Today’s Passage: Psalm 94
This is a psalm that dares to call God by a hard name. It opens by crying out to the LORD as the God of neqamah, pronounced neh-kah-MAH. Strong's H5360, vengeance, recompense, retribution. The word means recompense, the payback a judge hands down for a wrong that has been done. It falls twice in this single verse, and both times it is aimed at God, never at the one who prays. This is not a private score to be settled but an office to be filled, the work of the Judge of the earth, and so the psalm can only ask Him to shine forth. and asking Him to shine forth, and it prays that way because the weak are being trampled. The widow and the foreigner and the fatherless, the very ones God has always watched over, are being crushed, and the men who do it tell themselves that He does not see. The psalm will not let that lie stand. The God who made the ear surely hears, and the God who made the eye surely sees, and He will not forsake His people. Notice, too, where the vengeance is laid. It is asked of God and left in His hands. It is never snatched up as our own revenge, for the judging belongs to Him.
As you read, hold this: O God of vengeance, shine forth. He will not forsake His people.
Psalm 94:1-3 (BSB)
¹ O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth. ² Rise up, O Judge of the earth; render a reward to the proud. ³ How long will the wicked, O LORD, how long will the wicked exult?
Psalm 94:4-7 (BSB)
⁴ They pour out arrogant words; all workers of iniquity boast. ⁵ They crush Your people, O LORD; they oppress Your heritage. ⁶ They kill the widow and the foreigner; they murder the fatherless. ⁷ They say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed.”
Context The three the Law already named
Widow, foreigner, fatherless: long before this psalm was written, the Law had already gathered those three under God’s own care.
"He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and He loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing." Deuteronomy 10:18 (BSB)
So this is no complaint about injustice in the abstract. It is the very people God had promised to protect being killed, and the lie whispered over them is quieter than open unbelief. It does not deny that God exists. It only says that He does not see.
Psalm 94:8-11 (BSB)
⁸ Take notice, O senseless among the people! O fools, when will you be wise? ⁹ He who affixed the ear, can He not hear? He who formed the eye, can He not see? ¹⁰ He who admonishes the nations, does He not discipline? He who teaches man, does He lack knowledge? ¹¹ The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.
The answer almost writes itself. The God who fashioned the ear can surely hear, and the God who formed the eye can surely see. He knows the thoughts of every heart, and He knows how empty they are.
Psalm 94:12-15 (BSB)
¹² Blessed is the man You discipline, O LORD, and teach from Your law, ¹³ to grant him relief from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked. ¹⁴ For the LORD will not forsake His people; He will never abandon His heritage. ¹⁵ Surely judgment will again be righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.
Here is the resting place of the whole psalm. He will not forsake His people, and He will never abandon those He has claimed for His own. Judgment will one day be righteous again, and the pit that waits for the wicked is His to dig, not ours.
Psalm 94:16-19 (BSB)
¹⁶ Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will stand for me against the workers of iniquity? ¹⁷ Unless the LORD had been my helper, I would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence. ¹⁸ If I say, “My foot is slipping,” Your loving devotion, O LORD, supports me. ¹⁹ When anxiety overwhelms me, Your consolation delights my soul.
Who will rise up on my behalf, the psalmist asks, and the answer is that the LORD already has. Unless He had been the helper, the soul would long ago have gone down into silence. When a foot begins to slip, His loving devotion is there to hold it, and when anxiety rises up within, His consolation quiets the soul. The same Judge of the earth who will render the proud their reward is also the One who steadies a single stumbling foot.
Psalm 94:20-23 (BSB)
²⁰ Can a corrupt throne be Your ally—one devising mischief by decree? ²¹ They band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death. ²² But the LORD has been my stronghold, and my God is my rock of refuge. ²³ He will bring upon them their own iniquity and destroy them for their wickedness. The LORD our God will destroy them.
Study notes He judges. Do not take the sword.
The psalm names a corrupt throne, mischief written into law, the innocent condemned to death. Yet even here it never blesses a private campaign of revenge. It says that God will bring upon the wicked their own iniquity, that the LORD our God will destroy them. The doing stays firmly in His hands.
"Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.”" Romans 12:19 (BSB)
Leave room for His wrath, the apostle says, because vengeance is His to repay. And so we can pray the psalm’s own words with clean hands: O God of vengeance, shine forth. He will not forsake His people.
O God of vengeance, shine forth. He will not forsake His people.