For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.

For Jehovah is righteous; he loveth righteousness: The upright shall behold his face.

For the Lord is just, and hath loved justice: his countenance hath beheld righteousness.

For righteous is Jehovah, Righteousness He hath loved, The upright doth His countenance see!'

For the righteous LORD loves righteousness; his countenance does behold the upright.

For the Lord is upright; he is a lover of righteousness: the upright will see his face.

For the righteous Jehovah loveth righteousness. The Psalmist has just now reasoned from the office of God that he will punish the wicked, and now, from the nature of God, he concludes, that he will be the defender of the good and the upright. As he is righteous, David shows that, as the consequence of this, he must love righteousness, for otherwise he would deny himself. Besides, it would be a cold speculation to conceive of righteousness as inherent in God, unless, at the same time, we could come to the settled conclusion that God graciously owns whatever is his own, and furnishes evidence of this in the government of the world. Some think that the abstract term righteousness is put for righteous persons. But, in my opinion, the literal sense is here more suitable, namely, that righteousness is well pleasing to God, and that, therefore, he favors good causes. From this the Psalmist concludes, that the upright are the objects of his regard: His countenance approveth the upright He had said a little before in a different sense, that God beholds the children of men, meaning that he will judge the life of every man; but here he means that God graciously exercises a special care over the upright and the sincere, takes them under his protection, and keeps them in perfect safety. This conclusion of the psalm sufficiently shows, that the scope of the whole of it was to make it manifest that all those who, depending upon the grace of God, sincerely follow after righteousness, shall be safe under his protection. The Psalmist himself was one of this number and, indeed, the very chief of them. This last clause, His countenance approveth the upright, is, indeed, variously explained; but the true meaning, I have no doubt, is, that God has always a regard for the upright, and never turns away his eyes from them. It is a strained interpretation to view the words as meaning that the upright shall behold the face of God. But I will not stop to refute the opinions of other men.

For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness - This would be more correctly rendered, "For Jehovah is righteous; he loves righteousness." The idea is, that God is himself righteous, and, consequently, he loves those who are righteous. He may be confided in, therefore, by the righteous as their friend, and being under his protection they have nothing to fear.
His countenance doth behold the upright - The word rendered "countenance" is, in the Hebrew, in the plural number; literally," his faces." It is not easy to account for this use of the plural, though it is common in the Scriptures. There may be an allusion to the fact that man seems to have two faces - one on the right side, and one on the left, two eyes, two cheeks, two nostrils, etc., as if made up of two persons. Applied to God, it has no other signification than it has when applied to man; nor should we seek to find anything mystical in the fact that the plural form is used. The term here, like the eyelids in Psalm 11:6, is equivalent to eyes, since the most remarkable feature of the countenance is the eyes; and the idea is, that God looks upon the upright; that is, he sees their dangers amid their wants; he looks upon them with favor and affection. Being thus constantly under his eye, and being objects of his favorable regard, they can have nothing to fear; or, in other words, they are safe. This, then, is the argument of the righteous man, in reply to the suggestion Psalm 11:1 that he should "flee" from danger. The argument is, that God would be his defender, and that he might safely rely on His protection. The wicked have everything to fear; the righteous, nothing. The one is never safe; the other, always. The one will be delivered out of all his troubles; the end of the other can be only ruin.

