Psalms 73:8

8 They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.

Psalms 73:8 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 73:8

They are corrupt
In themselves, in their principles, and in their practices, being shapen and conceived in sin, and born of the flesh; and are corrupters, or "corrupt" themselves, and their ways, and also others by their corrupt speech, evil communications, and bad examples: or "they consume away"; like smoke, or into it, as ( Psalms 37:20 ) or as wax melteth at the fire, ( Psalms 68:2 ) ( Zechariah 14:12 ) , where the same word is used as here: or "they cause to consume away" F15; "they melt or dissolve others"; they consume them, and waste their estates by their oppression and violence; they make their hearts to melt with their threatening and terrifying words; or they make them dissolute in their lives by keeping them company:

and speak wickedly concerning oppression;
they speak oppression and revolt, threaten with it, ( Isaiah 59:13 ) , and speak in vindication of it, and in a boasting glorying manner; so Arama; which is speaking wickedly concerning it:

they speak loftily:
proudly, arrogantly, in a haughty and imperious manner: or "from on high" F16; as if they were in heaven, and above all creatures, and even God himself; and as if what they said were oracles, and to be received as such, without any scruple and hesitation. Thus Pharaoh, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar spake, ( Exodus 5:2 ) ( Isaiah 36:20 ) ( Daniel 3:15 ) and the little horn, or antichrist, ( Daniel 7:20 ) ( 2 Thessalonians 2:4 ) ( Revelation 13:6 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

F15 (wqymy) "dissolutos reddunt", Vatablus; "reddent se dissolutos", Montanus; "faciunt tabescere", Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis.
F16 (Mwrmm) "a sublimi", Musculus, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ex alto", Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis.

Psalms 73:8 In-Context

6 Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them like a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out with fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues range over the earth.
10 Therefore the people turn and praise them, and find no fault in them.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.