Psalms 10:8

Despite the bragging of this base wretch, it seems that he is as cowardly as he is cruel. "He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor." He acts the part of the highwayman, who springs upon the unsuspecting traveller in some desolate part of the road. There are always bad men lying in wait for the saints. This is a land of robbers and thieves; let us travel well armed, for every bush conceals an enemy.

The malignity and deceit (Ps 140:3) of such are followed by acts combining cunning, fraud, and violence (compare Pr 1:11, 18), aptly illustrated by the habits of the lion, and of hunters taking their prey. "Poor," in Ps 10:8, 10, 14, represents a word peculiar to this Psalm, meaning the sad or sorrowful; in Ps 10:9, as usual, it means the pious or meek sufferer.

Despite the bragging of this base wretch, it seems that he is as cowardly as he is cruel. "He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor." He acts the part of the highwayman, who springs upon the unsuspecting traveller in some desolate part of the road. There are always bad men lying in wait for the saints. This is a land of robbers and thieves; let us travel well armed, for every bush conceals an enemy. Everywhere there are traps laid for us, and foes thirsting for our blood. There are enemies at our table as well as across the sea. We are never safe, save when the Lord is with us.

He sitteth in the lurking places - In this and the following verse there appears to be an allusion to espionage, or setting of spies on a man’s conduct; or to the conduct of an assassin or private murderer. He sitteth in lurking places - in secret places; his eyes - spies - are privily set; he lieth in wait secretly: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.

He sitteth in the lurking-places of the villages - As robbers do, who hide themselves in the vicinity of villages, that they make a sudden descent upon them in the silence of the night, or that they may seize and rob the inhabitants as they go forth in the morning to attend their flocks to the pastures, or to labor in the fields. The word rendered “villages” means properly an enclosure, as a court before a building; and then a village or hamlet, farm-buildings, or farm hamlets, usually erected around an open space; and it is then used to denote the encampment of nomadic tribes, who usually pitch their tents in a circle so as to form an enclosure, Gen 25:16; Isa 42:11. In the neighborhood of such places - in the thickets, bushes, or ravines, that might be near such encampments or enclosures - robbers would naturally secrete themselves, that they might fall upon them suddenly, or that they might seize anyone who left the village or encampment for ally purpose. So Frazer remarks in his Travels in Chorasan, i. 437: “When the Turkomans design to fall upon a village, they take a position near it in the rear, until in the morning the unsuspecting inhabitants drive out their herds, or leave the villages for some other purpose, and then they suddenly fall upon them.” DeWette, in loc. In the secret places doth he murder the innocent - From these retreats he suddenly falls upon those who are unsuspicious, and who have done him no wrong. The word “innocent” here does not mean sinless in the absolute sense, but it means that they were innocent so far as the robber was concerned. They had done him no wrong; they had given him no occasion to make war upon them. His eyes are privily set - Margin, “hide themselves.” The Hebrew word means to hide, to conceal; to lay up in private; to hoard; to keep back; to hold back, etc. […]