The proud have derided me beyond measure I have not declined from thy law.
Here the psalmist names the cost of trusting God's word: proud men pour scorn on him. The mockery is heavy, but it has not moved him one inch off course.
Older translations call them "the proud," and one writer identifies them plainly, along with the weapon they use.
By the proud are meant the unbelievers! They cannot understand the quiet confidence of the believer and ridicule him. Ridicule is often a powerful weapon Satan uses to make believers doubt God's promises. But this ridicule should not surprise us. The apostle Paul tells us: "Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim. 3:12). The natural person does not accept, cannot understand, the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him (1 Cor. 2:14).
Another writer traces the mockery back to a decision they have made about God Himself.
Confidence in the Word of God made the Lord's servant a target of mockery for the proud men of the world. These were men who had thrown off all allegiance to God and His Word. Despite their mockery, the soul held firm in its confidence.
The derision is not random. Something in the word itself sets it off.
Wherever the word goes, its demand for righteousness and goodness stirs up the heart's inborn resistance to good and to God. So here the psalmist tells of the derision he had met from men. These were the proud, who would not put up with the word's rebuke. Their character showed what their opposition was really like; and he had not turned away from the law because of it.
They did not mock him for arguing. They mocked the way he lived, and the way he took insults without hitting back.
This lowly, patient obedience, which quietly accepted reproach, had been the scorn and derision of the proud. But faith in His word had kept the soul from swerving. It held fast in the sorrow. It looked back to God's ways of old, when He had stretched out His hand. What made the soul obedient also made it confident: it looked to God, and this kept the sight and memory of faith clear.
The mockery has an aim. It wants the very thing the second half of the verse refuses.
So let us arm ourselves! If the enemy seeks to make us doubt the promises of God, let us not give him one inch! The enemy's aim is to make us turn away from Your law — the Word of God. But with the Lord's help his efforts will only strengthen us. They will make us more determined to trust the Lord and see His promises come true.
Standing firm here is not gritted teeth. One writer shows the psalmist at rest under heavy mockery, and names what gave him that rest.
The proud mocked him bitterly, yet he was at rest. He firmly resisted every temptation to turn aside from the law of God. For he remembered God's judgments of the past, and in those he found genuine comfort (vv. 51-52).
Verse 51 is not an isolated bad day. One writer lists the opposition the psalmist reports right across the psalm.
He had met with reproach and contempt, and princes had been talking against him (22, 23, 42). So he asks the LORD not to let him be put to shame (31). The proud had derided him, yet he had not swerved from God's law (51). They made up a lie against him (69), and they overthrew him without cause (78). He also says they had dug pits for him and had almost destroyed him (85-87).
- Pride mocks. The scorn comes from unbelievers. They cannot make sense of a believer's quiet confidence, and they have thrown off allegiance to God and His word.
- Pride reacts. The word demands righteousness and goodness, and that demand stirs opposition. The proud will not accept its rebuke.
- Pride aims low. Satan uses ridicule to make believers doubt God's promises. The goal is to get you to turn away from the word.
- Faith holds. The proud mock a quiet obedience that accepts reproach. Faith in God's word keeps that soul from swerving.
- Faith rests. The psalmist remembered God's judgments of old. That memory turned his stand under mockery into genuine comfort, not grim endurance.
I remembered thy judgments of old, O Jehovah, and have comforted myself.
Proud men mocked the psalmist, but they could not shake him (v. 51). What steadied him was a memory: he looked back at what God had already done, and found comfort there.
Where the ESV has "rules," older translations read "judgments." One study of this psalm's words explains the Hebrew term behind both. It appears 23 times here, including in verse 52:
MISH-PAHT = Judgment... It means the sentence of a judge, and it is used above all of a sentence that imposes a penalty. So it is a judicial sentence — a decision the Lord makes.
What he recalls is how God dealt with the wicked long ago. That memory does two things. It steadies him, and it turns him away from lawless company — the point verse 53 goes on to make:
(vv. 52-53) Men mocked the godly man, yet remembering God's judgments on the wicked long ago comforted him and made him stand firm. God's past judgments make the soul shrink in horror from those who had abandoned God's law.
Verses 51 and 52 belong together: the mockery could not move him, because his mind was on something else.
Though the proud mocked him bitterly, he was at rest, standing firm against every temptation to turn aside from the law of God. For he remembered God's judgments of the past, and in them he found real comfort (vv. 51-52).
Why should an old record of judgment comfort anyone today? Because the God who acted then has not changed. The psalmist read history for a reason, and what he learned reached straight into his own trouble:
So here the psalmist tells of the mockery he had met from men. These were the proud, who would not accept the rebuke of God's word... He had read history to good purpose, and he remembered God's judgments of old. It was the same God now, and so he comforted himself. At the same time, as he thought about how man had fallen away from God, indignation ("burning heat") filled him.
Notice the wording: he comforted himself. The comfort was there in what God had done, and he reached for it.
Remembering does not happen by itself. One writer names the problem, and the remedy:
We forget so quickly! It is like saying: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly..." (Col. 3:16). There is no victory possible without that Word abiding in us. We must keep using the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17).
And God made sure there was a record to remember. He had His dealings with Israel written down, so that later readers could draw the very comfort this verse describes:
We should learn practical lessons from Jehovah's "...judgments of old...", from the way He dealt with His people Israel. In Romans 15:4 we read: "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." This then is the comfort we read of in our verse!
Verse 52 sits inside a block of eight verses (49-56). The comfort the psalmist finds under mockery does not stop at relief. A few verses later it has become a song for the road:
Verses 49-56. Jehovah's word is the support and the song of His suffering servant. It gives divine comfort when the proud mock him. The righteous are angry at those who abandon the law of their God. But as they travel on, they find joy in remembering the judgments and the Name of the Lord.
- Judgments. The word means a judge's sentence — a decision God makes and carries out, often one that imposes a penalty.
- Remembered. Comfort begins with a choice to remember. We forget fast, so we must keep the Word living in us.
- Recorded. God had those past dealings written down to instruct us, so that the encouragement of the Scriptures would give us hope.
- Unchanged. The psalmist read history to good purpose. It is the same God now, and that is why an old judgment steadies someone suffering today.
- Comforted. Mockery from the proud could not move him, and the comfort grew into a song for the road he was still travelling.