Psalms 12:5

_FOR THE OPPRESSION OF THE POOR, FOR THE SIGHING OF THE NEEDY, NOW WILL I ARISE, SAITH THE LORD; I WILL SET HIM IN SAFETY FROM HIM THAT PUFFETH AT HIM._ The Lord answers the complaint and prayer of faith. FOR ... FOR - Because of the oppression of the poor, because of the sighing of the needy, NOW WILL I ARISE, SAITH THE LORD - literally, from ... from х_ MIN_ (H4480)]. The distress and the sighing of His people are the starting-point from which the divine action proceeds. NOW - emphatic. Heretofore I kept silence, and did not interpose, but NOW that my people sigh and cry from their affliction, I speak and act. Compare Exodus 2:23, where the two things which moved God, as here, were Israel's oppression, and their consequent sighing. I WILL SET HIM IN SAFETY - as IN a posses

5._Because of the spoiling of the needy. _David now sets before himself as matter of consolation, the truth that God will not suffer the wicked thus to make havoc without end and measure. The more effectually to establish himself and others in the belief of this truth, he introduces God himself as speaking. The expression is more emphatic when God is represented as coming forward and declaring with his own mouth that he is come to deliver the poor and distressed. There is also great emphasis in the adverb _now, _by which God intimates that, although our safety is in his hand, and, therefore, in secure keeping, yet he does not immediately grant deliverance from affliction; for his words imply that he had hitherto been, as it were, lying still and asleep, until he was awakened by the calamities and the cries of his people. When, therefore, the injuries, the extortions, and the devastations...

Verse Psalms 12:5. _FOR THE OPPRESSION OF THE POOR_] This seems to refer best to the tribulations which the poor Israelites suffered while captives in Babylon. The Lord represents himself as looking on and seeing their affliction; and, hearing their cry, he determines to come forward to their help. _NOW WILL I ARISE_] I alone delivered them into the hands of their enemies, because of their transgressions; I alone can and will deliver them from the hands of their enemies; and the manner of their deliverance shall show the power and influence of their God. FROM HIM THAT _PUFFETH AT HIM._] Here is much _interpolation_ to make out a sense. Several of the _versions_ read, "I will give him an open salvation." My work shall be manifest....

FOR THE OPPRESSION OF THE POOR - That is, on account of the wrong done to the poor in the manner specified above - by the abuse of the power of speech. On account of the slanders uttered against them, or the frauds perpetrated on them by the abuse of this power. The reference is to the wrongs done when no confidence could be placed in men’s words; when they uttered words of “vanity” and “flattery” Psalms 12:2; when promises were made only to be broken, and obligations assumed never to be fulfilled. In such a state of things the “poor” were the most likely to suffer. In performing service for others - in daily labor on a farm or in a mechanical employment - they would depend for support, on the promises made by their employers; and when their pay was withheld, they and their families must suffer. Compare...

EXPOSITION ANOTHER Davidical psalm, both according to the title and to the general opinion of critics; said (like Psalms 6:1.) to be "upon Sheminith"—an expression of uncertain meaning. It consists of a complaint (Psalms 12:1, Psalms 12:2), a menace (Psalms 12:3, Psalms 12:4), and a promise (Psalms 12:5). Metrically, it seems to divide itself into four stanzas—the first, second, and fourth, of four lines each; the third, of six lines. There is nothing

FOR THE OPPRESSION OF THE POOR,.... The servants and people of God, who, for the most part, are poor in a temporal sense, and are all of them, and always, so in a spiritual sense, standing continually in need of fresh supplies of grace; and being often afflicted, as the word signifies, are mean and despicable in the eyes of the men of this world, and so oppressed by them, as the poor generally are by the rich; and as the people of Israel were oppressed by the Egyptians, so are the people of God by antichrist, and by his tyrannical laws and edicts, and by such haughty and insolent persons as before described; FOR THE SIGHING OF THE NEEDY; who groan under their oppressions; being stripped of all good things, their friends, and worldly substance, they sigh inwardly, and cry unto the Lord, who sees their oppressions, hears their groans; and though he cannot be moved, as men are, by anything...

Psalms 12:1. _Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men._ One might have thought that David still lived among us, his cry is so timely, so exactly true to the position of affairs today. What a prayer he offers! Driven away from confidence in men, he cries, «Help, Lord! Thou mighty One, put forth thy power! Thou faithful One, display thy truth! ‘Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.'» Psalms 12:2. _They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak._ They speak vanity; there is nothing in it. It is all froth, no reality; vain speech about vain subjects, having no real spiritual power to help the man that heareth: «

Psalms 12 _ 1. The arrogance of the wicked in the last days (Psalms 12:1)_ 2. Then Jehovah will act and deliver His people (Psalms 12:5) Psalms 12:1. It is the time of departure from the Lord; the godly and faithful have ceased. It is a mass of corruption, lying lips, flattering lips, proud lips. They reject the Lord. “Who is lord over us?” Psalms 12:5. Then faith sees the coming intervention. The Lord will speak. “Now will I arise, saith Jehovah, I will set him in safety whom they would puff.” Jehovah will keep His people in these coming dark

XII. A PRAYER OF FAITHFUL JEWS AGAINST THE ARROGANT TONGUE OF THE UNGODLY. Psalms 12:1_._ The godly man ceaseth (see Psalms 4:1). The wicked acknowledge no responsibility for their words: they say, To our tongues we give might, _i.e._ free rein. Psalms 12:5. Yahweh declares His intention of rising in defence of the poor and needy. Here the author quotes (unless the identity of the words be mere coincidence) Isaiah 33:10. He relies on a Divine promise there given, to which he now (Psalms 12:5_ b_) appeals. Well may he rely on the

POOR. wretched. Hebrew. _ain_. See note on Proverbs 6:11. SAITH THE LORD. let Jehovah say. FROM HIM THAT PUFFETH AT HIM. let him [the oppressed] despise it [the oppression], HIM. it: i.e. the oppression....