Bible Commentaries

Psalms 11:1. Flee as a bird to your mountain, the hill country of Judea. When hiding from Saul, and when the wicked bent their bow against him, it was prudent to shun the snares.

Psalms 11:3. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Laws, covenants, and promises are the foundations. Though Saul might violate these, yet David had one resource, as in the next verse.

Psalms 11:4. The Lord is in his holy temple, and his throne is higher than the thrones of princes. His cares are unremitting, for his eyelids never sleep. Who then can harm the righteous?

Psalms 11:6. The portion of their cup. St. Basil says here, this figure is taken from the architriclinus, the master of the feast, who sent to each his portion and his cup; so the Lord sends the cup of consolation to his saints, and the bitter cup to his enemies. An horrible tempest. Hebrews the spirit of terrors.

REFLECTIONS.

David was now in danger probably from the javelins of Saul. His friends who perceived his situation advised him to fly; for the king had bent his bow, and plotted his destruction. Like David we are daily exposed to the accusations of Satan, and of the ungodly world. We must expect no rest on earth; prosperity and honour shall soon be converted, like David’s elevation, into crowns of thorns.

If then the Lord permits his saints to be so treated by a wicked world, what will he do with the cruel and malicious oppressors? If neither the counsel nor the example of the good have made them better; if neither longsuffering nor great indulgence have softened their hearts; what can he do with them but accelerate their destruction? They form plots of riot and crimes, and never dream that justice is forming its plot against them. They lay snares for the righteous, as Saul did for David, when he required a hundred foreskins of the Philistines; but they are here apprized that God shall rain snares of fire and brimstone upon them from heaven. The allusion is to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose inhabitants had long ceased to blush, and had long mocked at the divine judgments. But when their dark and awful day came, if they ran into the street, the fire was there; and if they ran into the fields, the fire was there, and extended to all the plain. So the Lord held them by his power, as the feet of a bird are entangled by the snare of the fowler. So the consummately wicked, the insidious, and all who seek the hurt of another, must expect the like cup from the Lord; for he is righteous, and his countenance doth behold the upright.