Psalm 125:5

As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) Turn aside unto their crooked ways.—Or, bend their crooked ways, i.e., pursue evil courses.

But peace.—Better, as an innovation on the customary form, peace be in Israel. (See Note on Psalm 122:6, and comp. Psalm 128:6.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

125:4,5 God's promises should quicken our prayers. The way of holiness is straight; there are no windings or shiftings in it. But the ways of sinners are crooked. They shift from one purpose to another, and turn hither and thither to deceive; but disappointment and misery shall befal them. Those who cleave to the ways of God, though they may have trouble in their way, their end shall be peace. The pleading of their Saviour for them, secures to them the upholding power and preserving grace of their God. Lord, number us with them, in time, and to eternity.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways - The wicked. Those who leave the right or straight path, and wander in forbidden ways. The word here rendered "crooked ways" occurs nowhere else except in Judges 5:6, where it is rendered "by-ways," meaning unfrequented paths or roads; narrow and crooked paths, remote from the highways, or the ways commonly traversed. Hence, the word means also paths of sin - as deviations from the straight road which man should travel.

The Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity - They shall be dealt with as sinners. They shall be punished. The allusion is to backsliders; to those who forsake the worship of God; who cease to do "good;" who, though among the professed people of God, wander from him in by-paths and forbidden ways. The idea is, that their profession of religion will not save them; that they will not obtain the divine blessing merely because they are avowedly the people of God, or are numbered among them, but that they will be treated as all other sinners are: they will be led forth with all the wicked, and will be treated like them. Compare Ezekiel 33:12-13; Matthew 7:22-23; Matthew 25:11-12.

But peace shall be upon Israel - Upon the real Israel; upon the true people of God. Galatians 6:16; Isaiah 54:13; Isaiah 55:12; Isaiah 57:2; Isaiah 66:12; John 14:27; John 16:33; Ephesians 2:17; Philippians 4:7.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. Those who turn aside (under temptation) permanently show that they are hypocrites, and their lot or portion shall be with the wicked (Ps 28:3).

crooked ways—(Compare De 9:16; Mal 2:8, 9).

their—is emphatic; the "crooked ways" proceed from their own hearts. The true Israel is here distinguished from the false. Scripture everywhere opposes the Jewish delusion that mere outward descent would save (Ro 2:28, 29; 9:6, 7; Ga 6:16). The byways of sin from the way of life.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

But those hypocrites, who either through fear of the rod, mentioned Psalm 125:3, or for other considerations, shall turn aside from the ways of God, which for a time they professed and seemed to own, unto sinful courses, whom he opposeth to the upright, Psalm 125:4, the Lord shall lead them forth, to wit, unto punishment, as malefactors are commonly led to the place of execution.

With the workers of iniquity; with the most obstinate and profligate sinners, of whose plagues they shall certainly partake, as they did of their sins.

Upon Israel; upon the true Israel of God.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways,.... The ways of sin, immorality, or error; which are crooked ways, not agreeing with the word of God, the rule of faith and practice. This seems to design not openly profane sinners, who have always lived in a course of sin and wickedness; but carnal professors, who, through affliction and persecution because of the word, are offended, and desert the good ways of God; and turn from the holy commandment, word, and ordinances, they have professionally embraced;

the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity; the Targum adds,

"to hell.''

These hypocrites shall be led forth by the Lord with abandoned sinners, like malefactors to the place of execution; when he shall bid them depart from him, and they shall go into everlasting fire; and if there is any place in hell hotter than another, those shall have it; see Matthew 7:23;

but peace shall be upon Israel; upon every true Israelite, upon the whole Israel of God; the apostle seems to have respect to this passage in Galatians 6:16; such shall have spiritual peace in their hearts now, and eternal peace hereafter. The words may be read either as a prayer that it might be, or as a prophecy that it should be; and may have regard unto the latter day, when all the enemies of Christ and his church shall be destroyed, and there shall be abundance of peace, so long as the moon endures, Psalm 72:7. Aben Ezra observes, that the psalmist prays that God would remove the wicked far off, and then there would be peace in Israel; and to the same purpose Arama and Kimchi interpret it.

