Bird's-eye view
This final section of Psalm 12 is God's thunderous answer to the crisis of corrupt human speech described in the first part of the psalm. David began by lamenting that the godly have vanished and everyone speaks lies to his neighbor. But here, the psalmist pivots from the horizontal plane of human deceit to the vertical reality of divine faithfulness. The central contrast is between the worthless, flattering, and proud words of men and the utterly pure, tested, and trustworthy words of Yahweh. God's Word is not just another opinion in the marketplace of ideas; it is a substance as pure and valuable as silver refined to perfection. Based on the integrity of this Word, God makes a promise: He will preserve His afflicted people. He will guard them from the crooked generation they are stuck in. The psalm ends with a stark reminder of what that generation looks like, with the wicked strutting about in public as vileness is promoted by the sons of men. This is not a counsel of despair, but a statement of the conditions under which God's preservation is most gloriously displayed.
In short, these three verses teach us that the absolute purity of God's revelation is the foundation for the certain preservation of God's people, even in the midst of a thoroughly corrupt and hostile culture.
Outline
- 1. The Perfect Standard of God's Word (Ps 12:6)
- a. A Declaration of Purity (Ps 12:6a)
- b. An Illustration of Perfection (Ps 12:6b)
- 2. The Perpetual Security of God's People (Ps 12:7)
- a. The Promise of Preservation (Ps 12:7a)
- b. The Target of Protection (Ps 12:7b)
- 3. The Pervasive Corruption of Man's World (Ps 12:8)
- a. The Arrogance of the Wicked (Ps 12:8a)
- b. The Inversion of Morality (Ps 12:8b)
Context In Psalms
Psalm 12 is a psalm of David that fits within the broader category of laments, but it is a communal lament that resolves into a confident expression of trust. The psalm opens with a cry for help because faithfulness has disappeared from the earth (vv. 1-2). The world is filled with flattering lips and double hearts. David calls on God to judge this arrogant and deceitful speech (vv. 3-4). The turning point comes in verse 5, where God Himself speaks: "Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy, Now I will arise... I will set him in the safety for which he longs." The verses we are considering here (6-8) are the psalmist's response to this divine promise. Verse 6 celebrates the nature of the God who just spoke, verses 7-8 declare confident trust in His promise to preserve the righteous, and verse 8 realistically describes the ongoing depravity of the world in which this preservation will take place. The psalm provides a timeless pattern for believers living as a faithful remnant in a faithless world.
Key Issues
- The Doctrine of the Purity of Scripture
- The Meaning of "Refined Seven Times"
- The Connection Between God's Word and God's People
- Identifying "This Generation"
- The Nature of Cultural Decay
Silver Words and Strutting Men
There is a stark and necessary antithesis that runs through all of Scripture, and we see it in high definition here. The world is divided into two camps, two cities, two seeds, and two ways of speaking. The first part of this psalm describes the speech of the wicked. It is vapor. It is flattery, lies, boasting, and deception. It is worthless talk from a double heart. Now, in our text, David sets in opposition to this the words of God. God's words are not vapor; they are solid. They are not dross; they are precious metal. They are not lies; they are the very definition of truth. The world is drowning in a sea of corrupt communication, cheap talk, and manipulative rhetoric. The only life raft, the only solid ground, is the Word of God. And it is upon this solid rock that the security of the saints rests. We are kept safe not by our own wits or strength, but by the promises of a God whose every word is purer than perfectly refined silver.
Verse by Verse Commentary
6 The words of Yahweh are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the ground, refined seven times.
After God's promise to arise in verse 5, David responds by exulting in the quality of that promise. The words of Yahweh are not just true in a general sense; they are pure words. There is no mixture in them, no deceit, no ulterior motive, no error, no dross. To drive the point home, he uses a powerful metaphor from metallurgy. God's words are like silver that has been subjected to the most intense refining process imaginable. A furnace would be built on the ground, or in the earth, to achieve the highest temperatures. The silver ore would be melted down, and the impurities, the dross, would be skimmed off. David says God's Word is like silver that has gone through this process seven times. In Scripture, the number seven signifies perfection and completion. This is not a literal description of God's lexicography; it is a vivid, poetic statement about the absolute, flawless, perfect purity of everything God has revealed. When God speaks, what you get is 100 percent pure truth, without alloy.
7 You, O Yahweh, will keep them; You will guard him from this generation forever.
This verse is the practical conclusion drawn from the doctrinal statement in verse 6. Because God's words are perfectly pure, the promises contained in those words are perfectly reliable. The psalmist expresses this confidence directly to God: "You, O Yahweh, will keep them." There is a slight ambiguity in the pronoun "them." Does it refer to the pure words of verse 6, or the afflicted people from verse 5? The best answer is, in a robustly biblical way, "yes." God preserves His pure words through all generations (the doctrine of preservation), and by means of those preserved words, He preserves His people. The second clause clarifies the primary focus: "You will guard him from this generation forever." The "him" is the singular righteous man, the needy and afflicted one who trusts in God. God promises to guard this faithful individual from "this generation." This does not just mean David's contemporaries. It refers to the crooked, perverse, and deceitful strain of humanity that is always present in the world until the final judgment. God's protection of His people is a perpetual, ongoing reality.
8 The wicked strut about on every side When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
This final verse can seem like a jarring return to the lament of the opening verses, but it is not. It is a statement of gritty realism. God's preservation of the righteous does not occur in a sterile laboratory. It happens right in the middle of a corrupt and decaying culture. The wicked are not hiding in shame; they strut about on every side. They are arrogant, bold, and public in their rebellion. They parade their sin. And why do they feel so confident? Because the culture has inverted all values. Vileness is exalted. That which is base, cheap, and depraved is held up as sophisticated, virtuous, or enlightened. What God calls abominable, the sons of men call admirable. This is the world we live in. This is the "generation" from which God promises to guard His own. The exaltation of vileness is the context for the display of God's keeping power. He does not remove us from the world; He guards us in the world.
Application
First, we must anchor our souls to the purity of God's Word. We live in an age of unprecedented verbal pollution. The internet, the media, and the academy bombard us with words that are the opposite of pure. They are manipulative, deceptive, flattering, and foolish. If we do not have an unshakable confidence in the absolute purity and authority of Scripture, we will be swept away. We must see the Bible not as a collection of helpful suggestions, but as silver refined seven times, more real and more reliable than the ground beneath our feet.
Second, we must rest in God's promise to preserve us. Notice that the promise is to guard us from this generation, not to remove us out of it. We are not to be surprised or dismayed when we see the wicked strutting and vileness being celebrated on television and in our city councils. This is what the world does. Our task is not to despair, but to trust the God who is our guardian. Our security does not depend on who wins the next election, but on the integrity of the God whose words are pure.
Finally, the contrast between the world's speech and God's speech should shape our own. As those who have been saved by the pure Word of the gospel, we are called to be people of pure words. In a world of flattery, we are to speak truthfully. In a world of boasting, we are to speak with humility. In a world of deceit, we are to be men and women of our word. We are to be a colony of heaven, a people whose speech has been refined by the pure words of our God, shining as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.