Bird's-eye view
In these concluding verses of his appeal, David lays out the self-destructive nature of wickedness with three powerful and memorable images. This is not wishful thinking; it is a statement of theological fact about how God has ordered the world. First, sin is depicted as a grotesque pregnancy, where the wicked man conceives mischief and gives birth to a lie. Second, sin is a trap that ensnares the trapper; the wicked man digs a pit for another but is the one who ultimately falls into it. Third, sin is a boomerang; the violence and mischief intended for the righteous returns to crash down upon the skull of the perpetrator. This is the biblical doctrine of poetic justice, revealing that God’s judgment is not always a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky, but is often woven into the very fabric of the sinful act itself. The sinner, in plotting evil, is simply braiding the rope for his own hanging.
David, having entrusted his cause to the righteous Judge of all the earth, can now confidently describe the inevitable end of his enemies. He is not taking matters into his own hands. Rather, he is resting in the moral structure of the universe that God has made. Sin contains the seeds of its own destruction, and when God gives a man over to his sin, He is simply letting him reap the harvest he so diligently sowed. This passage is a profound meditation on the law of sowing and reaping, and it serves as a comfort to the righteous and a stark warning to the wicked.
Outline
- 1. The Inevitable Fruit of Wickedness (Ps 7:14-16)
- a. The Unholy Gestation of Sin (Ps 7:14)
- b. The Self-Sprung Trap of Malice (Ps 7:15)
- c. The Boomerang of Divine Justice (Ps 7:16)
Context In Psalms
Psalm 7 is a shiggaion of David, which likely means a psalm of intense feeling, possibly with a wandering or irregular meter. The superscription tells us David sang this concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite. David is being slandered, falsely accused of treachery, likely during the tumultuous period of Saul's reign. The psalm is a powerful appeal to God as the righteous Judge. David begins by declaring his innocence and even calls a curse upon himself if the charges are true (vv. 3-5). He then calls upon God to arise in anger and execute judgment (vv. 6-9). He expresses his confidence in God, who is a shield to the upright and a judge who feels indignation every day (vv. 10-13). Our passage, verses 14-16, forms the climax of this confidence. It is the logical and theological outworking of what happens when a holy God confronts unrepentant wickedness. Because God is who He is, the wicked will inevitably be undone by their own machinations. The psalm concludes with David resolving to give thanks to the Lord for His righteousness (v. 17), a righteousness demonstrated in the self-destruction of evil.
Key Issues
- The Organic Nature of Sin
- Poetic Justice (Lex Talionis)
- The Law of Sowing and Reaping
- God's Judgment in and through Natural Consequences
- The Folly and Self-Destructive Nature of Evil
The Gravitational Pull of Sin
One of the central truths of a Christian worldview is that we live in a moral universe. God did not create a neutral stage on which good and evil are equally plausible options with arbitrary consequences. He created a world with a definite grain, a moral texture. Righteousness is in accord with the grain of reality, and wickedness is a constant, laborious effort to work against it. This is why sin is ultimately sterile and self-consuming. It produces nothing lasting, and it always turns on the sinner.
David understands this profoundly. In these verses, he is not just saying, "I hope the bad guy gets what's coming to him." He is describing the physics of God's moral order. Sin has its own gravitational pull. The man who dedicates his life to plotting evil, digging pits for others, and spewing violence finds that he has created a center of gravity that pulls all his own malice back toward himself. The pit he digs becomes his own event horizon. This is not a fluke; it is the design. God has designed the world such that sin is fundamentally and inescapably stupid. It never accomplishes what it sets out to do, and its only certain result is the destruction of the sinner.
Verse by Verse Commentary
14 Behold, he travails with wickedness, And he conceives mischief and gives birth to falsehood.
David begins with Behold, calling our attention to a foundational truth. He describes the inner life of the wicked man using the metaphor of pregnancy and birth. This is a grotesque parody of life-giving fruitfulness. The process begins when he conceives mischief. Sin starts as a seed, an evil desire or a malicious thought entertained in the heart. This conception leads to a period of gestation, where he travails with wickedness. He is pregnant with it, nurturing the evil, planning it, laboring over it. The word for travail denotes the pain and effort of childbirth. The wicked man works hard at his sin. And what is the end result? He gives birth to falsehood. The final product is a lie, a vanity, something that is not real and has no substance. His great effort produces nothing but a stillborn deceit. The apostle James describes the same progression: "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death" (James 1:14-15).
15 He has dug a pit and hollowed it out, And has fallen into the hole which he made.
The second image is that of the pit-digger. This is a common biblical illustration of poetic justice (cf. Prov 26:27). The wicked man is industrious. He doesn't just find a pit; he makes one. He dug a pit and hollowed it out. This speaks of premeditation, effort, and cunning. He is designing a trap to destroy the righteous. He is an engineer of malice. But the punchline is swift and sure. He has fallen into the hole which he made. The trap works perfectly, but on the wrong victim. The moral order of God's world ensures that the pit has the address of its maker written on it. Haman builds a gallows for Mordecai and ends up swinging on it himself. The enemies of Daniel arrange for him to be thrown into the lions' den and are devoured by the lions themselves. This is not a coincidence; it is a fixed principle of God's government.
16 His mischief will return upon his own head, And his violence will descend upon his own skull.
This final verse states the principle of the previous two in the most direct and personal terms. The abstract "mischief" and "violence" become concrete realities crashing down on the sinner's body. The evil he intended for another will return upon his own head. It is a boomerang. The violence he planned will descend upon his own skull. It is a rock thrown straight up into the air. The language is graphic and severe. God's justice is not a gentle suggestion; it is a crushing reality. The point is that the sinner is the ultimate victim of his own sin. He thinks he is assaulting God or his neighbor, but the final casualty is always himself. The wages of sin is death, and the sinner is the one who signs his own paycheck.
Application
The principles laid out in this psalm are as fixed as the law of gravity, and they have sharp application for us today. First, for the believer, this is a profound call to trust and patience. When you are slandered, maligned, or persecuted for your faith, your first duty is not to retaliate. Your first duty is to entrust your cause to the righteous Judge, just as David did. You do not have to arrange for your enemies to fall into a pit. God has already made the arrangements. The universe is wired for their downfall. Our job is to remain faithful, to keep our own hearts clean, and to pray for their repentance, knowing that if they do not repent, their own malice will be their undoing.
Second, this is a terrifying warning against nurturing any sin in our own hearts. Do not be the man who conceives mischief. Do not entertain bitterness, lust, envy, or deceit. Do not imagine that you can manage a "small" sin. Sin is never static; it is always in travail, always seeking to be born into some greater ugliness. The little lie you conceive will give birth to a tangled web of falsehood. The pit of gossip you dig for a coworker will be the one your own reputation falls into. The angry outburst you unleash will descend upon your own skull in the form of broken relationships and a guilty conscience. Repentance is the only way to stop this unholy gestation. We must flee to Christ, who not only forgives the sin but breaks its power.
Finally, we see the ultimate expression of this principle at the cross. The greatest evil ever conceived was the murder of the Son of God. The rulers of the age dug a pit for Jesus, the grave itself. They unleashed their ultimate violence upon His skull with a crown of thorns. But in the glorious wisdom of God, their very act of mischief returned upon their own heads. By killing the author of life, they destroyed the very foundation of their authority and sealed their own doom. The pit they dug became the womb of the resurrection, and the violence they inflicted became the very means of our salvation. Christ absorbed the boomerang of our sin so that we, the guilty, could be set free.