Geneva Study Bible

{c} As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.

(c) He desires God to purge his Church from hypocrites and such as have no zeal for the truth.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. But as for such as turn aside &c.] Renegades who forsake the straight course of duty to their God and country for tortuous courses of intrigue with enemies: the disloyal party in Jerusalem, some of whom, like Shemaiah, took bribes from Sanballat and Tobiah to entrap Nehemiah, while others kept up a treasonable correspondence with them. See Nehemiah 6:12-13; Nehemiah 6:17.

shall lead them away] To share the judgement of those whose hostility to Israel they have chosen to abet. Cp. Matthew 25:41.

but peace shall be upon Israel] Better as a separate sentence, a concluding prayer or benediction: Peace be upon Israel (R.V.). Cp. Psalm 122:6-8; Psalm 128:6; Numbers 6:26; and Galatians 6:16, “Peace be … upon the Israel of God.” The preceding words “as many as shall walk by this rule” suggest that St Paul may have had this passage in mind. “In these words the Psalmist gathers up all his hopes and prayers and wishes, as it were stretching out his hands over Israel in priestly benediction. Peace is the end of tyranny, hostility, division, disquiet, alarm: peace is freedom and harmony and security and blessedness” (Delitzsch).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways. The word translated "crooked ways" occurs only here and in Judges 5:6. It means properly "by-paths," deviations from the straight path of right. The Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity. God shall give them no better portion than he assigns to the open evildoers, since their heart is not really whole with him. But peace shall be upon Israel; rather, but peace be upon Israel. The psalmist winds up with a prayer, not a prophecy.



Psalm 125:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

On the ground of the strong faith in Psalm 125:1. and of the confident hope in Psalm 125:3, the petition now arises that Jahve would speedily bestow the earnestly desired blessing of freedom upon the faithful ones, and on the other hand remove the cowardly lit. those afraid to confess God and those who have fellowship with apostasy, together with the declared wicked ones, out of the way. For such is the meaning of Psalm 125:4. טובים (in Proverbs alternating with the "righteous," Proverbs 2:20, the opposite being the "wicked," רשׁעים, Proverbs 14:19) are here those who truly believe and rightly act in accordance with the good will of God,

(Note: The Midrash here calls to mind a Talmudic riddle: There came a good one (Moses, Exodus 2:2) and received a good thing (the Tra, Proverbs 4:2) from the good One (God, Psalm 145:9) for the good ones (Israel, Psalm 125:4).)

or, as the parallel member of the verse explains (where לישׁרים did not require the article on account of the addition), those who in the bottom of their heart are uprightly disposed, as God desires to have it. The poet supplicates good for them, viz., preservation against denying God and deliverance out of slavery; for those, on the contrary, who bend (הטּה) their crooked paths, i.e., turn aside their paths in a crooked direction from the right way (עקלקלּותם, cf. Judges 5:6, no less than in Amos 2:7; Proverbs 17:23, an accusative of the object, which is more natural than that it is the accusative of the direction, after Numbers 22:23 extrem., cf. Job 23:11; Isaiah 30:11) - for these he wishes that Jahve would clear them away (הוליך like Arab. ahlk, perire facere equals perdere) together with the workers of evil, i.e., the open, manifest sinners, to whom these lukewarm and sly, false and equivocal ones are in no way inferior as a source of danger to the church. lxx correctly: τοὺς δὲ ἐκκλίνοντας εἰς τάς στραγγαλιὰς (Aquila διαπλοκάς, Symmachus σκολιότητας, Theodotion διεστραμμένα) ἀπάξει κύριος μετὰ κ. τ. λ.. Finally, the poet, stretching out his hand over Israel as if pronouncing the benediction of the priest, gathers up all his hopes, prayers, and wishes into the one prayer: "Peace be upon Israel." He means "the Israel of God," Galatians 6:16. Upon this Israel he calls down peace from above. Peace is the end of tyranny, hostility, dismemberment, unrest, and terror; peace is freedom and harmony and unity and security and blessedness.