Psalms 58:7

"They shall be despised like water running down" [Psalm 58:7]. Be not terrified, brethren, by certain streams, which are called torrents: with winter waters they are filled up; do not fear: after a little it passeth by, that water runneth down; for a time it roareth, soon it will subside: they cannot hold long. Many heresies now are utterly dead: they have run in their channels as much as they were able, have run down, dried are the channels, scarce of them the memory is found, or that they have been. "They shall be despised like water running down." But not they alone; the whole of this age for a time is roaring, and is seeking whom it may drag along. Let all ungodly men, all proud men resounding against the rocks of their pride as it were with waters rushing along and flowing together, not terrify you, winter waters they are, they cannot alway flow: it must needs be that they run down unto their place, unto their end. And nevertheless of this torrent of the world the Lord hath drunk. For He hath suffered here, the very torrent He hath drunk, but in the way He hath drunk, but in the passage over: because in way of sinners He hath not stood. But of Him saith the Scripture what? "Of the torrent in the way He shall drink, therefore He shall lift up His Head;" that is, for this reason glorified He hath been, because He hath died; for this reason hath risen again, because He hath suffered....

Therefore, having been taught by these examples, I did not want to bite back at him who bites back at me or to retaliate in kind; and I chose rather to charm out the fury of a madman by incantation and to pour the antidote of a single look into a poisoned heart. But I am afraid that my efforts are in vain and that I shall be forced to sing the well-known song of David and console myself with these words: "The sinners are alienated from the assembly; they have gone astray from the womb; they have spoken false things. Their madness is according to the likeness of a serpent, like the deaf asp that stops its ears, which will not hear the voice of the charmers nor of the wizard that charms wisely. God shall break in pieces their teeth in their mouths; the Lord shall break the teeth of the lions. They shall come to nothing, like water running down; he has bent his bow until they are weakened. Like wax that melts, they shall be taken away: fire has fallen on them, and they have not seen the sun." And again: "The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge of the wicked; he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner." And people shall say, "If, indeed, there is a reward to the just, there is, indeed, a God who judges them on the earth."

Such shall the floods of ungodly men be, which sometimes make us afraid ( Ps. xviii. 4 ); so shall the proud waters be reduced, which threaten to go over our soul, Ps. cxxiv. Let us by faith then see what they shall be and then we shall not fear what they are.

Let them melt away as waters which run continually,....

Let them melt away as waters which run continually. Like mountain torrents dried up by the summer heats let them disappear; or like running streams whose waters are swiftly gone, so let them pass away; or like water spilt which none can find again, so let them vanish out of existence. Begone, ye foul streams, the sooner ye are forgotten the better for the universe. When he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. When the Lord goes forth to war, let his judgments so tell upon these persecutors that they may be utterly cut in pieces as a mark shattered by many shafts. Or perhaps the meaning is, when the ungodly man marches to the conflict, let his arrows and his bow drop into fragments, the string cut, the bow snapped, the arrows headless, the points blunted; so that the boastful warrior may not have wherewithal to hurt the object of his enmity. In either sense the prayer of the Psalm has often become fact, and will be again fulfilled as often as need arises.