Psalms 9:12

When God comes to make inquisition for blood by his judgments on earth, before he comes to do it by the judgment of the great day, he remembers them, remembers every drop of the innocent blood which they have shed, and will return it sevenfold upon the head of the blood-thirsty; he will give them blood to drink, for they are worthy.

When he maketh inquisition for blood,....

When an inquest is held concerning the blood of the oppressed, the martyred saints will have the first remembrance; he will avenge his own elect. Those saints who are living shall also be heard; they shall be exonerated from blame, and kept from destruction, even when the Lord's most terrible work is going on; the man with the inkhorn by his side shall mark them all for safety, before the slaughtermen are permitted to smite the Lord's enemies.

for blood--that is, murders (Ps 5:6), including all the oppressions of His people. maketh inquisition--(compare Ge 9:5). He will avenge their cause.

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

When an inquest is held concerning the blood of the oppressed, the martyred saints will have the first remembrance; he will avenge his own elect. Those saints who are living shall also be heard; they shall be exonerated from blame, and kept from destruction, even when the Lord's most terrible work is going on; the man with the inkhorn by his side shall mark them all for safety, before the slaughtermen are permitted to smite the Lord's enemies. The humble cry of the poorest saints shall neither be drowned by the voice of the thundering justice nor by the shrieks of the condemned.

When he maketh inquisition for blood - When he “inquires” after blood; that is, when he comes forth with this view, to wit, for purposes of punishment. There is allusion here to such passages as that in Gen 9:5, “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man.” The idea is, that when blood was shed in murder, God would seek out the murderer; he would require satisfaction of him who had shed the blood; he would punish the offender. The language, there, becomes equivalent to that of seeking punishment for murder, and then for sin in general; and the representation here is that of God as going forth in the capacity of an executioner of his own laws to inflict punishment on the guilty. He remembereth them - “He remembereth,” says Prof. Alexander, “the bloods or murders,” since the word blood, as in Psa 5:6, is in the plural - bloods. The better interpretation, however, is, that the word “them” here refers to the oppressed and the afflicted - for that is the main idea in the passage. See Psa 9:8-9. When he goes forth in the earth to execute judgment on the wicked; when he cuts them down in his wrath; when he sweeps them away as with a flood - the punishment will not be indiscriminate. He will then mark the oppressed, the afflicted, the persecuted, the troubled, and the sad, and will interpose to save them - delivering them from the storms of wrath. The idea, then, is, that the righteous will not be forgotten; that even in the most fierce and awful of his dispensations he will still regard them, and interpose to save them. He forgetteth not the cry of the humble - Margin, afflicted. The margin expresses the true idea. The reference is not to the humble in the common sense of that term, but to the afflicted; the oppressed; to those who are in trouble, Psa 9:9. […]