to shake off the sand and obtain breath. Three hundred never rose again, and two hundred camels also perished.” — (Murray ’s Discoveries in Africa, volume 1, pp. 515, 516.) Estius gives this sense: “Before your thorns shall arrive to their full growth into a bush, the rage of a tempest shall snatch them away, as it were, in the flower of their age and growing to maturity.” The words כמו-חי, kemo-chai, which Calvin renders flesh yet raw, are used in this sense in Leviticus 13:16, and 1 Samuel 11:15

Smith's Bible Commentary

Psalms 58:1-11

Psalms 58:1-11 is a prayer of David. I would not want to be one of David's enemies because of his prayers.

Do you indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do you judge uprightly, O you sons of men? Yes, in heart you work wickedness; you weigh the violence of your hands in the earth. The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies ( Psalms 58:1-3 ).

Now David is talking about the nature, the sinful nature of man. Now, I don't think there were any of you that had to teach your children to tell a lie. You had to teach them to tell the truth. You don't say, "Well now, if you get in trouble just lie about it and get out of it." They seem to just do that naturally. So you have to teach them you've got to tell the truth at all times. David said, "They went forth from the womb, speaking lies. They were estranged from the womb. As soon as they are born, speaking lies."

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming ever so wisely. Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth ( Psalms 58:4-6 ):

David didn't mess around.

break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD. Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bends his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be cut in pieces. As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away ( Psalms 58:6-8 ):

Have you ever poured salt on a snail and watch it melt?

like the untimely birth of a woman, that may not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as the whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judges in the eaRuth ( Psalms 58:8-11 ).

Now, coming as we do from our Christian ethic, from the New Testament, we have difficulty in David's prayers. Because Jesus told us that we are to love those who hate us; we are to do good to those who despitefully use us. Bless those that curse you. And the ethic that we have learned from Christ in the New Testament is much different.

Now, I find David's ethic pretty satisfying with me. I like vengeance. I like to see the bad guys get beat and the good guys win. And I like to see the wicked really taken care of for good. I must confess that I rejoice in such things. But I must also confess that such rejoicing is wrong according to the New Testament ethic, the Christian ethic. And yet, there is just something about my own nature that is similar to David's, in that when someone has really done something that is truly evil, I like to see vengeance come upon them.

Now, where I have to be careful is that I so often want to bring vengeance on them myself, and that is where I can really get in trouble. God said, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord." Now notice, David isn't really seeking to bring vengeance himself; he is asking God to knock the teeth out of their mouths. Asking God to take vengeance on them. I don't know that it is much better, but we must be careful about trying to take personal vengeance upon people who we feel have wronged us, or who have wronged us. We must learn to commit ourselves and our ways unto the Lord, and let the Lord take care of them. It is not mine to become Captain Avenger and go out and right all of the evils of the world.

But David does pray in these psalms, but as I say, it is not in keeping with the New Testament ethic. And I have to pray, not as David prayed, but I have to pray, "Lord, keep my heart from devising vengeance, and keep me, Lord, from wanting to take vengeance. And oh God, help me to have a forgiving attitude and spirit towards those that I feel this, I would like to take vengeance on." "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Psalms 58

In this prophetic lament psalm, David called on God to judge corrupt judges so the righteous would continue to trust in the Lord. [Note: See Day, pp. 169-73.] This is also an imprecatory psalm.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The punishment of crooked judges 58:6-9

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The psalmist believed their destruction would be swift. Thorns used for firewood burn very quickly. David compared the unjust rulers to thorns. Their fiery evil would not last long enough to effect any change on the pot above them, a figure for other people whom they might influence. Regardless of whether these wicked men were young (green) or old (dry), their influence would be minimal because God would judge them.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Before your pots can feel the thorns,.... Which is soon done; for as dry thorns make a great blaze, so they give a quick heat; the pots soon feel them, or the water in them soon receives heat from them. From imprecations the psalmist proceeds to prophesy, and foretells the sudden destruction of wicked men, which would be before a pot could be heated with a blaze of thorns. The Targum is,

