---
title: "Commentary on the Psalms, Volume 5"
author: "John Calvin"
translator: "James Anderson"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 79 of 159
url: https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-the-psalms-volume-5/79/
cite: "John Calvin, tr. James Anderson, Commentary on the Psalms, Volume 5, section 79. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-the-psalms-volume-5/79/"
---

# Commentary on the Psalms, Volume 5

*John Calvin, tr. James Anderson*

Calvin on the Psalms, volume 5 of 5.

## 79. Psalm 58

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-the-psalms-volume-5/79/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-the-psalms-volume-5/79/#p-N

[¶0] To the Chief Musician. Destroy not. Michtam of David

[¶1] 1 Do ye indeed, O ye congregation! speak righteousness? Uprightly do ye judge? O ye sons of men!

[¶2] 2 Yea rather in your heart wickedness ye plot, On the earth violence your hands weigh out.

[¶3] 3 Estranged are the ungodly from the womb, They have gone astray from their birth speaking falsehood.

[¶4] 4 They have poison like the poison of a serpent, [They are] like the deaf adder which stoppeth her ear;

[¶5] 5 Which listeneth not to the voice of the enchanter, — Of him who exerciseth enchantment skillfully.

[¶6] 6 O God! break their teeth in their mouth: The jawbones of the lions break, O Jehovah!

[¶7] 7 Let them melt away like water, let them be gone: Let them bend their bow, and let their arrows be as if broken.

[¶8] 8 Like a snail which melteth away let them vanish; Like the untimely birth of a woman which doth not see the sun.

[¶9] 9 Before your pots can feel the fire of the bramble, Like flesh yet raw as a whirlwind he shall carry him away.

[¶10] 10 Rejoice shall the righteous when he seeth the vengeance; His hands he shall wash in the blood of the ungodly.

[¶11] 11 And men shall say, “Truly there is fruit for the righteous, “Truly there is a God who judgeth in the earth.”