Psalms 94 KJV
A Prayer for Vengeance
About This Psalm
How long will the wicked triumph? God sees, God knows, God will act. Justice delayed is not justice denied.
1 Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.
2 Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.
3 LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
4 How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
5 They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.
6 They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
7 Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.
8 Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?
9 He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?
10 He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?
11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.
12 Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law;
13 That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.
14 For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.
15 But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
17 Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.
18 When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.
19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.
20 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?
21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.
22 But the LORD is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.
23 And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.
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Did You Know?
Psalm 94 opens with the unique divine title 'God of vengeance' (El neqamot), a designation found nowhere else in the Psalter that deliberately juxtaposes retributive justice with the covenantal name YHWH to frame suffering as a theological crisis requiring divine intervention.
The central wisdom section (vv. 8-11) functions as an embedded didactic pivot, employing rare vocabulary like 'brutish' and 'consider' that echoes both Proverbs' fool motif and Isaiah's courtroom rhetoric, interrupting the lament to indict the oppressors' intellectual arrogance.
Verse 20's phrase 'throne of iniquity' alludes to corrupt royal or judicial authority, creating a subtle polemic against human institutions that claim sacral legitimacy while fostering wickedness, a theme resonant with post-exilic disillusionment after the Davidic monarchy's collapse.
Its position in Book IV (Psalms 90-106) deliberately follows the royal lament of Book III, repositioning vengeance not as immediate political restoration but as an expression of YHWH's eternal kingship first declared in Psalm 93.
The closing assurance that YHWH 'shall cut them off' recycles conquest-era terminology from Joshua and Deuteronomy, typologically recasting contemporary oppressors as Canaanite-like enemies whose defeat reaffirms Israel's ongoing election.