The righteous Lord loveth righteousness - He loves that which resembles himself. His countenance - his face - is ever open and unclouded to the upright. They always enjoy his salvation, and know that he is pleased with them.
The preceding verse my old MS. translates and paraphrases thus: -
He sal rayne on synful, snares, fyre, brimstane, and gost of stormis.
Par - He Sal rayne on synful in this werld, snares, that es wiked Lare: fyre is covatyse: brunstane, that es stynk of il werkes: and post of stormis, that es a stormy though that es withoutyn rest in Ihesu Crist, and ay es traveld with the wynd of the devel. Or the past of stormys, es the last depertyng of synful fra ryghtwis men, and there fyre, brunston, storm, er part of the chalyie of thaim: that es, thai ar thair part in pyne. He cals thair pyne a "Cop", for ilk dampned man sal drynk of the sorow of Hel, eftir the mesure of hys Syn. Behald the pynes of wikid men: fyrst, God raynes upon thaim snares, that es qwen he suffers fals prophetes that comes in clathing of mekenes; and withinnen er wers than wolves, to desayf thaim thurgh errour. Sythen the fyre of lychery, and covatys wastes al the gude that thai haf done: eftirward for stynk of il werkes that er castyn fra Crist, and al his Halows, and then er in sentence of dome; as in a grete storme, dryven in til a pitte of Hel, to bryn in fyre withoutyn ende. This es the entent of this wers.
For ryghtwis es Lord; and he lufes ryghtwisnes; evennes saw the face of hym - Yf ge ask qwy oure lorde yelded pyne to synful? lo here an answere; for he es rightwis. Als so if ge wil witt qwy he gifes ioy til gude men? Lo here an answere; for he lufed ryghtwisnes: that es, ryghtwis men, in the qwilk er many ryghtwisneses: thof ane be the ryghtwisnes of God, in the qwilk al ryghtwise men or parcenel. Evenes saw his face: that es, evenes es sene in his knawyng inence, both the partys of gud and il. This es ogayne wryches at sais, If God saf me noght, I dar say he es unryghtwis: bot thof thai say it now, qwen he suffris wryched men errour in thought, and worde and dede; thai sal noght be so hardy to speke a worde qwen he comes to dampne thaire errour. Bot who so lufes here and haldes that na unevenes may be in hym, qwam so he dampnes, or qwam so he saves, he sal have thaire myght to stand and to speke gude space. Now er swilk in a wonderful wodenes, that wenes for grete wordes to get ought of God.
The former part of this Psalm, Flee as a bird, etc., this ancient author considers as the voice of heresy inviting the true Church to go away into error; and intimates that those who were separating from haly kyrk were very pure, and unblameable in all their conduct; and that mountain or hill, as he translates it, signifies eminent virtues, of which they had an apparently good stock. So it appears that those called heretics lived then a holier life than those called halows or saints.

For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness,.... The Lord is righteous in himself, and in all his ways and works; and therefore righteousness, as it lies both in punishing the wicked, and in maintaining the righteous cause of his people, must be loved by him, it being agreeable to his nature: he loves to exercise righteousness in the earth, to administer it to and among men; this he delights in. He is well pleased with the righteousness of his Son, it being satisfactory to his justice, and that by which his law is magnified and made honourable; and he is well pleased with his people, as they are clothed with it: and he approves of their righteous actions, as they are done in obedience to his righteous law, in faith, from a principle of love, and with a view to his glory; these are acceptable to him in Christ;
his countenance doth behold the upright; whom wicked men privily shoot at, Psalm 11:2; God looks with pleasure upon them, and takes delight in them, and takes care of them, protects and defends them, and at last saves them; and which, with all that goes before, was an encouragement to David to trust in the Lord; see Psalm 7:10; and moreover, the Lord lifts up the light of his countenance on such, and indulges them with his gracious presence, than which nothing is more comfortable and desirable. Some choose to render the word, "their countenance" (y), meaning the trinity of Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, who all have a gracious regard to such: others render the clause thus, "the upright shall see his face", the face of God; so the Chaldee paraphrase and the Arabic version; see Psalm 17:15.
(y) "facies eorum", Genebrardus, Vatablus, Gussetius; so R. Japhet in Aben Ezra, who compares it with Genesis xx. 13.

his countenance--literally, "their faces," a use of the plural applied to God, as in Genesis 1:26; Genesis 3:22; Genesis 11:7; Isaiah 6:8, &c., denoting the fulness of His perfections, or more probably originating in a reference to the trinity of persons. "Faces" is used as "eyes" (Psalm 11:4), expressing here God's complacency towards the upright (compare Psalm 34:15-16).