"before the wicked become tender, they harden as the thorn:''

that is, they never become tender, or have any tender consciences, but are hardened in sin from their infancy. Some render the words, "before your thorns grow up to a brier" or "bramble" i; little thorns become great ones, tender thorns hard ones, as Jarchi; that is, as he interprets it, before the children of the wicked are grown up, they are destroyed; those sons of Belial, who are like to thorns thrust away,

2 Samuel 23:6. Others, as Aben Ezra, "before they understand"; that is, wise and knowing men; "that your thorns are a bramble"; or from lesser ones are become greater; and so denotes, as before, the suddenness and quickness of their destruction, as follows:

he, that is, God,

shall take them away as with a whirlwind: not to himself, as Enoch; nor to heaven, whither Elijah went up by a whirlwind; but out of the land of the living, and as with a tempest, to hell, where snares, fire, and brimstone, are rained upon them; see Job 27:20;

both living, and in [his] wrath: when in health and full strength, and so go quick to hell; as Korah and his company alive into the earth; and all in wrath and sore displeasure: for the righteous are also taken away; but then it is from the evil to come, and to everlasting happiness; and through many tempestuous providences, which are in love, and for their good, do they enter the kingdom: and those that are alive at Christ's coming will be caught up to meet him in the air; but the wicked are taken away as in a whirlwind, alive, and in wrath.

i Tigurine version.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.   7 Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.   8 As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.   9 Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.   10 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.   11 So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

      In these verses we have,

      I. David's prayers against his enemies, and all the enemies of God's church and people; for it is as such that he looks upon them, so that he was actuated by a public spirit in praying against them, and not by any private revenge. 1. He prays that they might be disabled to do any further mischief (Psalms 58:6; Psalms 58:6): Break their teeth, O God! Not so much that they might not feed themselves as that they might not be able to make prey of others, Psalms 3:7. He does not say, "Break their necks" (no; let them live to repent, slay them not, lest my people forget), but, "Break their teeth, for they are lions, they are young lions, that live by rapine." 2. That they might be disappointed in the plots they had already laid, and might not gain their point: "When he bends his bow, and takes aim to shoot his arrows at the upright in heart, let them be as cut in pieces,Psalms 58:7; Psalms 58:7. Let them fall at his feet, and never come near the mark." 3. That they and their interest might waste and come to nothing, that they might melt away as waters that run continually; that is, as the waters of a land-flood, which, though they seem formidable for a while, soon soak into the ground or return to their channels, or, in general, as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, but gradually dries away and disappears. Such shall the floods of ungodly men be, which sometimes make us afraid (Psalms 18:4); so shall the proud waters be reduced, which threaten to go over our soul, Psalms 124:4; Psalms 124:5. Let us by faith then see what they shall be and then we shall not fear what they are. He prays (Psalms 58:8; Psalms 58:8) that they might melt as a snail, which wastes by its own motion, in every stretch it makes leaving some of its moisture behind, which, by degrees, must needs consume it, though it makes a path to shine after it. He that like a snail in her house is plenus sui--full of himself, that pleases himself and trusts to himself, does but consume himself, and will quickly bring himself to nothing. And he prays that they might be like the untimely birth of a woman, which dies as soon as it begins to live and never sees the sun. Job, in his passion, wished he himself had been such a one (Job 3:16), but he knew not what he said. We may, in faith, pray against the designs of the church's enemies, as the prophet does (Hosea 9:14, Give them, O Lord! what wilt thou give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts), which explains this prayer of the psalmist.

      II. His prediction of their ruin (Psalms 58:9; Psalms 58:9): "Before your pots can feel the heat of a fire of thorns made under them (which they will presently do, for it is a quick fire and violent while it lasts), so speedily, with such a hasty and violent flame, God shall hurry them away, as terribly and as irresistibly as with a whirlwind, as it were alive, as it were in fury."

