Commentary - Psalm 94:3-7

Bird's-eye view

This section of Psalm 94 is the heart of the believer's complaint to God. It is a cry of exasperated faith, a question that has echoed down through the centuries in the hearts of the saints: "How long, O Lord?" The psalmist is not questioning God's existence or His ultimate power, but rather His timing. He sees the wicked not just succeeding, but exulting in their wickedness. They are loud, arrogant, and oppressive. They are not quiet sinners, but boastful ones who crush God's people, His covenant inheritance, and prey on the most vulnerable of society. The climax of their wickedness is a theological one; their practical atheism is summed up in the sneering assertion that God is either blind or indifferent. This passage, then, is a raw, honest appeal to the God of vengeance to act, to vindicate His own name, and to deliver His afflicted people from the arrogant hands of those who believe they can sin with impunity.

The structure is a crescendo of outrage. It moves from the general question of "how long" to the specific sins of arrogant speech, to the violent actions of crushing and murder, and finally to the blasphemous thoughts that fuel it all. It is a portrait of unbridled iniquity, and it serves as the legal brief that the psalmist is presenting before the bench of the Judge of all the earth. The rest of the psalm will be God's answer to this impassioned plea, but here we are meant to feel the full weight of the injustice and to join the psalmist in asking the same question of the proud and wicked in our own day.

Outline

Context In The Psalms

Psalm 94 is one of the psalms that grapples with the problem of evil and the seeming delay of divine justice. It stands in a long tradition of biblical lament, alongside psalms like 10, 13, and 73. The psalmist is surrounded by a culture of insolent wickedness, where evil men are not only getting away with their sin, but are prospering and boasting because of it. This psalm is a prayer for theodicy in action. It begins by calling on God as the "God to whom vengeance belongs" (v. 1), establishing from the outset that the psalmist is not seeking personal revenge, but rather the execution of God's righteous judgment. This is a cry for God to be God in the public square. Following our section, the psalm turns to rebuke the "brutish" and "fools" who think God is deaf and blind (vv. 8-11), and then concludes with a confident assurance that God chastens, protects, and will ultimately judge the wicked, bringing their own iniquity back upon their heads (vv. 12-23). Our passage is the central problem statement that the rest of the psalm resolves.

Key Issues

The Impatience of the Saints

It is a great comfort to know that God includes psalms like this in His prayer book for the church. This is not the prayer of a man whose faith is failing, but rather the prayer of a man whose faith is being tested. He believes so firmly in the justice of God that the present state of affairs is intolerable to him. He knows God is righteous, and therefore the triumph of the wicked is a profound theological contradiction that must be resolved. And so he asks, "How long?" This is the same question the martyrs under the altar ask in the book of Revelation: "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6:10). God is not offended by this question when it comes from a heart that longs for His glory and His justice to be displayed. He invites this kind of raw honesty. He wants us to be impatient for His kingdom to come in its fullness. He wants us to hate evil, to be vexed by the arrogance of sinners, and to plead with Him to set things right. This is not a sign of weak faith; it is the sign of a robust faith that takes God at His word and wants to see that word vindicated in the world.

Verse by Verse Commentary

3 How long shall the wicked, O Yahweh, How long shall the wicked exult?

The psalmist repeats the question for emphasis, like a man pacing in a courtroom, waiting for the judge to enter. The issue is not simply that the wicked exist. The issue is that they exult. They are joyful in their wickedness. They are gloating, triumphant, and celebrating their rebellion. This is what grates on the soul of the righteous man. It is one thing for sin to be a sad, miserable reality. It is another thing entirely for sin to be throwing a victory parade. The psalmist's plea to Yahweh, the covenant God, is a plea for this unholy carnival to be brought to an end. How long will you let them get away with this party? How long will you let them mock your law and your people with their laughter?

