Today’s Passage: Psalm 10
Why, O LORD, do You stand far off? Why do You hide in times of trouble? That question is the whole psalm, and we should not hurry to shut a door the text itself leaves open. Yesterday’s psalm named God as the Judge who sits enthroned, and today’s psalm turns and asks why He feels so far away in the very hour we need Him near. That is not a flaw in the prayer. It belongs here, written down for us on purpose.
As you read, hold this: Why do You stand far off?
Context No heading of its own
Psalm 10 carries no title of its own. It is bound closely to the psalm before it, so closely that Psalms 9 and 10 often read as a single acrostic, and the Greek Old Testament joins the two into one. Yet today this prayer stands on its own feet, and its aching why is not simply settled by the throne we saw yesterday.
Psalm 10:1-6 (BSB)
¹ Why, O LORD, do You stand far off? Why do You hide in times of trouble? ² In pride the wicked pursue the needy; let them be caught in the schemes they devise. ³ For the wicked man boasts in the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD. ⁴ In his pride the wicked man does not seek Him; in all his schemes there is no God. ⁵ He is secure in his ways at all times; Your lofty judgments are far from him; he sneers at all his foes. ⁶ He says to himself, “I will not be moved; from age to age I am free of distress.”
The prayer begins with that question, why do You hide, and then it turns to look at the wicked man from the inside out. Here is a heart with no room for God in any of its plans, a man so sure of himself that he says, I will not be moved. The psalm is unafraid to let him speak, and to let us hear exactly how he sounds.
Psalm 10:7-11 (BSB)
⁷ His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and violence; trouble and malice are under his tongue. ⁸ He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless. ⁹ He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net. ¹⁰ They are crushed and beaten down; the helpless fall prey to his strength. ¹¹ He says to himself, “God has forgotten; He hides His face and never sees.”
His mouth is full of cursing, he lies in ambush near the villages, and the helpless are crushed beneath his strength. Then we hear his theology, the thing he keeps telling himself: God has forgotten, He hides His face and never sees. Notice the sharp edge of it. The very hiddenness the psalmist grieves over is the same hiddenness the wicked man is counting on.
Study notes The mouth Paul quotes
When Paul reaches for verse 7, he refuses to leave it hanging on one villain.
"Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." Romans 3:14 (BSB)
Apart from grace, Paul says, this mouth is simply the human condition, ours alongside the man in the psalm. It is the same gospel either way. But naming our guilt does not close the question. Paul tells us who is at fault, and the psalm still asks why God stands far off while the wrong goes on.
Psalm 10:12-15 (BSB)
¹² Arise, O LORD! Lift up Your hand, O God! Do not forget the helpless. ¹³ Why has the wicked man renounced God? He says to himself, “You will never call me to account.” ¹⁴ But You have regarded trouble and grief; You see to repay it by Your hand. The victim entrusts himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless. ¹⁵ Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call him to account for his wickedness until none is left to be found.
Verse 1 asked why the LORD stands far off; here the prayer turns and begs Him to qum, pronounced KOOM. Strong's H6965, to rise, stand up, arise. Verse 1 said that You stand far off; verse 12 begs You to stand up: the same distance, now prayed back in the other direction. The psalm never explains the delay, but it does plead with God to reverse it: break the arm of the wicked, call him to account. We can teach a line like that honestly, without dressing revenge up as holiness, and without sanding the hard edge off it either. .
Psalm 10:16-18 (BSB)
¹⁶ The LORD is King forever and ever; the nations perish from His land. ¹⁷ You have heard, O LORD, the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts. You will incline Your ear, ¹⁸ to vindicate the fatherless and oppressed, that the men of the earth may strike terror no more.
The LORD is King forever, He has heard the desire of the humble, and He will bend His ear low to the fatherless and the oppressed. That is a true and steadying confession, but it is not a tidy answer to the why. Other psalms will close the gap between the question and the comfort. This one still opened with a hide, and we do not need to finish its question for it.
Why do You stand far off?