Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Calvin Complete Commentary - Psalms 101:5 - 101:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5Whoso slandereth his neighbor (130) in secret, him will I destroy. In this verse he speaks more distinctly of the duty of a king who is armed with the sword, for the purpose of restraining evil-doers. Detraction, pride, and vices of every description, are justly offensive to all good men; but all men have not the power or right to cut off the proud or detractors, because they are not invested with public authority, and consequently have their hands bound. It is of importance to attend to this distinction, that the children of God may keep themselves within the bounds of moderation, and that none may pass beyond the province of his own calling. It is certain, that so long as David lived merely in the rank of a private member of society, he never dared to attempt any such thing. But after being placed on the royal throne, he received a sword from the hand of God, which he employed in punishing evil deeds. He particularises certain kinds of wickedness, that under one species, by the figure synecdoche, he might intimate his determination to punish all sorts of wickedness. To detract from the reputation of another privily, and by stealth, is a plague exceedingly destructive. It is as if a man killed a fellow-creature from a place of ambush; or rather a calumniator, like one who administers poison to his unsuspecting victim, destroys men unawares. It is a sign of a perverse and treacherous disposition to wound the good name of another, when he has no opportunity of defending himself. This vice, which is too prevalent every where, while yet it ought not to be tolerated among men, David undertakes to punish.
He next characterises the proud by two forms of expression. He describes them as those whose eyes are lofty, not that all who are proud look with a lofty countenance, but because they commonly betray the superciliousness of their proud hearts by the loftiness of their countenance. He farther describes them as wide (131) of heart, because those who aspire after great things must necessarily be puffed up and swollen. They are never satisfied unless they swallow up the whole world. From this we learn that good order cannot exist, unless princes are sedulously on the watch to repress pride, which necessarily draws after it and engenders outrage and cruelty, contemptuous language, rapine, and all kinds of ill treatment. Thus it would come to pass, that the simple and the peaceable would be at the mercy of the more powerful, did not the authority of princes interfere to curb the audacity of the latter. As it is the will of God that good and faithful kings should hold pride in detestation, this vice is unquestionably the object of his own hatred. What he therefore requires from his children is gentleness and meekness, for he is the declared enemy of all who strive to elevate themselves above their condition.
(130) The reading of the Chaldee is striking, “ who speaks with a triple tongue, ” “i e. ,” says Bythner, “an informer, calumniator, detractor, who injures three souls, his own, his hearers, and the calumniated; he inflicts a deep wound on his own conscience, puts a lie into the mouth of his hearer, and injures the subject of his slander; according to which, Herodotus has said, Διαβολή ἐστι δεινότατον ἐν τὣ δύο μέν εἰσιν οἱ ἀδικέοντες εἷς δε ὁ ἀδικεόμενος. ‘ is most iniquitous, in which there are two injuring and one injured.’” The word מלושני, meloshni renderedslandereth, is from the noun לשון, lashon, the tongue In Psa_140:12, it is said, “ not איש לשון,ish lashon, a man of tongue, (i e. , a slanderer,) be established in the earth.”
(131) The Hebrew noun רחב, rechab, for wide or large, is derived from רחב,rachab, dilatus est “ to the heart or soul, it denotes largeness of desires. — So Pro_28:25, ‘ that is רחב נפש, large in soul;’ where the LXX. fitly render רחב, by ἄπληστος, ‘’ applying it either to wealth or honor, the insatiable desire of either of which (as there follows) ‘ up strife.’ And so here they have rendered it again ἄπλήστῳ καρδίᾳ, ‘ that cannot be filled in the heart,’ i e. , the covetous or ambitious man. The Syriac reads, wide or broad; so the Jewish Arab, ‘ that is high of eyes, and wide of heart, I can have no patience with those two.’” — Hammond