“To the tearful eye of the suffering [psalmist] the Lord seemed to stand still, as if he calmly looked on, and did not sympathize with his afflicted one. Nay, more, the Lord appeared to be afar off, no longer ‘a very present help in trouble,’ but an inaccessible mountain, up which no man would be able to climb. The presence of God is the joy of his people, but any suspicion of his absence is distracting beyond measure. Let us, then, ever remember that the Lord is near to us…[In this psalm] the Lord fearlessly is stirred up to arise and lift up his hand, yet timidly he is begged not to forget the humble; as if [Yahweh] could ever be forgetful of his saints. [Nevertheless, this] is the incessant cry of the Church, and she will never refrain therefrom until her Lord shall come in his glory to avenge her of all her adversaries.(C. H. Spurgeon)
Cardiphonia:* The value of a psalm like this is first that it expresses poignantly the experience of our Lord at the hands of evil men. He was mistreated at every turn, even to the point of death. But Psalm 10 also serves as a song for us, as we seek to be faithful to King Jesus in the face of persecution. And finally, even if we are not experiencing the hostility from others that Psalm 10 describes, we have many brothers and sisters around the world who are—all for the sake of their Messiah-King. The wicked are in hot pursuit of them, to persecute, imprison, silence, and kill. For this reason, we do well to sing this in solidarity with them and as a prayer in their behalf—in the glad and certain hope that the day of the King is coming, when he will make all things right.
*A word coined by and borrowed from John Newton (meaning “sounds of the heart”). The Cardiphonia comments in the Shorey Psalter are my personal reflections on the Psalm.
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