Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.
Before this verse the psalmist's footing had almost slipped because he saw transgressors and open sinners allowed to receive blessings and favors, prospering in the world with firm strength, with no pangs in death, free from the troubles of other men, and increasing in riches, while those who truly loved God were compassed with difficulties and perplexities the open sinner never knew, so that God's ways seemed unequal and he was tempted to doubt. His faltering came from his own separation and drifting away from God, not from God abandoning him. He could make no sense of this inequality and could not understand it until he went into the sanctuary of God.
There he grasped their end, that God sets the ungodly in slippery places and casts them down to destruction, bringing them into desolation in a moment to be utterly consumed with terrors, despising their image as a dream when one awakes. That understanding grieved his heart and pricked him, exposing how foolish and ignorant he had been, like a beast, in his envy. It brought him back to remaining continually with God, held by His right hand. He learned to choose to abide in Christ, finding it good to draw near to God and to put trust in the Lord God and commit himself to His keeping in order to declare all His works.
Before this verse the psalmist's footing had almost slipped because he saw transgressors and open sinners allowed to receive blessings and favors, prospering in the world with firm strength, with no pangs in death, free from the troubles of other men, and increasing in riches, while those who truly loved God were compassed with difficulties and perplexities the open sinner never knew, so that God's ways seemed unequal and he was tempted to doubt. His faltering came from his own separation and drifting away from God, not from God abandoning him. He could make no sense of this inequality and could not understand it until he went into the sanctuary of God.
There he grasped their end, that God sets the ungodly in slippery places and casts them down to destruction, bringing them into desolation in a moment to be utterly consumed with terrors, despising their image as a dream when one awakes. That understanding grieved his heart and pricked him, exposing how foolish and ignorant he had been, like a beast, in his envy. It brought him back to remaining continually with God, held by His right hand. He learned to choose to abide in Christ, finding it good to draw near to God and to put trust in the Lord God and commit himself to His keeping in order to declare all His works.