Verses 11-13
11-13. God judgeth These verses present an earnest warning, not only to David’s wicked persecutors, but to all contemners of law and justice. The style is more impassioned, although of a didactic turn, and the imagery, apparently rude, is such as is suited to the barbarous and bloodthirsty spirits with whom he has to contend. The present participial form, God is judging, God is angry, shows that the wrath of God is already “revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men,” for their timely warning. Not, indeed, his ultimate punishment of sin, but his corrective, disciplinary judgment against it.
If he turn not If the sinner, whoever he be, heed not these incipient and forewarning indications of displeasure. The conditional sentence proves that the present judgments against sin are corrective, and admonitory of what will follow if repentance do not supervene.
He will whet his sword That is, will proceed to ultimate punishment. This, to the subject, is never corrective. The imagery is now wholly borrowed from the use of the deadly weapons of the warrior, not at all from the corrective and disciplinary methods of a parent or magistrate. Instruments of death, are not disciplinary, yet these are prepared for those who “turn not,” repent not: God is [now] ready to inflict punishment on the incorrigible.
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