Psalms 37:14

_THE WICKED HAVE DRAWN OUT THE SWORD, AND HAVE BENT THEIR BOW, TO CAST DOWN THE POOR AND NEEDY, AND TO SLAY SUCH AS BE OF UPRIGHT CONVERSATION._ The wicked ... sword ... Their sword ... heart - (Psalms 7:15; Matthew 26:52; Revelation 13:10.) [Teth (T)]...

14._The wicked draw their sword, and bend their bow. _David now goes on to say, that the ungodly, being armed with sword and bow, threaten with death the children of God; and this he does in order to meet the temptation which would otherwise overwhelm them. The promises of God do not have place in a time of quietness and peace, but in the midst of severe and terrible conflicts. And, therefore, David now teaches us that the righteous are not deprived of that peace of which he had spoken a little before, although the wicked should threaten them with instant death. The sentence ought to be explained in this way: Although the wicked draw their swords and bend their bows to destroy the righteous, yet all their efforts shall return upon their own heads, and shall tend to their own destruction. But it is necessary to notice the particular terms in which the miserable condition of the righteous...

7-20 Let us be satisfied that God will make all to work for good to us. Let us not discompose ourselves at what we see in this world. A fretful, discontented spirit is open to many temptations. For, in all respects, the little which is allotted to the righteous, is more comfortable and more profitable than the ill-gotten and abused riches of ungodly men. It comes from a hand of special love. God provides plentifully and well, not only for his working servants, but for his waiting servants. They have that which is better than wealth, peace of mind, peace with God, and then peace in God; that peace which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot have. God knows the believer's days. Not one day's work shall go unrewarded. Their time on earth is reckoned by days, which will soon be numbered; but heavenly happiness shall be for ever. This will be a real support to believers in evil t...

Verse Psalms 37:14. _THE WICKED HAVE DRAWN OUT THE SWORD_] There is an irreconcilable enmity in the souls of sinners against the godly; and there is much evidence that the idolatrous Babylonians _whetted_ _their tongue like a sword, and shot out their arrows, even bitter_ _words_, to malign the poor captives, and to insult them in every possible way....

THE WICKED HAVE DRAWN OUT THE SWORD - That is, they have prepared themselves with a full purpose to destroy the righteous. AND HAVE BENT THEIR BOW - literally, “have trodden the bow,” in allusion to the method by which the bow was bent: to wit, by placing the foot on it, and drawing the string back. TO CAST DOWN THE POOR AND NEEDY - To cause them to fall. AND TO SLAY SUCH AS BE OF UPRIGHT CONVERSATION - Margin, as in Hebrew: “the upright of way.” That is, those who are upright in their manner of life, or in their conduct....

EXPOSITION THIS is another of the alphabetical psalms (see above, Psalms 9:1; Psalms 25:1; and 34.), and, though more free from irregularities than the previous ones, is not altogether without them. While, generally, each letter heads a stanza consisting of two verses, there are three occasions on which the stanza assigned to a letter is formed of only one verse (see Psalms 37:7, Psalms 37:20, and Psalms 37:34). Further, there are two occasions when the stanza begins with a wrong letter, לtaking the place of ,ע and וof .ת The

THE WICKED HAVE DRAWN OUT THE SWORD,.... That is, out of the scabbard; they drew upon the righteous, in order to sheath it in them; or they sharpened the sword, as Aben Ezra observes some interpret the word; it may be literally rendered, "opened the sword" q, which before lay hid in the scabbard: AND HAVE BENT THEIR BOW; having put the arrow in it, in order to shoot. The former expression may design the more open, and this the more secret way of acting against the righteous; and their view in both is TO CAST DOWN THE POOR AND NEEDY, who are so, both in a temporal and spiritual sense; to cause such to fall either into sin, or into some calamity or another: [AND] TO SLAY SUCH AS BE OF UPRIGHT CONVERSATION; who walk according to the rule of the word of God, and as becomes the Gospel of Christ: nothing less than the blood and life of these men will satisfy the wicked; and it is an aggrava...

Let us read tonight part of the thirty-seventh Psalm. David here first of all dissuades himself and us from falling into a very common evil, that of envying the wicked because of their prosperity, and murmuring against God because we, perhaps, are not so highly favored in our earthly affairs. Psalms 37:1. _Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of inequity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb._ No one envies the grass, let it be never so green; no one envies flowers, let them be never so fragrant, for we know that grass must be cut, and that flowers must wither. Let us look upon the wicked in the same light; their time of perishing shall soon come, their end hasteth on apace; therefore, let all envying be out of the question, since they are such short-lived beings....

Psalms 37 The Blessed Lot of the Righteous Contrasted with the Wicked _ 1. Waiting for Jehovah and His promise (Psalms 37:1)_ 2. The doom of the wicked and the portion of the righteous (Psalms 37:12) 3. The ways of the righteous and the wicked (Psalms 37:21) 4. God's gracious ways with the righteous (Psalms 37:30) This Psalm is also alphabetical in structure and somewhat proverbial in character. It is full of sweet comfort and encouragement to faith. All the saints of God have fed on its beautiful statements,

XXXVII. An acrostic poem. Its object is to teach patience and hope. The pious Jews, the Hasidim of Psalms 4:3 * who observe the Law strictly, are at present poor and oppressed. They are to wait for the end, when God will separate the good from the bad and will recompense men according to their deserts. PSALMS 37:1 agrees almost verbally with Proverbs 29:14. For the envy intended, see Psalms 73:3. Psalms 37:4_ a_. Render as _mg._ Godly men find their delight in Yahweh because they do His will, and He in return answers their praye