Psalms 9:17

"Let them be turned back." Above, the Psalmist treated the judgment of God with regard to his own adversaries; here he pursues it with regard to the whole human race, and with regard to the evils done everywhere by sinners; and regarding this he does …

This is very applicable to the kingdom of the Messiah, the enemies of which have been in part destroyed already, and shall be yet more and more till they all be made his footstool, which we are to assure ourselves of, that God may have the glory and we may take the comfort.

Note, (1.) Forgetfulness of God is the cause of all the wickedness of the wicked. (2.) There are nations of those that forget God, multitudes that live without God in the world, many great and many mighty nations, that never regard him nor desire the knowledge of his ways.

The wicked shall be turned into hell,....

The wicked - All the wicked; all who come properly under the denomination of wicked persons. Doubtless the writer had particularly in his eye the enemies with whom he was contending, and in reference to whom the psalm wits composed; and he meant to say that they would be certainly punished. But what was true in regard to them, was true of all others of similar character, and the statement is therefore made in a universal form - all the wicked. Shall be turned - Shall turn back, or be turned from their present course.

shall be turned--or, "shall turn," retreating under God's vengeance, and driven by Him to the extreme of destruction, even hell itself. Those who forget God are classed with the depraved and openly profane.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

The justice which has punished the wicked, and preserved the righteous, remains the same, and therefore in days to come, retribution will surely be meted out. How solemn is the seventeenth verse, especially in its warning to forgetters of God. The moral who are not devout, the honest who are not prayerful, the benevolent who are not believing, the amiable who are not converted, these must all have their own portion with the openly wicked in the hell which is prepared for the devil and his angels. There are whole nations of such; the forgetters of God are far more numerous than the profane or profligate, and according to the very forceful expression of the Hebrew, the nethermost hell will be the place into which all of them shall be hurled headlong. Forgetfulness seems a small sin, but it brings eternal wrath upon the man who lives and dies in it.

MANY of God's ministers have been accused of taking pleasure in preaching upon this terrible subject of "the wrath to come." We were, indeed, strange beings, if so doleful a subject could afford us any comfort! I would count myself to be infinitely less than a man if it did not cause me more pain in delivering myself of the impending sentence of condemnation, than it can possibly cause my Hearers in the listening to it. God's ministers, I can assure you, if they feel it to be often their solemn duty, feel it always to be a heavy burden to speak of the terrors of the Law! To preach Christ is our delight! To uplift His Cross is the joy of our heart; our Master is our witness—we love to blow the silver trumpet, and we have blown it with all our might! But knowing the terror of the Lord, these solemn things lie upon our conscience; and while it is hard to preach of them, it were still harder to bear the doom which must rest upon the silent minister; the unfaithful watchman who did not warn the sinner! He must, therefore, eternally bear the sinner's blood upon his head, because he warned him not! Think not, this morning, that I am about to speak upon the terrors of the world to come. I shall not do so. I shall but open the subject by making one or two remarks which may, in some measure, shield us from the enmity of those who accuse us of harshness of spirit when we lay bare these predicted woes. You must confess, my dear Hearers, that Jesus Christ was the most tender-hearted of men.

MANY of God's ministers have been accused of taking pleasure in preaching upon this terrible subject of "the wrath to come." We were, indeed, strange beings, if so doleful a subject could afford us any comfort! I would count myself to be infinitely less than a man if it did not cause me more pain in delivering myself of the impending sentence of condemnation, than it can possibly cause my Hearers in the listening to it.

The justice which has punished the wicked, and preserved the righteous, remains the same, and therefore in days to come, retribution will surely be meted out. How solemn is the seventeenth verse, especially in its warning to forgetters of God. The moral who are not devout, the honest who are not prayerful, the benevolent who are not believing, the amiable who are not converted, these must all have their own portion with the openly wicked in the hell which is prepared for the devil and his angels.

The wicked shall be turned into hell - לשאולה lisholah, headlong into hell, down into hell. The original is very emphatic. All the nations that forget God - They will not live in his fear. There are both nations and individuals who, though they know God, forget him, that is, are unmindful of of him, do not acknowledge him in their designs, ways and works. These are all to be thrust down into hell. Reader, art thou forgetful of thy Maker, and of Him who died for thee?