Psalm 58

Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?
Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men?
² No, in heart you work wickedness;
You weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.

³ The wicked are estranged from the womb;
They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
⁴ Their poison is like the poison of a serpent;
They are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear,
⁵ Which will not heed the voice of charmers,
Charming ever so skillfully.

⁶ Break their teeth in their mouth, O God!
Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!
⁷ Let them flow away as waters which run continually;
When he bends his bow,
Let his arrows be as if cut in pieces.
⁸ Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes,
Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

⁹ Before your pots can feel the burning thorns,
He shall take them away as with a whirlwind,
As in His living and burning wrath.
¹⁰ The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,
¹¹ So that men will say,
“Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
Surely He is God who judges in the earth.”

Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?

This is an example of one of my favorite rhetorical devices. It’s called hypophora, asking a question and then answering it. You’ve probably used it yourself. (“And did you take out the garbage like I asked? No, you let it sit there and now we’ve got bugs.”) You can see the effect. The speaker comes from a position of authority to accuse the wicked. He doesn’t just say that these guys have done unrighteous and unjust things while they were working wickedness in their hearts. Instead, he phrases it as a question. Did they do good and just things? The answer is undeniable--of course they didn’t.

The wicked are estranged from the womb

I like that this version translates the word as “estranged.” Other English translations use different words, and not knowing Hebrew, as usual, I went to the Greek. The word there is ἀπηλλοτριώθησαν, which means to estrange or alienate. I’m sure everyone knows what “estrange” means, but I wanted to be sure what sort of connotation it has in the English language. The online dictionary gives this definition: estrange - arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness. The womb is typically a place of safety and nurturing and nourishment. There’s a reason why we curl up into a “fetal” position to feel safe. So, it is fitting to say that a wicked person turns away from that loving environment completely to a place of hostility.

Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun

The imagery of birth continues with a rather horrifying image. It’s been argued that perhaps the ancients didn’t put as much stock into their young children as we do because the infant mortality rate was so high. To an extent, I’m sure that’s true. Still, it has to be traumatic to have a stillborn child, then or now. Still, the psalmist has insisted that the wicked are the way they are from the moment they leave the womb. They turn away from the nurturing environment, abandoning it completely. It would be better that they never get the chance to do that, that they no longer exist the second they depart from their mother.

Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
Surely He is God who judges in the earth.

The last two lines echo the first two. In the first verse, the psalmist asks, “Do you speak righteousness? Do you judge uprightly?” Of course, as we have seen, the answer is no. Then he turns it around and says that for those who are righteous, there is a reward, rather than this fierce condemnation of the wicked. And, even if the wicked judge unjustly, it is God who is in control of the earth and His judgments that rule it no matter what they do or say.