Psalms 58King James Version
A fierce imprecation against corrupt judges. Break their teeth, O God. A hard psalm that refuses to pretend evil is not evil.
A fierce imprecatory psalm directed at corrupt judges. Do they speak righteousness? No. In heart they work wickedness. Their poison is like a serpent that stops its ear. The imprecations are vivid and specific: break their teeth, let them melt like water, let the righteous bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. The psalm closes not in blood-lust but in a theological point: there is a God who judges in the earth. Justice will be visible.
The fury of imprecation in this psalm is not personal revenge fantasy but a theological insistence that God's justice must become visible in history against those who corrupt justice itself.
verse: "So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth." The violence of the preceding verses points toward this: the goal is vindication of the claim that justice exists.
Superscription: 'To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David.' Altaschith group (57-59). The 'congregation' and 'sons of men' addressed in v1 suggest judicial corruption at a formal assembly level. The serpent imagery (vv4-5) and the graphic sequence of dissolution recall ancient Near Eastern curse poetry. Book 2.
Corrupt judges addressed directly; God invoked as the true judge; the righteous as those who will see vindication; no named individuals.
Psalm 58 is one of the most uncomfortable imprecatory psalms. C.S. Lewis addressed the difficulty of these psalms in 'Reflections on the Psalms,' arguing they express a real and legitimate outrage at injustice. The theology is not bloodthirst but theodicy: if God does not act against those who corrupt justice, his justice is a fiction.
For when people with power are using it to harm the powerless and nothing visible is happening. This psalm prays at the full heat of that outrage without sanitizing it.
1[To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David.] Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
2Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
4Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
5Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
6Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
7Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
8As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
9Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
10The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.