Psalms 92:11

"And My eye has beheld on mine enemies" [Psalm 92:11]. Whom does he call his enemies? All the workers of iniquity. Do not observe whether your friend be wicked: let an occasion come, and then you prove him. Thou beginnest to go contrary to his iniquity, and then you shall see that when he was flattering you, he was your enemy; but you had not yet knocked, not to raise in his heart what was not there, but that what was there might break out. "My eye also has looked upon mine enemies: and mine ear shall hear his desire of the wicked that rise up against me." When? In my old age. What is, in old age? In the last times. And what shall our ear hear? Standing on the right hand, we shall hear what shall be said to them that are on the left.

This perhaps has reference to Christ, to his victory over Satan, death, and hell, the destruction of those that persecuted and crucified him, and opposed his gospel, and to the final ruin of the impenitent at the last day. Those that rise up against Christ will fall before him and be made his footstool. He triumphs in God, and his glory and grace.

Mine eyes also shall see my desire on mine enemies,....

see . . . [and] . . . hear my desire--or, literally, "look on" my enemies and hear of the wicked (compare Ps 27:11; 54:7) --that is, I shall be gratified by their fall.

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

Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies. The words, "my desire", inserted by the translators, had far better have been left out. He does not say what he should see concerning his enemies, he leaves that blank, and we have no right to fill in the vacant space with words which look vindictive. He would see that which would be for God's glory, and that which would be eminently right and just. And mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. Here, again, the words "my desire" are not inspired, and are a needless and perhaps a false interpolation. The good man is quite silent as to what he expected to hear; he knew that what he should hear would vindicate his faith in his God, and he was content to leave his cruel foes in God's hands, without an expression concerning his own desire one way or the other. It is always best to leave Scripture as we find it. The broken sense of inspiration is better let alone than pieced out with additions of a translator's own invention; it is like repairing pure gold with tinsel, or a mosaic of gems with painted wood. The holy psalmist had seen the beginning of the ungodly, and expected to see their end; he felt sure that God would right all wrongs, and clear his Providence from the charge of favouring the unjust; this confidence he here expresses, and sits down contentedly to wait the issues of the future.