GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 58:1-5
58 For the director of music. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.”
Of David. A miktam.
Four Psalms mention the tune Al-Tashcheth, “Do Not Destroy,” which may originally have been a liturgical song written for Deuteronomy 9:26-29, which begins, “O Sovereign Lord, do not destroy your people.” David wrote this song, a miktam (see Psalm 16), “for the director of music.” This might mean that he intended it for use at the special tent he had set up in Jerusalem for the Ark of the Covenant rather than at the tabernacle of Moses which was at Gibeon and which was where the bronze altar was still in use (2 Chronicles 1:3-5). The director of music, Asaph, was stationed by David to serve before the ark (1 Chronicles 16:4), while the high priest served at the tabernacle. This situation may seem confusing and awkward to us today, but David was doing the best he could in a difficult situation, and we must at least observe that the Lord did not rebuke Israel for this arrangement, but he was patient until the temple of Solomon reunited the ark and the holy place.
1 Truly, does your silence speak justice?
Do you sons of Adam judge uprightly?
The first line of this verse can also be translated “Truly, do you ‘gods’ speak justice?”, but with a change in the spelling of a Hebrew word. The parallel second line would then be synonymous (saying the same thing), while the verse as I have translated it would still be parallel in a different form (synthetic, with the second line explaining an element of the first). Verse 5 below follows a similar form of synthetic or explaining and expanding parallelism.
The judges of mankind are subject to their own sinful flaws. Any judge or ruler who thinks that their own sinful nature can’t affect their judgment is a fool. Sin infects and ruins everything, and we constantly fall. Temptation may hardly even wink its eye before a person plunges head-first into sin, which then entangles him in many other sins. As Augustine says: “Each person is bound by the tendrils of his own sins (Proverbs 5:22). Sins are not just chains but also tendrils. They are tendrils because they do their work by entangling, that is, because they weave sins to sins. ‘Woe to those who drag their sins like a long rope,’ Isaiah cries (Isa. 5:18). What else is this but, ‘Woe to those whose hands weave iniquity!’ The first sin is pride, and the last punishment is eternal fire. between the first sin and the last punishment are middle things which are both sins and punishments for sins. For the apostle says that a great many things that are detestable sins happen on account of these, and yet ye says that these are punishments, etc.”
2 No, in your heart you commit injustice,
and your hands hand out violence on the earth.
One sin is the cause of another. This happens in at least four ways. First, as David show here, the sin in the heart empties the sinner of faith, grace, and the Holy Spirit, causing the man to sin not only with his thoughts but with his deeds. Second, evil leaves a disposition that leans and bends over for similar acts. Third, just as hunger leads a man to eat, so also sinful desire leads a person to gluttony, lechery, drunkenness, and other shame. Fourth, a series of sins unchecked will lead a person finally to fill up the top of sin, hoping for some satisfaction (such as with murder, rape, bullying, robbery, and other sins that completely cross God’s will), even though the mind might understand that there is no satisfaction at all in sin. Yet sinful men continue to sin: “Your hands hand out violence.”
3 Even from womb the wicked go astray;
from the belly they are wayward. They speak lies.
Just as David confesses that he himself is sinful from the womb (Psalm 51:5), so he also shows that all mankind is just as sinful from the very moment of their conception. He uses two different words for a mother’s uterus here. Rachem is “womb”: “Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb” (Numbers 12:12), and “the Lord had closed up every womb” (Genesis 20:18). The other word, beten, is less exact, but just as someone today might politely use “belly” rather than womb or uterus, it conveys the same meaning.
This is proof of original sin, the sin we inherit from our parents, and through them from our first parents, Adam and Eve. The usual term for this in the Bible is our sinful nature. Paul says: “When we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore the fruit of death” (Romans 7:5). Paul speaks in the past tense because he is speaking about faith and the change it brings, but here in the Psalm David isn’t talking about faith, but about sin at work in the hearts of sinful, wretched, fallen men.
4 Their venom is like the venom of a snake,
like a deaf cobra that has stopped its ears,
5 that will not listen to the tune of the charmer,
The ‘wisdom’ of the one who binds spells.
There are just four references to cobras in the Scriptures. All cobras are venomous, and typically have a ‘hood’ of skin that makes their heads seem larger and more frightening. Here the ancient practice of snake charming is described. This was a skill that probably began in Egypt. The charmer knows that the snake in his basket can’t hear the music he plays, but that it just follows his hands and the way he moves his flute, thinking that he is a predator. So just as the snake is deaf to the music, the sinful man is deaf to God’s word, and the snake carries deadly venom that will lead many others into sin.
How deep is the pit of sin? How lost is the sinner? If he has turned away from God, the pit has no bottom. But for everyone with faith in Christ, there is forgiveness already. There is no sin so vile that Jesus did not take it with him to the cross. Put your trust in Christ Jesus, and believe that God forgives your sins for Jesus’ sake.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Psalm 58:1-5 Sinful from the womb