5 Your people are crushed by them, O Lord, your heritage is troubled,
By what right are you crushing my people, and putting a bitter yoke on the necks of the poor? This is the word of the Lord, the Lord of armies.
Now then, what have I here? says the Lord, for my people are taken away without cause; they are made waste and give cries of sorrow, says the Lord, and all the day the nations put shame on my name.
And I will give orders to my two witnesses, and they will be prophets for a thousand, two hundred and sixty days, clothed with haircloth.
You who are haters of good and lovers of evil, pulling off their skin from them and their flesh from their bones; Like meat they take the flesh of my people for their food, skinning them and crushing their bones, yes, cutting them up as if for the pot, like flesh inside the cooking-pot.
You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with you the nations will be broken; with you kingdoms will be broken; With you the horse and the horseman will be broken; with you the war-carriage and he who goes in it will be broken; With you man and woman will be broken; with you the old man and the boy will be broken; with you the young man and the virgin will be broken; With you the keeper of sheep with his flock will be broken, and with you the farmer and his oxen will be broken, and with you captains and rulers will be broken.
Because you are glad, because you are lifted up with pride, you wasters of my heritage, because you are playing like a young cow put out to grass, and you make a noise like strong horses;
Now after a long time the king of Egypt came to his end: and the children of Israel were crying in their grief under the weight of their work, and their cry for help came to the ears of God. And at the sound of their weeping the agreement which God had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob came to his mind.
Great have been my troubles from the time when I was young, but my troubles have not overcome me. The ploughmen were ploughing on my back; long were the wounds they made.
They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, and the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth. Their blood has been flowing like water round about Jerusalem; there was no one to put them in their last resting-place.
O give not the soul of your dove to the hawk; let not the life of the poor go out of your memory for ever. Keep in mind your undertaking; for the dark places of the earth are full of pride and cruel acts.
Truly, because of you we are put to death every day; we are numbered like sheep for destruction.
Have all the workers of evil no knowledge? they take my people for food as they would take bread; they make no prayer to the Lord.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 94
Commentary on Psalms 94 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 94
This psalm was penned when the church of God was under hatches, oppressed and persecuted; and it is an appeal to God, as the judge of heaven and earth, and an address to him, to appear for his people against his and their enemies. Two things this psalm speaks:-
In singing this psalm we must look abroad upon the pride of oppressors with a holy indignation, and the tears of the oppressed with a holy compassion; but, at the same time, look upwards to the righteous Judge with an entire satisfaction, and look forward, to the end of all these things, with a pleasing hope.
Psa 94:1-11
In these verses we have,
Psa 94:12-23
The psalmist, having denounced tribulation to those that trouble God's people, here assures those that are troubled of rest. See 2 Th. 1:6, 7. He speaks comfort to suffering saints from God's promises and his own experience.