9 You will make them as a fiery furnace in the time of your anger. Yahweh will swallow them up in his wrath. The fire shall devour them.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thou shalt put them as it were into a furnace of fire. [1] The Psalmist here describes a dreadful kind of vengeance, from which we gather, that he does not speak of every kind of enemies in general, but of the malicious and frantic despisers of God, who, after the manner of the giants [2] of old, rise up against his only begotten Son. The very severity of the punishment shows the greatness of the wickedness. Some think that David alludes to the kind of punishment which he inflicted upon the Ammonites, of which we have an account in the sacred history; but it is more probable that he here sets forth metaphorically the dreadful destruction which awaits all the adversaries of Christ. They may burn with rage against the Church, and set the world on fire by their cruelty, but when their wickedness shall have reached its highest pitch, there is this reward which God has in reserve for them, that he will cast them into his burning furnace to consume them. In the first clause, the king is called an avenger; in the second, this office is transferred to God; and in the third, the execution of the vengeance is attributed to fire; which three things very well agree. We know that judgment has been committed to Christ, that he may cast his enemies headlong into everlasting fire; but, it was of importance distinctly to express that this is not the judgment of man but of God. Nor was it less important to set forth how extreme and dreadful a kind of vengeance this is, in order to arouse from their torpor those who, unapprehensive of danger, boldly despise all the threatenings of God. Besides, this serves not a little for the consolation of the righteous. We know how dreadful the cruelty of the ungodly is, and that our faith would soon sink under it, if it did not rise to the contemplation of the judgment of God. The expression, In the time of thy wrath, admonishes us that we ought patiently to bear the cross as long as it shall please the Lord to exercise and humble us under it. If, therefore, he does not immediately put forth his power to destroy the ungodly, let us learn to extend our hope to the time which our heavenly Father has appointed in his eternal purpose for the execution of his judgment, and when our King, armed with his terrible power, will come forth to execute vengeance. While he now seems to take no notice, this does not imply that he has forgotten either himself or us. On the contrary, he laughs at the madness of those who go on in the commission of every kind of sin without any fear of danger, and become more presumptuous day after day. This laughter of God, it is true, brings little comfort to us; but we must, nevertheless, complete the time of our condition of warfare till "the day of the Lord's vengeance" come, which, as Isaiah declares, (Isaiah 34:8) shall also be "the year of our redemption." It does not seem to me to be out of place to suppose, that in the last clause, there is denounced against the enemies of Christ a destruction like that which God in old time sent upon Sodom and Gomorrah. That punishment was a striking and memorable example above all others of the judgment of God against all the wicked, or rather it was, as it were, a visible image upon earth of the eternal fire of hell which is prepared for the reprobate: and hence this similitude is frequently to be met with in the sacred writings.
1 - French and Skinner's translation of these words is the same, and so also is that of Rogers. This last author observes, "The common interpretation, Thou shalt make them like a fiery oven, etc., is not very intelligible. I consider ktvr as put by ellipsis for kvtnvr Thou shalt place them as it were [in] a furnace of fire." -- (Rogers' Book of Psalms, in Hebrew, metrically arranged, vol. 2, p. 178.) Poole takes the same view. Calvin, however, in his French version, gives a translation much the same as that of our English version: "Tu les rendras comme une fournaise de feu en temps de ta cholere." "Thou shalt make them like a furnace of fire, in the time of thy anger." This is exactly the rendering of Horsley, in which he is followed by Walford. "It describes," says the learned prelate, "the smoke of the Messiah's enemies perishing by fire, ascending like the smoke of a furnace. The smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever and ever.'" "How awfully grand," says Bishop Mant, "is that description of the ruins of the cities of the plain, as the prospect struck on Abraham's eye on the fatal morning of their destruction:'And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo! the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.'"
2 - The allusion is to the fabulous giants of heathen mythology, who waged war against heaven.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger - Thou shalt consume or destroy them, "as if" they "were" burned in a heated oven. Or, they shall burn, as if they were a flaming oven; that is, they would be wholly consumed. The word rendered "oven" - תנור tannûr - means either an "oven" or a "furnace." It is rendered "furnace and furnaces" in Genesis 15:17; Nehemiah 3:11; Nehemiah 12:38; Isaiah 31:9; and, as here, "oven" or "ovens," in Exodus 8:3; Leviticus 2:4; Leviticus 7:9; Leviticus 11:35; Leviticus 26:26; Lamentations 5:10; Hosea 7:4, Hosea 7:6-7; Malachi 4:1. It does not occur elsewhere. The oven among the Hebrews was in the form of a large "pot," and was heated from within by placing the wood inside of it. Of course, while being heated, it had the appearance of a furnace. The meaning here is that the wicked would be consumed or destroyed "as if" they were such a burning oven; as if they were set on fire, and burned up.
The Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath - The same idea of the utter destruction of the wicked is here presented under another form - that they would be destroyed as if the earth should open and swallow them up. Perhaps the allusion in the language is to the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Numbers 16:32; compare Psalm 106:17.
And the fire shall devour them - The same idea under another form. The wrath of God would utterly destroy them. That wrath is often represented under the image of "fire." See Deuteronomy 4:24; Deuteronomy 32:22; Psalm 18:8; Matthew 13:42; Matthew 18:8; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:44; 2-Thessalonians 1:8. Fire is the emblem by which the future punishment of the wicked is most frequently denoted.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven - By thy wrath they shall be burnt up, and they shall be the means of consuming others. One class of sinners shall, in God's judgments, be the means of destroying another class; and at last themselves shall be destroyed.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his (f) wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
(f) This teaches us patiently to endure the cross till God destroys the adversary.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven,.... Some think the allusion is to David's causing the Ammonites to pass through the brick kiln, 2-Samuel 12:31; others to the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah: it represents what a severe punishment shall be inflicted on the enemies of Christ; they shall be cast into a fiery oven, or furnace of fire, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were by the order of Nebuchadnezzar; so some render the words, "thou shalt put them into a fiery oven", "as", being put for "into" (c): wicked men are as dry trees, as stubble, as thorns or briers, and are fit fuel for a fiery oven or furnace; by which is meant the wrath and fury of God, which is poured forth as fire; and this has had its fulfilment in part in the Jews at Jerusalem's destruction; when that day of the Lord burned like an oven, and the proud and haughty Jews, and who dealt wickedly by Christ, were burned up in it, Malachi 4:1; and will have an additional accomplishment when the whore of Babylon shall be burnt with fire, and when the beast and false prophet shall be cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone; and still more fully at the general conflagration, when will be the perdition of ungodly men, and the earth and all that is therein shall be burnt up; and especially when all wicked men and devils shall be cast into the lake and furnace of fire, where will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth; see Revelation 17:16. This will be
in the time of thine anger, or "of thy countenance" (d); not his gracious, but his angry countenance; when he shall put on a fierce look, and appear as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and stir up all his wrath;
the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath; not that they shall be annihilated; their souls remain after death, and their bodies after the resurrection; and will be tormented with the fire of God's wrath for ever and ever; the phrase is expressive of utter ruin, of the destruction of soul and body in hell; see Psalm 35:25; Jarchi takes it to be a prayer, "may the Lord swallow them up", &c.
and the fire shall devour them; that is, as the Targum paraphrases it, the fire of hell; or, however, it designs the wrath of God, who is a consuming fire; or that fiery indignation of his, which shall devour the adversaries; which comes down upon them either in temporal judgments here, or in their everlasting destruction hereafter.
(c) Vide Aben Ezram in loc. (d) "vultus tui", V. L. so Sept. Aethiop. Gejerus, Muis, Ainsworth; "faciei iratae tuae", Junius & Tremellius; so Michaelis.
The king is only God's agent.
anger--literally, "face," as appearing against them.
as a fiery oven--as in it.
(Hebrews.: 21:10-11) Hitherto the Psalm has moved uniformly in synonymous dipodia, now it becomes agitated; and one feels from its excitement that the foes of the king are also the people's foes. True as it is, as Hupfeld takes it, that לעת פּניך sounds like a direct address to Jahve, Psalm 21:10 nevertheless as truly teaches us quite another rendering. The destructive effect, which in other passages is said to proceed from the face of Jahve, Psalm 34:17; Leviticus 20:6; Lamentations 4:16 (cf. ἔχει θεὸς ἔκδικον ὄμμα), is here ascribed to the face, i.e., the personal appearing (2-Samuel 17:11) of the king. David's arrival did actually decide the fall of Rabbath Ammon, of whose inhabitants some died under instruments of torture and others were cast into brick-kilns, 2-Samuel 12:26. The prospect here moulds itself according to this fate of the Ammonites. כּתנּוּר אשׁ is a second accusative to תּשׁיתנו, thou wilt make them like a furnace of fire, i.e., a burning furnace, so that like its contents they shall entirely consume by fire (synecdoche continentis pro contento). The figure is only hinted at, and is differently applied to what it is in Lamentations 5:10, Malachi 4:1. Psalm 21:10 and Psalm 21:10 are intentionally two long rising and falling wave-like lines, to which succeed, in Psalm 21:11, two short lines; the latter describe the peaceful gleaning after the fiery judgment of God that has been executed by the hand of David. פּרימו, as in Lamentations 2:20; Hosea 9:16, is to be understood after the analogy of the expression פּרי הבּטן. It is the fate of the Amalekites (cf. Psalm 9:6.), which is here predicted of the enemies of the king.
Oven - Like wood, which when it is cast in there, is quickly consumed.
*More commentary available at chapter level.