Prayer and Thanksgiving for the LORD’S Righteous Judgments
Praise for Victory over Enemies
To the Chief Musician, to the tune of “Death of the Son”. A Psalm of David.
9:1 I will praise You, O LORD, with my whole heart.
I will tell of all Your marvelous works.
• It sometimes needs all our determination to face the foe and bless the LORD in the teeth of His enemies; vowing that
whoever else may be silent, we will bless His name; here, however, the overthrow of the foe is viewed as complete, and
the song flows with sacred fullness of delight (TOD)
• Half heart is no heart (TOD) (NCBC)
• Only when the whole heart is employed in the work that God can look upon it with acceptance (AC)
• Heartfelt gratitude will find utterance (JFB)
9:2 I will be glad and rejoice in You;
I will I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High
• Songs are the fitting expressions of inward thankfulness, and it were well if we indulged ourselves and honored our
Lord with more of them (TOD)
• God expects suitable returns of praise from those for whom He has done marvelous works (MH)
• His name represents who He is; His works stand for all He does. Most High is a designation for the LORD,
especially as He rules the nations (NCBC)
9:3 When my enemies turn back,
They shall fall and perish at Your presence
• The first part of this psalm is prophetic of the utter extermination of the irreligious persecuting faction (AC)
• It is the result of God’s power alone. He, as a righteous Judge, vindicates His people. He rebukes by acts as
well as words, and so effectually as to destroy the names of nations as well as persons (JFB)
9:4 For You have maintained my right and my cause;
You sat on the throne judging in righteousness
9:5 You have rebuked the nations,
You have destroyed the wicked;
You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
• God rebukes before He destroys, but when He once comes to blows with the wicked, He ceases not until He has
dashed them in pieces so small that their very name is forgotten, and like a noisome snuff their remembrance is put
out for ever and ever (TOD)
9:6 O enemy, destructions are finished forever!
And you have destroyed cities;
Even their memory has perished.
• The wicked are utterly undone. Their ruins shall never be repaired (JFB)
9:7 But the LORD shall endure forever;
He has prepared His throne for judgment.
• In the light of the past the future is not doubtful. Since the Same Almighty God fills the throne of power, we can
with unhesitating confidence, exult in our security for all time to come (TOD)
9:8 He shall judge the world in righteousness,
And He shall administer judgment for the peoples in uprightness.
• Partiality and respect of persons are things unknown in the dealings of the Holy One of Israel. (TOD)
• How the prospect of appearing before the impartial tribunal of the Great King should act as a check to us when
tempted to sin, and as a comfort when we are slandered or oppressed (TOD)
• God’s eternal possession of a throne of justice is contrasted with the ruin of the wicked (JFB)
9:9 The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed,
A refuge in times of trouble.
• There are many forms of oppression; both from man and from the devil; and for all its forms, a refuge is provided
in the Lord Jehovah (TOD)
9:10 And those who know Your name will put their trust in You,
For You, LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.
• Ignorance is worst when it amounts to ignorance of God, and knowledge is best when it exercises itself upon the
name of God. (TOD)
• The oppressed, and all who know Him, find Him a sure refuge (JFB)
• Know your name – acknowledge God’s nature and demands; live according to His will (Z)
9:11 Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion!
Declare His deeds among the people.
• This section of psalm opens with an exhortation to the people of God to praise Him as the Avenger of their wrongs,
and the watchful Guardian of the helpless, and, as if the flame of the prophetic joy which the oracular voice had lighted
in the psalmist’s mind was beginning to die away, the strain is gradually lowered, and the notes of triumph are mixed with
supplication and complaint, as if the mind of the psalmist were fluttering between things present and to come, and made
itself alternately present to his actual condition and his future hope. (AC)
9:12 When He avenges blood, He remembers them;
He does not forget the cry of the humble.
• There is a voice of blood (TOD)
• Blood – that is, murders (JFB)
9:13 Have mercy on me, O LORD!
Consider my trouble from those who hate me,
You who lift me up from the gates of death.
9:14 That I may tell of all Your praise
In the gates of the daughter of Zion.
I will rejoice in Your salvation.
9:15 The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made;
In the net which they hid, their own foot is caught.
9:16 The LORD is known by the judgment He executes;
The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
• The boomerang effect of evil (LB)
• Now if the LORD be known by the judgment which He executes; then the judgment which He executes must be
known; it must be an open judgment; and such are very many of the judgments of God, they are acted as upon a
stage (TOD)
• It is not every casualty that can properly be called a judgment of God. Judgment is His strange work; but when He
executes it, His mind is plainly to be seen. There are no natural causes to which such calamities can be legally
attributed. (AC)
• The LORD does it not only that He may have witnesses of His justice, but also that His justice and the proceedings
of it may have effect and a fruit upon those who did not feel it, nor fall under it. That is the reason why the LORD
threatened to punish Jerusalem in the sight of the nations. (TOD)
• The wages that sin bargains with the sinner are life, pleasure and profit; but the wages it pays him with are death,
torment, an destruction (TOD)
• There is nothing that a wicked man does that is not against his own interest (AC)
Selah
• Meditate, pause, consider – how terrible are the judgments of God (TOD)
• Higgaion – seriously consider (TOD)
9:17 the wicked shall be turned into hell,
And all the nations that forget God.
• Forgetfulness of God is the cause of all the wickedness of the wicked (MH)
• This last section the psalmist seems quite returned from the prophetic enthusiasm to his natural sate, and closes
the whole song with explicit but cool assertions of the future destruction of the wicked, and the deliverance of the
persecuted saints, praying for the event (AC)
9:18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten;
The expectation of the poor shall not perish forever.
9:19 Arise, O LORD,
Do not let man prevail;
Le the nations be judged in Your sight
• Prayers are the believer’s weapons of war. (TOD)
9:20 Put them in fear, O LORD,
That the nations may know themselves to be but men.
Selah
• Meditate, pause, consider – how terrible are the judgments of God (TOD)
• Higgaion – seriously consider (TOD)
Note: Psalm 10 is thought to be a continuation of Psalm 9