Psalms 94

O Lord, God of vengeance, shine forth! Double title; plea that the Avenger appear. The plain cry stands—ask the just God to show himself, not private revenge dressed as piety.

Calvin: God of vengeances—titles fit the situation; shine forth means some actual manifestation as judge. Not that God needs reminding; the faithful embolden themselves to vehement prayer. When wicked indulge excesses, remember he never ceases to be judge of the earth.

Shine forth, God of vengeance. Retributive justice, not a vindictive spirit; put up the Spirit-taught prayer when he seems hidden.

Rise up, you judge of the earth. Pay the proud what they deserve.

The rise is courtroom, not mob. Deserve names the moral claim without licensing cruelty in the petitioner.

Calvin: Lift up thyself, Judge of the earth—render reward to the proud. Ascending the tribunal to punish sin and preserve order. Phraseology is for us who feel overlooked unless he help openly.

Rise, judge, repay the proud. Confidence that governance of the world is his office.

O LORD, how long will the wicked exult? Both sides agree: doubled how long; length of triumph.

Importunity is justified by duration. The question is prayer, not unbelief's sneer.

Calvin: how long twice repeated—impunity granted so long they became shameless. Triumph is boasting exultation of the intoxicated wicked. God may subject the Church to protracted persecution without having forsaken her.

Delay is not desertion; pray through long forbearance.

They pour out arrogant words; evildoers boast. Wesley: Utter—pour forth freely, constantly, abundantly as a fountain; Hard things—insolent, intolerable words against thee and thy people.

Name the speech as fountain-abuse. Boast is not strength; it is poured wickedness.

Calvin: they pour forth, speak hard things—nabang means rush/boil forth; reckless words under no fear. Workers of iniquity lift themselves; glory in guilt. Pray for help under wild misrule.

The wicked pour out arrogant words and boast. Church under misgovernment still cries to God.

They break your people in pieces, LORD, and afflict your heritage. Both traditions see: people and heritage under the boot.

The injury is against God's own. Heritage language fuels intercession, not despair.

Calvin: break in pieces thy people and afflict thy inheritance—intolerable that God's peculiar heritage be trampled. Safety is dear as his workmanship and as his heritage; wronged, betake to God with more confidence.

They crush God’s people and afflict his heritage. Prefer this prayer when intestine enemies oppress.

They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless. Both note: triple assault on the unprotected.

Compassion's special objects are named. Cruelty here is contempt of divine authority.

Calvin: God commanded equity generally and specially protected orphan, widow, stranger. Cruelty to them is singular impiety; little children even beasts spare—monstrous that men assault them. Alleviate by prayer that God undertake their defense.

They murder the widow, the sojourner, and the fatherless. Imitate the Psalmist: pray God to defend them.

They say, The LORD will not see, neither will Jacob’s God of Jacob does not perceive. Wesley: Of Jacob—he who takes that name but has no regard to his people.

The taunt empties the covenant name. Answer by faith that Jacob's God does regard his flock.

Calvin: not always gross blasphemy in words, but despising judgments as if God took no cognisance. Violence shows brutish security concealing them from the Almighty—virtual denial of providence and of God as judge.

Common confession: "Does not see/perceive." Lowest depravity casts off fear of God.

Understand, O dullest of the people; you fools, when will you be wise? Rebuke of stupid folly among the people.

Wisdom's question is urgent. Belonging to Abraham's line makes folly more inexcusable.

Calvin: stupid among the people—stronger than mere fools; belonging to Abraham's posterity (Deut 4) aggravates. Or rulers leveled with the herd. When will ye be wise?—obstinate adherence to folly.

The senseless are told to understand, and fools are asked when they will be wise. Revelation makes dullness worse, not better.

He who implanted the ear, won’t he hear? Who formed the eye, won’t he see? Wesley: Planted—excellent structure of the ear; Formed—accurate workmanship of the eye. Creator argument for cognisance.

Design of ear and eye preaches against practical atheism. Do not humanize God with parts; hear and see are his perfect observation.

Calvin: if men see and hear by faculties from the Creator, God who formed eye and ear must possess most perfect observation. Argument from order of nature against eluding his view.

Planter hears; Former sees. Creature senses refute the claim that God does not perceive.

He who disciplines the nations, won’t he not rebuke? Who teaches man knowledge— Wesley: Know—men's thoughts, words, and actions. Both readings hold: from nations' correction to personal rebuke; from teaching to knowing.

For prayer: the greater-to-less holds. Nations under discipline leave no room for private exemption.

Calvin: he that chastises nations, shall he not correct?—from greater to less; or Gentiles punished, then Jews who heard the word all the more. Folly to flatter with impunity when peoples perish. He teaches knowledge—your shrewdness is a drop from his fullness.

Disciplines nations; teaches knowledge. Eluding God by craft is madness.

The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile. Wesley: Thoughts—he knoweth secret things; your thoughts, much more practices. Known vanity of human devisings.

Breath/vanity undercuts the boast of v. 4. Secret counsel is already weighed.

Calvin: Jehovah knows thoughts of men that they are vain—mists of delusion scatter before the Judge. Wicked cannot deceive God by subtle refuges; they deceive themselves.

Knows thoughts; they are breath. Stand before the Judge who stamps vanity on deep counsels.

Blessed is the man you discipline and teach out of your law. Wesley: Blessed—afflictions accompanied with Divine instructions are great and true blessings. Rod plus law-teaching equals beatitude.

