Psalm 73:10-12 NIV

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Psalms 73:1-14

This psalm begins somewhat abruptly: Yet God is good to Israel (so the margin reads it); he had been thinking of the prosperity of the wicked; while he was thus musing the fire burned, and at last he spoke by way of check to himself for what he had been thinking of. ?However it be, yet God is good.? Though wicked people receive many of the gifts of his providential bounty, yet we must own that he is, in a peculiar manner, good to Israel; they have favours from him which others have not. The... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Psalms 73:10

Therefore his people return hither ,.... Either the true people of God, and so the Targum, the people of the Lord, and whom the psalmist owned for his people; for the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, read "my people"; who seeing the prosperity of the wicked, and feeling their own afflictions, return to the same way of thinking, and fall by the same snare and temptation as the psalmist did; or such who were only the people of God by profession, but hypocrites,... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Psalms 73:11

And they say, how doth God know ?.... Owning there is a God, but questioning his knowledge; for the words are not an inquiry about the way and manner of his knowing things; which is not by the senses, as hearing and seeing; eyes and ears are improperly ascribed to him; nor in a discursive way, by reasoning, and inferring one thing from another; for he knows things intuitively, beholding all things in his own eternal mind and will: but they are a question about his knowledge itself, as... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Psalms 73:12

Behold, these are the ungodly ,.... Who say and do as before declared; such as these must be without the knowledge of God, the fear, love, and worship of him: who prosper in the world; in worldly and temporal things, in their bodies and outward estates, but not in their souls and spiritual things: "in this world", as the Targum is; all their prosperity is here; their good things are in this life, their evil things will be in that to come; though ungodly, they prosper in the world, and as... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:10

Therefore his people return hither - There are very few verses in the Bible that have been more variously translated than this; and, like the man in the fable, they have blown the hot to cool it, and the cold to warm it. It has been translated, "Therefore God's people fall off to them; and thence they reap no small advantage." And, "Therefore let his people come before them; and waters in full measure would be wrung out from them." That is, "Should God's people come before them, they would... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:11

They say, How doth God know? - My people are so stumbled with the prosperity of the wicked, that they are ready in their temptation to say, "Surely, God cannot know these things, or he would never dispense his favors thus." Others consider these words as the saying of the wicked: "We may oppress these people as we please, and live as we list; God knows nothing about it." read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:12

These are the ungodly - The people still speak. It is the ungodly that prosper, the irreligious and profane. read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:10

Verse 10 10.On this account his people will return hither. Commentators wrest this sentence into a variety of meanings. In the first place, as the relative his is used, without an antecedent indicating whose people are spoken of, some understand it simply of the ungodly, as if it had been said, That the ungodly always fall back upon this reflection: and they view the word people as denoting a great troop or band; for as soon as a wicked man raises his standard, he always succeeds in drawing a... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:11

Verse 11 11.And they say, How doth God know? Some commentators maintain that the Prophet here returns to the ungodly, and relates the scoffings and blasphemies with which they stimulate and stir up themselves to commit sin; but of this I cannot approve. David rather explains what he had stated in the preceding verse, as to the fact that the faithful fall into evil thoughts and wicked imaginations when the short-lived prosperity of the ungodly dazzles their eyes. He tells us that they begin then... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:12

Verse 12 12.Behold! these are the ungodly. The Psalmist here shows, as it were by a vivid pictorial representation, the character of that envy which had well nigh overthrown him. Behold! says he, these are wicked men! and yet they happily enjoy their ease and pleasures undisturbed, and are exalted to power and influence; and that not merely for a few days, but their prosperity is of long duration, and has, as it were, an endless course. And is there anything which seems to our judgment less... read more

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Psalms 73:1-14

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Psalms 73:10

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Psalms 73:11

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Psalms 73:12

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:10

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:11

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:12

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:10

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:11

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Psalms 73:12

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