I. (10:1–11) Why Do You Let the Wicked Get Away with It? Beginning with a blunt question to the Lord, the song details the ways in which the wicked make the helpless poor suffer, while they themselves prosper. These wicked are boastful and greedy, “renouncing the Lord” (v. 3) and feeling secure from divine judgment (vv. 4–6, 11). They look for opportunities to destroy the innocent in order to advance their own interests (vv. 8–10).

The questions in verse 1 (“Why?”) allow the faithful to say what they might otherwise suppress out of the wrong kind of reverence. Since God is reliable and just, one might not be able to make sense of the way the unfaithful seem to get away with their oppression of the faithful. The singers address God with their perplexity, which is itself an act of faith.

The term “hide yourself” designates ignoring cries for help (as in 55:1; Prov. 28:27; Isa. 1:15; 58:7). The psalms, being songs—and not theological treatises—express what the current situation feels like; the faithful singer will be able to fill out the theological picture, which 10:16–18 confirms.

The prayer of verse 3 evokes the similar prayer in 5:10; 7:15–16 (cf. comments on 5:9–10; 7:12–16). It is unbearable, indeed unthinkable, that God would allow such schemes to succeed; protecting the faithful must mean thwarting these schemes.

In verse 3, the word “curses” is literally “blesses” (cf. ESV mg.); it is used euphemistically for cursing God (as in Job 1:5). The term “renounces the Lord” can apply only to an Israelite, of course (cf. Ps. 10:13). In Numbers 14:11, 23; 16:30; Isaiah 1:4 the same Hebrew word is rendered despise, referring to the faithless of God’s own people.

Throughout the psalm “the wicked” are members of God’s people who reject the gracious covenant and take the lead in oppressing those members who do follow the Lord. The focus seems to be on those with power to do harm, since they are contrasted with “the poor.” Such folk are “functionally atheists” (cf. Ps. 10:4; 14:1; 53:1; 94:7), regardless of whether they are “theoretically atheists”; that is, they simply refuse to imagine that God, if he exists, would stop them or judge them (cf. 10:11). Hence in verse 5, while the wicked’s “ways prosper at all times,” God’s “judgments are . . . out of his sight.” The song encourages the view of faith: though God’s judgments may be for a while “hidden,” they will not remain so forever (the stress of the third stanza especially).

When the wicked imagines of himself “I shall not be moved” (v. 6), he is using a common expression for being stable and secure, used more commonly for the security of the faithful (15:5; 16:8 [“shaken”]; 17:5 [“slipped”]; 21:7; 55:22; 62:2, 6 [“shaken”]).124 As in 30:6, here it denotes the false confidence of the complacent. It is galling to the pious when the impious feel safe in their impiety.

Paul uses 10:7 (largely from the LXX) in Romans 3:14. Romans 3:10–18 is a catena of OT texts (Pss. 5:9; 14:1–3; 140:3; 10:7; Isa. 59:7–8), designed to demonstrate that “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Rom. 3:9). This text applies specifically to Jews in that argument.125

For the wicked to imagine that “God has forgotten,” or that “he has hidden his face” and “will never see it” (Ps. 10:11), would be to attribute to God a weak memory or else indifference to human suffering. Either way it is blasphemy, and the faithful mention it to God to stir him to action that proves the wicked to be in the wrong (cf. vv. 12–14; note how verse 12 repeats the word “forget”).

II. (10:12–15) A Prayer for God to Protect the Helpless. In view of this dreadful situation the song now asks God to defend the defenseless and afflicted. These verses repeat many words from the first section (e.g., “mischief,” vv. 7, 14; “forget,” vv. 11, 12; “see,” vv. 11, 14; “renounce,” vv. 3, 13; “helpless,” vv. 8, 10, 14; “wicked,” vv. 2–4, 13, 15) in order to show that God’s action is a direct answer to the injustice described before.

The prayer is more specifically a response to the sense of security on the part of the wicked, as in verses 6, 11, by which they think they can harm the faithful with impunity. The stanza shows this theme by the term “call . . . to account”: in verse 13 the wicked suppose that God will not call them to account, while in verse 15 the faithful ask God to do precisely that in order to prove to everyone that the wicked are mistaken. In fact, they pray in verse 15 that God would “break the arm of the wicked” (i.e., render them powerless, unable to carry out their schemes to harm the godly) and call their wickedness to account “till you find none” (i.e., until there is no more to account for).

Just as the “wicked” in the first stanza are faith-denying members of the covenant people, here we can see who the defenseless are: “to you the helpless commits himself” (v. 14). These are the faithful members of God’s people. As for the “fatherless” here, OT law is full of warnings about oppressing such people (cf. Ex. 22:22; Deut. 10:18); the true Israelite will care for them, imitating God’s own care for them (Ps. 10:18).

III. (10:16–18) Confidence in God’s Justice and Power. The psalm concludes with confidence that God will powerfully bring justice to the oppressed.

The stanza opens by affirming that “The Lord is king forever and ever.” This statement also occurs in Exodus 15:18, which concludes the song celebrating God’s deliverance of Israel through the Red Sea, as God’s reign is for the sake of his people, to promote their peace and purity. Just as he removes unbelieving “nations” from “his land,” he can be trusted to purge unbelieving Israelites from the land as well. And it is sobering to realize that the “wicked” here, who are Israelites, are being likened to the Canaanites who lived in the land and are often portrayed as exemplars of iniquity.

The wicked suppose that God has no care for the weak and needy (Ps. 10:11), but verse 17 insists they are wrong: contrary to appearances (as in v. 1), God does in fact attend to these cries for justice, and the faithful can rest assured that he cares for them (vv. 17–18).

In the end God’s power, his supreme reign over all things, ensures that he will successfully vindicate his faithful and bring down the oppressors. The oppressors are but “man who is of the earth” (similar to 9:19–20): limited and eventually frustrated.