The abrupt question at the beginning reveals the psalmist's long-pent indignation. He has been silently brooding over the swollen arrogance and malicious lies of the tyrant, till he can restrain himself no longer, and out pours a fiery flood. Evil gloried in is worse than evil done. The word rendered in the A.V. and R.V. "mighty man" is here used in a bad sense, to indicate that he has not only a giant's power, but uses it tyrannously, like a giant. How dramatically the abrupt question is followed by the equally abrupt thought of the ever-during loving-kindness of God! That makes the tyrant's boast supremely absurd, and the psalmist's confidence reasonable, even in face of hostile power.
The prominence given to sins of speech is peculiar. We should have expected high-handed violence rather than these. But the psalmist is tracking the deeds to their source; and it is not so much the tyrant's words as his love of a certain kind of words which is adduced as proof of his wickedness. These words have two characteristics in addition to boastfulness. They are false and destructive. They are, according to the forcible literal meaning in ver. 4, "words of swallowing." They are, according to the literal meaning of "destructions," in ver. 2, "yawning gulfs." Such words lead to acts which make a tyrant. They flow from perverted preference of evil to good. Thus the deeds of oppression are followed up to their den and birthplace. Part of the description of the "words" corresponds to the fatal effect of Doeg's report; but nothing in it answers to the other part--falsehood. The psalmist's hot indignation speaks in the triple, direct address to the tyrant, which comes in each case like a lightning flash at the end of a clause (vv. 1, 2, 4). In the second of these the epithet "framing deceit" does not refer to the "sharpened razor," but to the tyrant. If referred to the former, it weakens rather than strengthens the metaphor, by bringing in the idea that the sharp blade misses its proper aim, and wounds cheeks instead of shearing off hair. The Selah of ver. 3 interrupts the description, in order to fix attention, by a pause filled up by music, on the hideous picture thus drawn.
That description is resumed and summarised in ver. 4, which, by the Selahs, is closely bound to ver. 5, in order to enforce the necessary connection of sin and punishment, which is strongly underlined by the "also" or "so" at the beginning of the latter verse. The stern prophecy of destruction is based upon no outward signs of failure in the oppressor's might, but wholly on confidence in God's continual loving-kindness, which must needs assume attributes of justice when its objects are oppressed. A tone of triumph vibrates through the imagery of ver. 5, which is not in the same key as Christ has set for us.
It is easy for those who have never lived under grinding, godless tyranny to reprobate the exultation of the oppressed at the sweeping away of their oppressors; but if the critics had seen their brethren set up as torches to light Nero's gardens, perhaps they would have known some thrill of righteous joy when they heard that he was dead. Three strong metaphors describe the fall of this tyrant. He is broken down, as a building levelled with the ground. He is laid hold of, as a coal in the fire, with tongs (for so the word means), and dragged, as in that iron grip, out of the midst of his dwelling. He is uprooted like a tree with all its pride of leafage. Another blast of trumpets or clang of harps or clash of cymbals bids the listeners gaze on the spectacle of insolent strength laid prone, and withering as it lies.
The third movement of thought (vv. 6, 7) deals with the effects of this retribution. It is a conspicuous demonstration of God's justice and of the folly of reliance on anything but Himself. The fear which it produces in the "righteous" is reverential awe, not dread lest the same should happen to them. Whether or not history and experience teach evil men that "verily there is a God that judgeth," their lessons are not wasted on devout and righteous souls. But this is the tragedy of life, that its teachings are prized most by those who have already learned them, and that those who need them most consider them least. Other tyrants are glad when a rival is swept off the field, but are not arrested in their own course. It is left to "the righteous" to draw the lesson which all men should have learned. Although they are pictured as laughing at the ruin, that is not the main effect of it. Rather it deepens conviction, and is a "modern instance" witnessing to the continual truth of "an old saw." There is one safe stronghold, and only one. He who conceits himself to be strong in his own evil, and, instead of relying on God, trusts in material resources, will sooner or later be levelled with the ground, dragged, resisting vainly the tremendous grasp, from his tent, and laid prostrate, as melancholy a spectacle as a great tree blown down by tempest, with its roots turned up to the sky and its arms with drooping leaves trailing on the ground.