The words of Jehovah are pure words, silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times.
The psalm opens with a cry for help. Honest speech has failed among people: flattering lips, a double heart, tongues that claim no master. Verse 6 answers the question this raises — where can anyone find words worth trusting?
One writer sets these words against the talk described earlier in the psalm, and links them to the confidence they give:
Men's words are empty, flattering and boastful. The godly have something else: the pure words of the Lord, with no dross mixed in. Relying on these pure words, the righteous are sure God will keep and preserve them from this generation — those marked by the lawless spirit of the age — even though the wicked walk on every side.
Silver was the money people handled every day. One writer takes up that picture and names what these words are free of:
Faith celebrates the "pure" words of the Lord before the promised help comes. They carry no alloy of insincerity or untruth — words like silver, the money people trade with, fully purified.
Purity is not the same claim as truthfulness, and one writer marks the difference:
The word 'pure' used here comes from the refining process. Refining gets rid of a metal's impurities. Once fully refined, it is pure. We have already noted that God's word is true, but this is an extra quality. There are many things that may be true, but not pure. But God is pure, so His word is pure in its very nature.
The comparison runs one way only. Silver needs the furnace; the word it pictures does not:
Of course, His word needs no purifying. Silver needs purifying seven times just to serve as a symbol of the word of God. Seven speaks of completeness, indicating that God's Word is completely pure. What a contrast to the contemptible words of boastful men!
One writer links the verse to why God rises up, and to what a well-tried word guarantees:
Jehovah arises for this very reason: the wicked oppress the poor. They had relied on God's word. It promised the help they looked for, help that had to come as the witness of Jehovah's character. That word is sure and well-tried. It will certainly bear the fruit it promised. There is nothing deceitful in it. Jehovah will keep His poor from the generation of the wicked.
Pure words do more than stay pure. They work on the person who obeys them:
The words themselves are pure like silver... and obeying the words of the Lord purifies the soul. As we read: "having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth" (1 Peter 1:22). For real, ongoing purity of heart and life, we must keep one great fact before our souls: we belong to God. The silver trumpet of His Word announces His redemptive rights over us. The way of blessing is to answer with glad submission to His will.
Verse 6 runs straight into the promise of verse 7. One writer reads them together as the story of how the Bible reached us:
God does preserve His word for His people. In the dark ages God in His providence used the monks to hand it down to us by copying it out. "The words of the Lord are pure words… you will preserve them from this generation for ever" — given to us, preserved for us.
(The writer quotes verse 7 from an older translation, which reads "you will preserve them"; the ESV reads "you will guard us from this generation forever.")
Men's words and God's words do not last the same. One writer sets them side by side:
Men's words quickly perish. God keeps His own words forever — He preserves them from all the attacks of the enemy, and from "this generation" of evildoers, so that the truth of His words will last for eternity.
- Contrast. The psalm opens with flattering lips and a double heart. God's words carry no dross; human words carry little else.
- Refined. "Pure" is a metalworker's word. It means every impurity burned off. These words are not just true; they carry no alloy of insincerity or untruth.
- Sevenfold. Silver needs seven purifications just to picture God's word. Seven means complete. The word it pictures never needed the furnace.
- Proved. His word is well-tried, so it will bear the fruit it promised. The help pledged to the oppressed is certain.
- Purifying. What is pure works purity. Obeying these words cleanses the soul, and the God who spoke them preserves them for every generation.
Thou, Jehovah, wilt keep them, thou wilt preserve them from this generation for ever.
The psalm opens with a cry: the godly are gone and the faithful have vanished. Verse 7 answers that cry, and two questions decide how it reads — who are the "them" God keeps, and what is "this generation" they are kept from?
The keeping does not stand alone. It rests on the pure words of God in the verse just before. The poor had staked everything on what He said.
These people had relied on God's word. It promised the help they looked for, the help that had to come as the witness of what Jehovah is like. That word is sure and well-tried. It will bear its promised fruit without fail. There is nothing deceitful in it. Jehovah will keep His poor from the generation of the wicked.
Most read "them" as the godly themselves — the people who trust what God has said. (Older translations read "preserve them" here, where the ESV has "guard us.")
Set against the empty, flattering and boastful words of men, the godly have the pure words of the Lord, with no dross mixed in. Resting on these pure words, the righteous can be sure of this: God will keep and preserve them from this generation, the people marked by the lawless spirit of the age. That holds even though the wicked walk on every side, in a day when godliness counts for little.
Commentators differ here. Another reading takes "them" as the words themselves:
Men's words quickly perish. God's words are kept forever. They are preserved from every attack of the enemy, and from "this generation" of evildoers, so that the truth of God's words will last for eternity.
Many take the phrase to mean the people alive at one moment. One writer uses this verse to argue that it describes a character instead.
Here the meaning is moral, not a matter of dates; take Psalm 12:7 as the example. The words "for ever" prove that its force lasts. So the passage tells us that Jehovah will preserve the godly from their lawless oppressors, "from this generation forever." That is a clear and final answer to those who would limit the phrase to the short span of one man's life. So in Deuteronomy 32:5, 20 the word is used the same way — not for a period of time, but to express the moral character of Israel.
A lexicon definition says the same in one line:
Parkhurst, in his Lexicon, gives as a meaning of genea — the Greek word for "generation" — "Men of like quality and disposition, though of neither one place nor age." Scripture bears this out fully: "You will keep them, O Jehovah, You will preserve them from this generation forever" (Ps. 12:7). In this text "generation" plainly does not mean only the people alive on earth at one time.
The promise is not that the danger disappears. The next verse says the wicked still walk about on every side.
Jehovah keeps His people. Yes, He preserves them forever from the generation of the false-hearted. Yet the wicked walk around. It must be so when men give "vileness" a place of honour — the very thing that should be shaken out and thrown away.
The same writer points to what moves God to act against the boasters:
Here Jehovah's word comes swiftly against all of this. Yet what moves Him to act is love and pity — the oppression of the poor, the sighing of the needy. His promise commits Him to step in. And before He does, faith already celebrates the "pure" words of the Lord, with no alloy of insincerity or untruth in them — words like silver, the money people trade with, completely refined.
- Cry. The psalm opens with the godly gone and the faithful failing. What moves God to answer is the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy.
- Word. The keeping rests on God's own word: sure, well-tried, with nothing deceitful in it. It will bear its promised fruit without fail.
- Kept. Commentators differ on "them." Most read it as the godly who trust those pure words; others read it as the words themselves, kept forever from every attack.
- Generation. "This generation" is a kind of people, not a span of years: men of like quality and disposition, of no one place or age. The words "for ever" rule out a mere lifetime.
- Forever. The keeping runs alongside the danger, not instead of it. The wicked still walk about where men honour what should be thrown away.