Psalm 11:7, which assumes a declaration of something that is near at hand, is opposed to our rendering the voluntative form of the fut., ימטר, as expressive of a wish. The shorter form of the future is frequently indicative in the sense of the future, e.g., Psalm 72:13, or of the present, e.g., Psalm 58:5, or of the past, Psalm 18:12. Thus it here affirms a fact of the future which follows as a necessity from Psalm 11:4, Psalm 11:5. Assuming that פּהים might be equivalent to פּחמים, even then the Hebrew פּחם, according to the general usage of the language, in distinction from גּחלת, does not denote burning, but black coals. It ought therefore to have been אשׁ פּחמי. Hitzig reads פּהים from פּיח ashes; but a rain of ashes is no medium of punishment. Bצttcher translates it "lumps" according to Exodus 39:3; Numbers 17:3; but in these passages the word means thin plates. We adhere to the signification snares, Job 22:10, cf. Job 21:17, Proverbs 27:5; and following the accentuation, we understand it to be a means of punishment by itself. First of all descends a whole discharge of missiles which render all attempt at flight impossible, viz., lightnings; for the lightning striking out its course and travelling from one point in the distance, bending itself like a serpent, may really be compared to a snare, or noose, thrown down from above. In addition to fire and brimstone (Genesis 19:24) we have also רוּח זלעפות. The lxx renders it πνεῦμα καταιγίδος, and the Targum זעפא עלעוּלא, procella turbinea. The root is not לעף, which cannot be sustained as a cognate form of להב, לאב to burn, but זעף, which (as 1-Samuel 5:10 shows) exactly corresponds to the Latin aestuare which combines in itself the characteristics of heat and violent motion, therefore perhaps: a wind of flames, i.e., the deadly simoom, which, according to the present division of the verse is represented in connection with אשׁ וגפרית, as the breath of the divine wrath pouring itself forth like a stream of brimstone, Isaiah 30:33. It thus also becomes clear how this can be called the portion of their cup, i.e., what is adjudged to them as the contents of their cup which they must drain off. מנת (only found in the Davidic Psalm, with the exception of 2-Chronicles 31:4) is both absolutivus and constructivus according to Olshausen (108, c, 165, i), and is derived from manajath, or manawath, which the original feminine termination ath, the final weak radical being blended with it. According to Hupfeld it is constr., springing from מנית, like קצת (in Daniel. and Nehemiah.) form קצות. But probably it is best to regard it as = מנות or מנית, like גּלות = גּלות.
Thus then Jahve is in covenant with David. Even though he cannot defend himself against his enemies, still, when Jahve gives free course to His hatred in judgment, they will then have to do with the powers of wrath and death, which they will not be able to escape. When the closing distich bases this different relation of God towards the righteous and the unrighteous and this judgment of the latter on the righteousness of God, we at once perceive what a totally different and blessed end awaits the righteous. As Jahve Himself is righteous, so also on His part (1-Samuel 12:7; Micah 6:5, and frequently) and on the part of man (Isaiah 33:15) He loves צדקות, the works of righteousness. The object of אהב (= אהב) stands at the head of the sentence, as in Psalm 99:4, cf. Psalm 10:14. In Psalm 11:7 ישׂר designates the upright as a class, hence it is the more natural for the predicate to follow in the plur. (cf. Psalm 9:7; Job 8:19) than to precede as elsewhere (Proverbs 28:1; Isaiah 16:4). The rendering: "His countenance looks upon the upright man" (Hengst. and others) is not a probable one, just because one expects to find something respecting the end of the upright in contrast to that of the ungodly. This rendering is also contrary to the general usage of the language, according to which פנים is always used only as that which is to be seen, not as that which itself sees. It ought to have been עינימו, Psalm 33:18; Psalm 34:16; Job 36:7. It must therefore be translated according to Psalm 17:15; Psalm 140:13 : the upright (quisquis probus est) shall behold His countenance. The pathetic form פנימו instead of פּניו was specially admissible here, where God is spoken of (as in Deuteronomy 33:2, cf. Isaiah 44:15). It ought not to be denied any longer that mo is sometimes (e.g., Job 20:23, cf. Job 22:2; Job 27:23) a dignified singular suffix. To behold the face of God is in itself impossible to mortals without dying. But when God reveals Himself in love, then He makes His countenance bearable to the creature. And to enjoy this vision of God softened by love is the highest honour God in His mercy can confer on a man; it is the blessedness itself that is reserved for the upright, 140:14. It is not possible to say that what is intended is a future vision of God; but it is just as little possible to say that it is exclusively a vision in this world. To the Old Testament conception the future עולם is certainly lost in the night of Shel. But faith broke through this night, and consoled itself with a future beholding of God, Job 19:26. The redemption of the New Testament has realised this aspiration of faith, since the Redeemer has broken through the night of the realm of the dead, has borne on high with Him the Old Testament saints, and translated them into the sphere of the divine love revealed in heaven.