Commentary on Psalms Volume 2 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME 2 of the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes. 11. But the king 436, shall rejoice in God; and every one who swears by him shall glory: for the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
9. And they, whilst they seek, etc. Here we find David rising to a more assured confidence, and triumphing as if he had already obtained the victory. And there is every reason to believe, that though he had escaped his difficulties, and was in circumstances of peace and prosperity when he wrote this psalm, yet he only expresses what he actually felt at the critical period when his life was in such imminent danger. He declares his conviction that the enemies who eagerly sought his life would be cut off; that God would cast them headlong into destruction; and that their very bodies should be left without burial. To be the portion of foxes, 437 is the same thing with being left to be torn and devoured by the beasts of the field. It is often denounced as one judgment which should befall the wicked, that they would perish by the sword, and become the prey of wolves and of dogs, without privilege of sepulture. This is a fate which the best of men have met with in the world, — for good as well as bad are exposed to the stroke of temporal evil; — but there is this distinction, that God watches over the scattered dust of his own children, gathers it again, and will suffer nothing of them to perish, whereas, when the wicked are slain, and their bones spread on the field, this is only preparatory to their everlasting destruction.
11. But the king will rejoice in God. The deliverance which David received had not been extended to him as a private person, but the welfare of the whole Church was concerned in it, as that of the body in the safety of the head, and there is therefore a propriety in his representing all the people of God as rejoicing with him. Nor can we fail to admire his holy magnanimity in not scrupling to call himself king, overwhelming as the dangers were by which he was surrounded, because he laid claim to that
"",יגירהוhere rendered, they shall cast him out, "from,נגרsignifies in Hiphil, they shall cause to be poured out, or shall pour out The word is ordinarily applied to water, 2 Samuel 14:14; Lamentations 3:49. But here, by the immediate mention of the sword, it is restrained to the effusion of blood; and being in the third person plural, in the active sense, it is, after the Hebrew idiom, to be interpreted in the passive sense, 'They shall pour out by the hand of the sword;' i e. 'They shall be poured out by the sword,' the hand of the sword being no more than the edge of the sword." — Hammond Dr Adam Clarke gives the same version: "They shall be poured out by the hand of the sword Heb. That is, their life's blood shall be shed either in war, or by the hand of justice." But,נגר nagar, also signifies metaphorically to give over into one's hands, to give up, as in the phrase," ,חרב ירי על הגירto deliver any one up to the sword." See Ezekiel 35:5; Jeremiah 18:21. And the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, Aethiopic, and Arabic versions, Gesenius and Hare here read, "They shall be delivered to the sword." Horsley translates, "They would shed it;" and observes, that it signifies "my life; for,נפשwhich is of the doubtful gender, is the antecedent of the masculine suffix".הו
"I, who am king by God's anointing, 1 Samuel 15:12, 13." — Ainsworth.