Psalms 58

Wesley: O congregation—Saul’s judges and counsellors; Sons of men—they must give account for hard speeches. The challenge exposes sham justice.

Rulers who claim to decree right are still accountable men. Shared seriousness—the question is not sarcasm for sport but an arraignment before God.

Calvin: challenge from conscious rectitude; congregation as Saul’s assembly ostensibly for the nation, for oppression; sons of men may strip the courtesy title. Integrity may challenge kings and counsellors.

Unjust gods are weighed. Appeal to adversaries’ own lips and to God’s tribunal when the world will not hear.

Wesley: Heart—free choice and consent; Hands—wrong under pretence of justice, weighing then turning the scale; in this land under God and law.

Devising wrongs is willed, not fate alone. Violence “dealt out” as if measured justice is hypocrisy grace still names and resists by prayer.

Calvin: wickedness first in thoughts then practiced with hands; weigh/frame violence; upon the earth—unbridled license done openly.

Their hearts plot what their hands carry out. Pretended equity glossing oppression is still violence God sees.

Wesley: Estranged—from God and goodness; natures corrupt from birth, wicked offspring of sinful parents; Astray—actual sins from childhood when reason begins.

Original corruption and early actual sin both named. Estrangement deepens by lies spoken; the will goes astray as capacity grows—serious diagnosis, not excuse for cruelty.

Calvin: not recent sinners but born to commit sin; leavened with wickedness from the womb. All inherit Adam’s stain, yet some proceed to intolerable iniquity—monsters beyond common restraint.

From-the-womb language is grave anthropology. Both camps refuse to soft-pedal congenital and early deceit.

Wesley: Poison—malicious disposition. Serpent and deaf adder picture willful malice that will not hear.

Venom is moral, not merely “strong personality.” Stopping the ear is refusal of counsel—serious enough to drive the imprecations that follow.

Calvin: deadly malice like serpent poison; deaf adders famed for cunning against the charmer. Consummate subtlety that will not be won by wise appeal.

Serpent venom is not comic hyperbole. Both camps hear spiritual danger in deaf malice.

Wesley: Not hearken—deaf to counsels, conscience, and God’s law; adder called deaf because it will not be charmed.

Refusal to hear is culpable. Wise charming fails where the will stops the ear; prayer then turns from persuasion of the wicked to appeal to God.

Calvin: enchantment figure underscores craft that resists every artifice; obstinacy against word and Spirit’s enlightenment. Persuasion exhausted, imprecation remains.

Deafness to charm is judicial seriousness.

Wesley: Teeth—powerful instruments of doing mischief. Imprecation asks God to disable the predator, not private revenge.

Break teeth is serious petition for public check. Shared—both camps refuse to baptize this as mere venting; it is prayer that God disarm violence so harm stops.

Calvin: language of imprecation; vengeance is God’s peculiar prerogative after integrity asserted. Teeth and lion jaws—wild-beast desire to rend; crush and restrain rage.

Imprecation is prayer to the Judge. God alone breaks fangs; the saint does not take the lion’s mouth in hand.

Wesley: Melt away—snow-waters that run with force then are suddenly gone; arrows as cut in pieces. Swift nullifying of threat.

Vanishing and blunting are asked so malice fails mid-aim. Serious hope—God may evaporate the flood and snap the shaft before it strikes.

Calvin: flow away like waters—swiftly; faith that solid national opposition melt before God. Arrows fall powerless as broken though the bow is bent.

Do not cease to pray after arrows are fitted. Both camps hear judicial seriousness: the threat is serious, and so is the plea that it dissolve.

Wesley: Melteth—quickly dissolved; untimely birth that may not see the sun. Evaporation of proud schemes.

Snail and stillborn images are severe—not to be softened into comedy. Shared seriousness—malice’s career may be cut off before it “has not seen the sun” of success.

Calvin: snail melting; abortion—pass away before life well begun; God can crush the mighty in a moment. Pride in easy prosperity dashed by equally sudden end.

These similes are judicial, not cruel entertainment. Both camps refuse to laugh off the stillborn image; it is prayer that evil not mature.

Wesley: Before pots heated—take them violently and irresistibly; Living—alive, as Korah. Whirlwind judgment before schemes cook.

Sweep-away is sudden divine act. Shared—thorn-fire under pots meets storm; neither camp treats Korah-like removal as light rhetoric.

Calvin: swift judgment—before thorns grow to bush or flesh feels the pot’s heat; whirlwind carries them raw. Unprepared wickedness snatched mid-plan.

Timing of wrath outruns the cook-fire. Serious petition that God not let violence “come to a boil.”

Wesley: Rejoice—for blessed effects: vindication of God’s honour and deliverance of himself and all good men. Joy at justice’s fruit, not bloodlust.

Bathing feet in blood is martial image of complete victory under God. Shared seriousness—rejoicing is at vengeance as God’s, for honour and rescue; both camps reject sadistic glee while affirming judicial joy.

Calvin: joy under holy zeal guided by the Spirit—sympathy with God’s justness, not hatred’s desire for revenge. When obstinacy brings retribution, saints rejoice that God awards punishment and cares for their safety.

Pure joy at judgment differs from cruel satisfaction. Both camps take the verse as grave doxology over God’s vengeance, not a joke.

Wesley’s arc closes in public confession: reward for the righteous; God judging on earth. The imprecations aim at this acknowledgement.

Mankind’s saying invites the watching world to learn righteousness. Shared—final verdict is theodicy spoken aloud; prayer for judgment serves confession that God still judges here.

Calvin: man shall say—saints especially, many whose faith staggered now established. Verily reward; verily God judges in the earth—against the thought that providence is only heavenly. Judgments teach righteousness (Isa 26:9).

Earthly judgment confessed. Both camps end convinced: the righteous are not abandoned; God judges on earth.