Commentary on Psalms Volume 1 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS
24. Judge me, O Jehovah my God! According to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me. 25. Let them not say in their heart, Aha! our soul! 721 let them not say, We have swallowed him up. 26. Let those who rejoice at my hurt be ashamed and confounded together; let those who magnify themselves against me be clothed with shame and dishonor. 27. But let those who favor my righteous cause shout and be glad, and let them say continually, Jehovah be magnified, who loveth the peace of his servant. 28. And my tongue shall declare thy righteousness and thy praise all the day.
24. Judge me, O Jehovah my God! David here confirms the prayer of the preceding verse that God would be his defender, and would maintain his righteous cause. Having been for a time subjected to suffering as one who had been forsaken and forgotten, he sets before himself the righteousness of God, which forbids that he should altogether abandon the upright and the just. It is, therefore, not simply a prayer, but a solemn appeal to God, that as he is righteous, he would manifest his righteousness in defending his servant in a good cause. And certainly, when we seem to be forsaken and deprived of all help, there is no remedy which we can employ, more effectual to overcome temptation than this consideration, that the righteousness of God, on which our deliverance depends, can never fail. Accordingly, the Apostle Paul, in exhorting the faithful to patience, says in 2 Thessalonians 1:6, "It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you."
Now David again appeals to God in this place, and entreats him to manifest his righteousness in restraining the insolence of his enemies: for the more proudly they assail us, God is so much the more ready to help us. Besides, by again introducing them as speaking, he portrays in a graphic style the cruelty of their desires; and by this he means to show, that if things should happen according to their wishes, they would set no limit to their frowardness. But as the more they vaunt themselves, the more they provoke the wrath of God against them, David with good reason uses this as an argument to encourage his hope, and employs it for his support and confirmation in prayer.
26. Let those who rejoice at thy hurt be ashamed and confounded together. This imprecation has already been expounded; and it is only necessary to remark, that there is peculiar force in the expression, together, or at once. It shows that it was not only one or two, but a great multitude, who waged war against him, and that he yielded not to the influence of fear, but believed that as soon as God should lift up his hand, he could at one stroke easily overthrow them all. When it is said that they seek after and rejoice in