Psalm 10

I

Why, Lord, do you stand afar

and pay no heed in times of trouble?

Arrogant scoundrels pursue the poor;

they trap them by their cunning schemes.

II

The wicked even boast of their greed;

these robbers curse and scorn the Lord.

In their insolence the wicked boast;

“God does not care; there is no God.”

Yet their affairs always succeed;

they ignore your judgment on high;

they sneer at all who oppose them.

They say in their hearts, “We will never fall;

never will we see misfortune.”

Their mouths are full of oaths, violence, and lies;

discord and evil are under their tongues.

They wait in ambush near towns;

their eyes watch for the helpless

to murder the innocent in secret.

They lurk in ambush like lions in a thicket,

hide there to trap the poor,

snare them and close the net.

The helpless are crushed, laid low;

they fall into the power of the wicked,

Who say in their hearts, “God has forgotten,

shows no concern, never bothers to look.”

III

Rise up Lord! God, lift up your hand!

Do not forget the poor!

Why should the wicked scorn God,

say in their hearts, “God does not care?”

But you do see;

you take note of misery and sorrow;

you take the matter in hand.

To you the helpless can entrust their cause;

you are the defender of orphans.

Break the arm of the wicked and depraved;

make them account for their crimes;

let none of them survive.

IV

The Lord is king forever;

the nations have vanished from his land.

You listen, Lord, to the needs of the poor;

you strengthen their heart and incline your ear.

You win justice for the orphaned and oppressed;

no one on earth will cause terror again.

Psalm 10:1-18

I read that psalms 9 and 10 are meant to be one long acrostic poem, since each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (in the footnotes here) Of course, we lose that acrostic pattern in the English translation, but I do find it helpful to think of this psalm as a continuation of the previous one.

Otherwise, I might be a little frustrated at the abruptness of the opening verses. Most of the psalms start and end on a more upbeat note and keep the complaints and pleas for saving in the middle. This one starts in an almost accusatory tone, “Why, Lord, do you stand afar and pay no heed in times of trouble?”

Really? Is that how we see God? Then again, maybe it is …sometimes. I suppose it is easy to feel like this when life starts to get tough. Grief often leads us to these feelings. Natural disasters often cause people to question God’s role in our world. We even come to this point of frustration at times when we hear about terrible violence in the news.

So how do we balance our views of the world and reconcile our faith in God with the problems we see all around us? That’s a difficult task, isn’t it? The problem is that we can only see through human eyes. We don’t have the perspective that God has, and we can’t possibly understand some things. But I really get frustrated with that answer, don’t you?

Clearly, this psalmist felt that same frustration. The first two sections seem to complain that the least ones are being overly oppressed. Section III is more of a plea, although it sounds like a command, asking God to do something about it. Finally in section IV he seems to believe that God is caring for the poor and oppressed.

I suppose this psalm can be seen as a model for working through those moments of doubt. We start out seeing some tragedy and questioning how God could let such a thing happen. We shift that focus to just praying that God will step in and help to improve things. Then finally, we start to appreciate all that God is doing for us, and we say a more optimistic prayer of praise to God.

Although, I have to be honest, the final line of this psalm throws me for a bit of a loop. It says, “no one on earth will cause terror again.” There was a time in my life when I believed this to be literally true, for the most part. However, it is difficult to overlook huge acts of terrorism in our world in recent decades.

Just as the Old Testament is largely a narrative that looks forward to things to come, namely the incarnation of God in the form of the baby Jesus, maybe this particular psalm, or at least its final verse, looks forward to another time in the future. I want to have that optimism. Let’s pray as the psalmist does in the first line of section IV, “The Lord is king forever.”