Do not call raw pain blessed; call instructed affliction blessed. Receive the law's teaching under the rod.

Calvin: blessed whom God instructed and taught out of his law—wisdom for composure under the cross is not natural; it comes from God's school and Scriptures. True patience is cheerful submission based on confidence in grace, not Stoic stubbornness.

Discipline; teach from your law. Word and Spirit support under long trouble.

To give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit is dug for the wicked. Rest timed with the wicked's pit.

Rest is gift in the meantime. The pit's digging is God's work, not the sufferer's project.

Calvin: rest from days of evil while the pit is dug—wicked left on earth as a body on a bed till burial. Mount the watchtower; houses of the living are granted to those already devoted to destruction until the grave is ready.

Faith waits the issue without envying temporary ease of oppressors.

For the LORD won’t reject his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. The verse denies twice over that God will forsake his people.

For the reader: heritage again (v. 5). Crushing does not equal casting off—cling to the promise.

Calvin: Jehovah will not cast off his people nor forsake his inheritance—gratuitously adopted; he watches the Church as his heritage. Fly to this when affliction suggests desertion.

Will not forsake people or heritage. Adoption underwrites patience.

Justice will return to the righteous; the upright in heart shall follow it. Wesley: But—God will declare himself righteous judge and establish justice; Follow—approve and imitate. Both agree: justice restored; upright trail it.

Return of judgment is public rectitude. Imitate—do not only cheer from the stands.

Calvin: judgment will return unto righteousness—government fitted to justice; God brings forth openly the justice that seemed clouded. Upright follow him with greater alacrity when deliverance is seen.

Justice returns; upright follow. Confusion ends in ordered righteousness.

Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will stand up against evildoers? Wesley: Rise—defend me; looked hither and thither, none appeared; God alone helped.

The loneliness is true. Looking around is honest; settling on God alone is faith.

Calvin: who will rise/stand for me?—destitute of human aid; cries as if at the moment of danger. Immediately: had not God helped, he must have despaired. Miraculous rescue when deserted magnifies grace.

He asks who will rise and stand with him. God's single help outranks empty alliances.

Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul would have soon lived in silence. Wesley: Dwelt—place of silence, the grave. Both hear: near death-quiet without help.

Without the LORD’s help, the silence of the grave would have come. Help is the difference between living prayer and the pit.

Calvin: life dwelling in silence—the dead lie without feeling. No means of preserving life but God's undelayed interposition.

Without help, land of silence. Commend kindness that snatches from present death.

When I thought, "My foot is slipping," your steadfast love held me up. Both see: slipping foot; hesed props.

The inner sentence of falling meets covenant love. Admit the slip-thought; receive the hold.

Calvin: if I said, My foot has fallen—thy kindness held me up. Near present death made interposition conspicuous. Sense may say fallen while prayer continues—hope not wholly cut off.

Foot slips; steadfast love holds. Mercy props what would otherwise drop.

When multitude of my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul. Wesley: Thoughts—various perplexing thoughts; Comforts—promises and remembrance of former care and kindness. Many cares; divine consolations.

Pile of cares meets pile of comforts. Remember promises and past kindness under anxiety.

Calvin: in multitude of thoughts/anxieties, thy comforts delight—secret joy from above preserves from being swallowed. God enlarges in straits according to magnitude of trial.

Many cares; consolations cheer. Two states: fear below, comfort from above.

Can wicked rulers be allied with you, brings about mischief by statute? Wesley: Shall—wilt thou take part with unrighteous powers; A law—by unrighteous decrees. Undisputed: no fellowship with legalized mischief.

Statute does not sanctify oppression. Ask the question as confession of God's purity.

Calvin: shall throne of iniquities have fellowship with thee, framing molestation for law?—tyrants under color of law, not common robbers. A throne abused by wickedness has nothing in common with God; iniquity never meets his approbation.

God makes no alliance with injustice written into law. Legal forms can be tools of oppression; God is not partner.

They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. Conspiracy; innocent blood condemned.

The righteous face both slander and an unjust sentence. Character assassination rides with legal murder—bring both to God.

Calvin: they gather as a troop against the soul of the righteous; condemn innocent blood—leading persons, public convention, college of judges as band of robbers. Double trial: violence and injurious charges. God formerly tried servants thus; learn to bear both.

Band against life; condemn innocent. Submissive endurance under unrighteous courts.

But the LORD has been my high tower, my God, the rock of my refuge. No dispute here: fortress turn; rock of refuge.

But—pivot from statute-thrones to the Rock. Claim the stronghold aloud.

Calvin: Jehovah has been my fortress—sufficient help in God's single protection against force and fury of many. Hide and bid defiance to assault from that height.

The LORD is his stronghold and the rock of his refuge. One fortress outmatches assembled wickedness.

He will bring back their own iniquity, and will cut them off; the LORD, our God, will cut them off. Both affirm: recoil of iniquity; doubled wipe-out; our God.

Their own wickedness returns on their heads. Our God binds the Church to the Judge who finishes the case.

Calvin: he shall repay their iniquity and cut them off—evil devised against the people recoils; they fall into their own pit. Said twice: he shall cut them off—the Lord our God shall cut them off. Our God reminds: he will not forget his inheritance.

Bring back iniquity; wipe out. Slow hearts need the doubled assurance.