Bird's-eye view
Psalm 10 is a lament that cries out to God, asking why He stands so far off when the wicked are prospering and persecuting the poor. It is a raw and honest depiction of a world that seems, from a human vantage point, to be turned upside down. The psalmist provides a detailed anatomy of the wicked man, dissecting his pride, his atheistic assumptions, his greed, and his violent intentions. This is not just a general complaint; it is a specific indictment. Verse 7 sits at the heart of this description, focusing on the source of the wicked man's power: his mouth. The entire machinery of his oppressive enterprise is fueled by his words. This verse is a concise summary of how fallen man uses the divine gift of speech as a weapon against both God and his neighbor, revealing the deep corruption of his heart. The psalm as a whole moves from this detailed description of wickedness to a confident appeal for God to arise and bring justice, ending in a note of trust in God's everlasting reign.
This verse, therefore, is a key part of the psalmist's legal brief against the ungodly. He is laying out the evidence before the heavenly court. The wicked man's speech is not just offensive; it is covenant-breaking. It is the verbal expression of the serpent's ancient lie in the garden. The psalmist understands that words are never "just words." They are the overflow of the heart, and they create worlds. The wicked man uses his words to create a world of fear, confusion, and ruin, and the psalmist calls upon God to unmake that world with His own righteous judgment.
Outline
- 1. The Anatomy of Wicked Speech (Psalm 10:7)
- a. The Full Mouth: Curses, Deceit, and Oppression (v. 7a)
- b. The Hidden Heart: Mischief and Wickedness Under the Tongue (v. 7b)
Context In Psalms
In the Hebrew manuscript tradition, Psalms 9 and 10 are often considered a single, unified psalm. They form an acrostic poem, though the pattern has some irregularities. Psalm 9 is largely a psalm of praise and thanksgiving for God's past judgments on the nations. It is confident and triumphant. Psalm 10 then shifts dramatically in tone, becoming a lament over the present success of the wicked within the covenant community. This juxtaposition is powerful. It teaches the believer to hold two realities in tension: the reality of God's sovereign and righteous rule, and the present reality of evil that seems to go unchecked. Psalm 10:7, with its focus on the corrupt speech of the wicked, provides the ground-level evidence for why the psalmist is so distressed. The very fabric of society is being torn apart by lies and threats, and this is happening right after the celebration of God's justice in Psalm 9. The psalm is a model for how the righteous are to process the apparent contradiction between God's promises and their present experience, ultimately driving them to deeper faith in God's timing and His ultimate judgment.
Key Issues
- The Relationship Between Heart and Mouth
- The Nature of Cursing
- Deceit as a Foundational Sin
- The Connection Between Speech and Oppression
- The Doctrine of Total Depravity
The Rotten Fountain
Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us a foundational diagnostic principle. He said that the mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart (Matt. 12:34). If you want to know what is in the well, you simply need to examine the water that is drawn up in the bucket. The psalmist here is doing precisely that. He is not just complaining about a man who has a bad habit of saying nasty things. He is describing a man whose heart is a fountain of corruption, and his mouth is the open spigot. The problem is not just the words; the problem is the man. The words are simply the evidence, the proof of the deep-seated rebellion within.
The categories of sin described here, curses, deceit, oppression, mischief, and wickedness, are not separate, compartmentalized issues. They are all facets of the same gemstone, which is a heart set against God. A man who does not fear God will not scruple to curse. A man who does not love God's truth will readily employ deceit. A man who does not respect God's image in his neighbor will have no problem using his words to oppress him. It all flows from one central source: prideful autonomy. The wicked man described in this psalm has made himself his own god (v. 4), and consequently, his mouth becomes the instrument through which he attempts to legislate his own reality and impose it on others.
Verse by Verse Commentary
7 His mouth is full of curses and deceit and oppression;
The psalmist begins with the man's mouth. And notice, it is not that he occasionally lets a curse slip, or tells a white lie now and then. His mouth is full of this poison. It is packed to the brim; it is his native language. The word for "curses" here refers to an oath or an imprecation, a calling down of evil. This is the man who cannot speak without blaspheming, who uses the name of God, or the names of false gods, to threaten and intimidate. His speech is fundamentally anti-God. Cursing is an attempt to usurp God's prerogative to bless and to curse.
Next comes deceit. This is the language of the serpent. All sin, from the very beginning, is wrapped up in lies. The wicked man cannot operate in the clear light of day. His plans are crooked, so his words must be crooked to match. He uses flattery, slander, misdirection, and outright falsehoods to trap his victims and advance his own cause. Deceit is the essential lubricant for all his other sins.
And the goal of the curses and deceit is oppression. The word here means extortion or fraud. He uses his verbal assaults and his web of lies to crush the poor and the helpless, to take what is not his. His words are not empty threats; they are weapons that he uses to inflict real-world harm, to steal a widow's house or to defraud a poor man of his wages. His mouth is an instrument of violence.
Under his tongue is mischief and wickedness.
The psalmist now looks deeper. If the mouth is full, what is going on under his tongue? This is a metaphor for what is held in reserve, what is being tasted, savored, and prepared. It is the source from which the mouth is filled. It speaks of premeditation. This is not a man who sins in a moment of passion; this is a man who cultivates his sin. He rolls it around in his mind like a connoisseur tasting a fine wine.
And what is under his tongue? Mischief and wickedness. The word for "mischief" often carries the idea of trouble, toil, or sorrow. It is the misery that he plans to inflict on others. He thinks about it, he plans for it, he delights in the thought of the trouble he is going to cause. "Wickedness" refers to iniquity or vanity, the pursuit of that which is empty and contrary to God's law. It is a comprehensive term for his lawless thoughts and intentions. What is hidden under the tongue is the engine room of his entire operation. The full mouth is just the exhaust pipe, revealing the corrupt fuel that is being burned in the heart.
Application
It is easy for us to read a verse like this and immediately think of some monstrous tyrant or some cartoonishly evil villain. And it certainly applies to them. But the Holy Spirit included this in our prayer book for our own sanctification. We must allow this verse to be a mirror. The seed of every sin described here lies in our own fallen hearts. The difference between the righteous man and the wicked man is not that the righteous man has no capacity for such speech, but that he has been given a new heart by the grace of God and is now at war with what remains of that old corruption.
James tells us that the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, and that it is set on fire by hell (James 3:6). This psalm agrees. Therefore, the Christian must be a man who is vigilant over his words. When we are tempted to curse someone who has wronged us, to shade the truth for our own advantage, or to use our words to intimidate or manipulate, we are sipping from the same poisoned well as the wicked man of Psalm 10. Our only hope is found in the one man whose mouth was never full of curses, but only blessing. Jesus Christ spoke only the truth, and He used His words not to oppress, but to set the captives free.
On the cross, He who knew no deceit became sin for us. He absorbed into Himself all our curses, all our lies, all our oppressive words. And He did this so that our mouths might be filled with something new: praise for God and grace for our neighbors. The gospel does not just give us a list of words to avoid. It crucifies the old man whose native language is deceit, and it raises up a new man in Christ who is learning, day by day, to speak the language of the kingdom of God, which is the language of truth and love.