The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.
The psalm belongs to the group associated with the later part of the Babylonian captivity, when the Hebrew captives were under severe persecution and distress. Like the other psalms of that setting, it joins sorrow and affliction with encouragement and assurance of divine help and final deliverance.
It portrays the transgression of the wicked, before whose eyes there is no fear of God and who flatters himself that his iniquity will not be found out and hated. His speech has become iniquity and deceit, he has left off being wise and doing good, he devises wickedness, sets himself in a way that is not good, and does not hate evil. This wickedness stands in direct contrast to Jehovah, whose loving-kindness is in the heavens and whose faithfulness reaches to the skies, whose righteousness is like the mountains of God and whose judgments are a great deep, who preserves man and beast. His loving-kindness is precious, so that the children of men take shelter under His wings, and He satisfies them with the fatness of His house and makes them drink of the river of His pleasures. With Him is the fountain of life and in His light light is seen, and His loving-kindness and righteousness continue to those who know Him and to the upright in heart, while the workers of iniquity fall and are thrust down unable to rise.
The disobedient and unbelieving are fools who have turned aside from wisdom and from doing good. Obedience to God's commandments is therefore the sign of faith, and rejection of them is the beginning of folly and unbelief.
The psalm belongs to the group associated with the later part of the Babylonian captivity, when the Hebrew captives were under severe persecution and distress. Like the other psalms of that setting, it joins sorrow and affliction with encouragement and assurance of divine help and final deliverance.
It portrays the transgression of the wicked, before whose eyes there is no fear of God and who flatters himself that his iniquity will not be found out and hated. His speech has become iniquity and deceit, he has left off being wise and doing good, he devises wickedness, sets himself in a way that is not good, and does not hate evil. This wickedness stands in direct contrast to Jehovah, whose loving-kindness is in the heavens and whose faithfulness reaches to the skies, whose righteousness is like the mountains of God and whose judgments are a great deep, who preserves man and beast. His loving-kindness is precious, so that the children of men take shelter under His wings, and He satisfies them with the fatness of His house and makes them drink of the river of His pleasures. With Him is the fountain of life and in His light light is seen, and His loving-kindness and righteousness continue to those who know Him and to the upright in heart, while the workers of iniquity fall and are thrust down unable to rise.
The disobedient and unbelieving are fools who have turned aside from wisdom and from doing good. Obedience to God's commandments is therefore the sign of faith, and rejection of them is the beginning of folly and unbelief.