Psalm 58

{1}Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation?
do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

Note: “Congregation” here is the Hebrew elem, found nowhere else in the OT. The meaning is best captured in the NKJV, “You silent ones.” Apparently talking about judges who are silent when they should speak. The original KJV seems to assume from the remainder of the verse that elem refers to the assembly of judges.

{2} Yea, in heart ye work wickedness;
ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
{3} The wicked are estranged from the womb:
they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

This is a troubling verse in that it suggests that category of men called “the wicked” are wicked from the womb. They are born to be bad. More recent psychological research suggests that a great deal of what makes a sociopath occurs in the first two years of life.

{4} Their poison is like the poison of a serpent:
they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
{5} Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers,
charming never so wisely.

{6} Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth:
break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
{7} Let them melt away as waters which run continually:
when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows,
let them be as cut in pieces.

{8} As a snail which melteth,
let every one of them pass away:
like the untimely birth of a woman,
that they may not see the sun.

{9} Before your pots can feel the thorns,
he shall take them away as with a whirlwind,
both living, and in his wrath.

{10} The righteous shall rejoice
when he seeth the vengeance:
he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
{11} So that a man shall say,
Verily there is a reward for the righteous:
verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth."


Psalms like this are troubling, but we have to realize that when the they speak of “the wicked,” they are not speaking of ordinary sinners like you and me. It is speaking of deliberate, irredeemable evil. And such evil is real. There is no remedy for it but destruction.
But the psalmist does not take that destruction upon himself. He calls on God for justice.
 

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