4 They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All workers of iniquity vaunt themselves.

The first piece of evidence submitted is their speech. Wickedness is never silent for long. It has to express itself, and its native language is arrogance. The Hebrew pictures a gushing spring; their arrogant words are not a mere trickle, but a torrent, a flood of self-congratulation. They "pour forth" and "speak arrogantly." This is not just pride, but pride on display. They vaunt themselves, which means they boast and carry on as though they were the most important people on earth. All workers of iniquity do this. It is a universal characteristic of the ungodly heart to be full of itself, and what the heart is full of, the mouth speaks. Their words are a constant assault on the humble and a constant offense to the holy God who resists the proud.

5 They crush Your people, O Yahweh, And afflict Your inheritance.

From arrogant words, the psalmist moves to oppressive actions. Their pride is not harmless; it has victims. And the primary victims are God's own covenant people. The language here is potent. They "crush" God's people, like grinding them into the dust. They "afflict" His inheritance. The terms "Your people" and "Your inheritance" are crucial. This is not just man-on-man violence. This is an attack on God's personal possession. When they crush the saints, they are attempting to crush God's treasured people, the ones He has set apart for Himself. The psalmist is reminding God that this is personal. These are not just any people; they are Your people. This is not just any land or group; it is Your inheritance. An attack on them is an attack on You.

6 They slay the widow and the sojourner And murder the orphans.

The wickedness is further specified. Their cruelty is not directed at those who can fight back, but at the most defenseless members of society. The widow, the sojourner (the resident alien), and the orphan were the three classes of people that the Mosaic Law repeatedly and explicitly placed under God's special protection. A society was to be judged by how it treated these vulnerable ones. And here, the wicked do not just neglect them or exploit them; they slay and murder them. This is the nadir of depravity. It is a direct and defiant violation of God's expressed will. It is to attack the very people God has taken under His wing. This demonstrates that the wicked have no fear of God and no natural compassion for man. Their hearts are stone.

7 They have said, “Yah does not see, Nor does the God of Jacob discern.”

Here we get to the root of it all. What is the operating principle that allows for such arrogant words and such cruel actions? It is a foundational theological error, a piece of practical atheism. They have said, perhaps not with their lips but certainly in their hearts, that God is not paying attention. "Yah does not see." They believe God's eyes are closed, or that He is too far away to be bothered with the affairs of men. Or, if He does see, He does not "discern." He doesn't understand, He doesn't connect the dots, He doesn't make moral judgments. They have demoted the God of Jacob, the omniscient and all-wise covenant God of Israel, to the level of a blind, witless idol. This is the ultimate self-deception of the sinner. He must believe in a stupid God in order to justify his clever sin. And it is this blasphemy, more than anything else, that demands a response from the heavens.

Application

We live in a world that is just as full of arrogant, boastful wickedness as the psalmist's world was. Our media pours forth a torrent of arrogant words. Our culture often crushes the people of God and afflicts His inheritance through legal and social pressure. And the most vulnerable, particularly the unborn, are slain by the millions, while their executioners justify themselves with the same practical atheism: God does not see, or if He does, He does not care.

This psalm gives us permission, and indeed a command, to be troubled by all of this. We are not to make a separate peace with a wicked world. We are to feel the sting of its injustice and the offense of its blasphemy. And we are to take that holy frustration to God in prayer. We must cry out, "How long, O Lord?" not in faithless despair, but in faithful protest. We should plead with God to vindicate His name, to protect His people, and to bring justice upon the earth.

But we must also remember the answer that the rest of the psalm provides, and which the whole of Scripture confirms. God does see. The one who planted the ear, does He not hear? The one who formed the eye, does He not see? (v. 9). The Lord knows the thoughts of man (v. 11). Our task is to remain faithful in the midst of the waiting, to trust that the pit is being dug for the wicked even now (v. 13), and to remember that the Lord will not forsake His people (v. 14). The cross of Christ is the ultimate proof that God sees the affliction of His people and the sin of the wicked. At the cross, the ultimate act of injustice was perpetrated, and God turned it into the ultimate act of salvation. He sees, He discerns, and in His perfect time, He will act. Until then, we pray this psalm.