      1. The proverbial expressions are somewhat difficult, but the sense is plain, (1.) That the judgments of God often surprise wicked people in the midst of their jollity, and hurry them away of a sudden. When they are beginning to walk in the light of their own fire, and the sparks of their own kindling, they are made to lie down in sorrow (Isaiah 50:11), and their laughter proves like the crackling of thorns under a pot, the comfort of which is soon gone, ere they can say, Alas! I am warm,Ecclesiastes 7:6. (2.) That there is no standing before the destruction that comes from the Almighty; for who knows the power of God's anger? When God will take sinners away, dead or alive, they cannot contest with him. The wicked are driven away in their wickedness. Now,

      2. There are two things which the psalmist promises himself as the good effects of sinners' destruction:-- (1.) That saints would be encouraged and comforted by it (Psalms 58:10; Psalms 58:10): The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. The pomp and power, the prosperity and success, of the wicked, are a discouragement to the righteous; they sadden their hearts, and weaken their hands, and are sometimes a strong temptation to them to question their foundations, Psalms 73:2; Psalms 73:13. But when they see the judgments of God hurrying them away, and just vengeance taken on them for all the mischief they have done to the people of God, they rejoice in the satisfaction thereby given to their doubts and the confirmation thereby given to their faith in the providence of God and his justice and righteousness in governing the world; they shall rejoice in the victory thus gained over that temptation by seeing their end,Psalms 73:17. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked; that is, there shall be abundance of bloodshed (Psalms 68:23), and it shall be as great a refreshment to the saints to see God glorified in the ruin of sinners as it is to a weary traveller to have his feet washed. It shall likewise contribute to their sanctification; the sight of the vengeance shall make them tremble before God (Psalms 119:120) and shall convince them of the evil of sin, and the obligations they lie under to that God who pleads their cause and will suffer no man to do them wrong and go unpunished for it. The joy of the saints in the destruction of the wicked is then a holy joy, and justifiable, when it helps to make them holy and to purify them from sin. (2.) That sinners would be convinced and converted by it, Psalms 58:11; Psalms 58:11. The vengeance God sometimes takes on the wicked in this world will bring men to say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous. Any man may draw this inference from such providences, and many a man shall, who before denied even these plain truths or doubted of them. Some shall have this confession extorted from them, others shall have their minds so changed that they shall willingly own it, and thank God who has given them to see it and see it with satisfaction, That God is, and, [1.] That he is the bountiful rewarder of his saints and servants: Verily (however it be, so it may be read) there is a fruit to the righteous; whatever damage he may run, and whatever hardship he may undergo for his religion, he shall not only be no loser by it, but an unspeakable gainer in the issue. Even in this world there is a reward for the righteous; they shall be recompensed in the earth. Those shall be taken notice of, honoured, and protected, that seemed slighted, despised, and abandoned. [2.] That he is the righteous governor of the world, and will surely reckon with the enemies of his kingdom: Verily, however it be, though wicked people prosper, and bid defiance to divine justice, yet it shall be made to appear, to their confusion, that the world is not governed by chance, but by a Being of infinite wisdom and justice; there is a God that judges in the earth, though he has prepared his throne in the heavens. He presides in all the affairs of the children of men, and directs and disposes them according to the counsel of his will, to his own glory; and he will punish the wicked, not only in the world to come, but in the earth, where they have laid up their treasure and promised themselves a happiness--in the earth, that the Lord may be known by the judgments which he executes, and that they may be taken as earnests of a judgment to come. He is a God (so we read it), not a weak man, not an angel, not a mere name, not (as the atheists suggest) a creature of men's fear and fancy, not a deified hero, not the sun and moon, as idolaters imagined, but a God, a self-existent perfect Being; he it is that judges the earth; his favour therefore let us seek, from whom every man's judgment proceeds, and to him let all judgment be referred.