Psalm 94:13

That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

94:12-23 That man is blessed, who, under the chastening of the Lord, is taught his will and his truths, from his holy word, and by the Holy Spirit. He should see mercy through his sufferings. There is a rest remaining for the people of God after the days of their adversity, which shall not last always. He that sends the trouble, will send the rest. The psalmist found succour and relief only in the Lord, when all earthly friends failed. We are beholden, not only to God's power, but to his pity, for spiritual supports; and if we have been kept from falling into sin, or shrinking from our duty, we should give him the glory, and encourage our brethren. The psalmist had many troubled thoughts concerning the case he was in, concerning the course he should take, and what was likely to be the end of it. The indulgence of such contrivances and fears, adds to care and distrust, and renders our views more gloomy and confused. Good men sometimes have perplexed and distressed thoughts concerning God. But let them look to the great and precious promises of the gospel. The world's comforts give little delight to the soul, when hurried with melancholy thoughts; but God's comforts bring that peace and pleasure which the smiles of the world cannot give, and which the frowns of the world cannot take away. God is his people's Refuge, to whom they may flee, in whom they are safe, and may be secure. And he will reckon with the wicked. A man cannot be more miserable than his own wickedness will make him, if the Lord visit it upon him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

That thou mayest give him rest - Mayest make his mind quiet and calm; mayest save him from murmuring, from despondency, from impatience, by just confidence in thee, and in thy government.

From the days of adversity - Or, in the days of evil; the time of calamity and trouble. That his mind may then be composed and calm.

Until the pit be digged for the wicked - Until the wicked be punished; that is, while the preparations are going on, or while God seems to delay punishment, and the wicked are suffered to live as if God did not notice them, or would not punish them. The idea is, that the mind should not be impatient as if their punishment would not come, or as if God were unconcerned; and that just views of the divine administration would tend to make the mind calm even when the wicked "seemed" to prosper and triumph. See the notes at Psalm 73:16-22. The phrase "until the pit be digged" is derived from the method of hunting wild beasts by digging a pit into which they might fall and be taken. See the notes at Psalm 7:15.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12, 13. On the other hand He favors though He chastens, the pious, and will teach and preserve them till the prosperous wicked are overthrown.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For their present and short troubles prepare them for, and lead them to, true rest and blessedness, whilst the seeming felicities of the wicked make way for those tremendous judgments which God hath prepared for them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity,.... Or "evil" (c); or "in the evil days", as the Arabic version; for through teaching men under afflictions, they become tranquil and quiet in them; they yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them; such men patiently bear them; and quietly submit to the will of God in them, and are still, and know that he is God, that does all things well and wisely: moreover, the Lord does not always chasten his people; when he has taught them by his rod, and the affliction has answered its end, he gives them rest or intermission from those days of affliction: God does not always suffer the rod of the wicked, or persecution, to be upon the lot of the righteous; he gives his churches rest at times: in all ages there have been some intervals of respite; and after the slaying of the witnesses, and their rising, there will be no more of those days of adversity; but the

times of refreshing, or rest, will come, which will make up the spiritual reign of Christ; and there remains a "rest", or "sabbatism", for the people of God, which will last a thousand years; and, after that, an eternal rest in heaven, which the light afflictions of the saints here are working, and are the means of making them meet for it: "until the pit be digged for the wicked"; hell, the pit of destruction, the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: this pit and lake is dug and prepared by the sovereign will and unchangeable purpose and decree of God, for all wicked and Christless sinners; particularly for the beast and false prophet, and his followers, who shall be cast into it, and be tormented in it day and night, and have no rest; while the saints they here persecuted will be in the greatest repose, and utmost felicity; and when it will appear who are the blessed and happy persons, and who not.

(c) "mali", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity. Trials and afflictions are means to an end, and the intended end is "rest" and peace. "There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). Until the pit be digged for the wicked (comp. Psalm 9:1; Psalm 35:7, 8). Psalm 94:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The fourth strophe praises the pious sufferer, whose good cause God will at length aid in obtaining its right. The "blessed" reminds one of Psalm 34:9; Psalm 40:5, and more especially of Job 5:17, cf. Proverbs 3:11. Here what are meant are sufferings like those bewailed in Psalm 94:5., which are however, after all, the well-meant dispensations of God. Concerning the aim and fruit of purifying and testing afflictions God teaches the sufferer out of His Law (cf. e.g., Deuteronomy 8:5.), in order to procure him rest, viz., inward rest (cf. Jeremiah 49:23 with Isaiah 30:15), i.e., not to suffer him to be disheartened and tempted by days of wickedness, i.e., wicked, calamitous days (Ew. 287, b), until (and it will inevitably come to pass) the pit is finished being dug into which the ungodly falls headlong (cf. Psalm 112:7.). יּהּ has the emphatic Dagesh, which properly does not double, and still less unite, but requires an emphatic pronunciation of the letter, which might easily become inaudible. The initial Jod of the divine name might easily lose it consonantal value here in connection with the preceding toneless û,

(Note: If it is correct that, as Aben-Ezra and Parchon testify, the וּ, as being compounded of o (u) + i, was pronounced like the u in the French word pur by the inhabitants of Palestine, then this Dagesh, in accordance with its orthophonic function, is the more intelligible in cases like תיסרנו יּה and קראתי יּה, cf. Pinsker, Einleitung, S. 153, and Geiger, Urschrift, S. 277. In קומו צּאו, Genesis 19:14; Exodus 12:31, קומו סּעו, Deuteronomy 2:24, Tsade and Samech have this Dagesh for the same reason as the Sin in תשׁביתו שּׁאור, Exodus 12:15 (vid., Heidenheim on that passage), viz., because there is a danger in all these cases of slurring over the sharp sibilant. Even Chajug' (vid., Ewald and Dukes' Beitrge, iii. 23) confuses this Dag. orthophonicum with the Dag. forte conjunctivum.)

and the Dag. guards against this: cf. Psalm 118:5, Psalm 118:18. The certainty of the issue that is set in prospect by עד is then confirmed with כּי. It is impossible that God can desert His church - He cannot do this, because in general right must finally come to His right, or, as it is here expressed, משׁפּט must turn to צדק, i.e., the right that is now subdued must at length be again strictly maintained and justly administered, and "after it then all who are upright in heart," i.e., all such will side with it, joyously greeting that which has been long missed and yearned after. משׁפּט is fundamental right, which is at all times consistent with itself and raised above the casual circumstances of the time, and צדק, like אמת in Isaiah 42:3, is righteousness (justice), which converts this right into a practical truth and reality.