Psalm 12

Man’s tongue vs. God’s (vs. 1-8)—David is writing an editorial for the year 2010: “Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases! For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men” (v. 1). That does indeed seem to be happening today, and it was David’s complaint about his own times as well. The tongue comes under special consideration in this psalm. The wicked “speak idly everyone with his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak” (v. 2). Empty words and hypocrisy are common verbal vices. David calls for the Lord to stop “flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things” (v. 3), and especially those who believe their words will elevate them above others (v. 4). This elevation involves power over the poor and needy, for whom the Lord will arise and protect (v. 5). In contrast to the deceitful words of man, “The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (v. 6). The number “seven” is not to be taken literally, but indicates a totality, a completeness, a thoroughness—God’s word is absolutely wholesome and uncontaminated. Does verse 7—“You shall keep them, O LORD, you shall preserve them from this generation forever”—refer to His words or His people? Given verse 6, I lean toward the former view, but given verse 8, the latter seems indicated. Either idea is true. And the baseness of the wicked ends the psalm: “The wicked prowl on every side, when vileness is exalted among the sons of men” (v. 8). Note that men will “exalt” that which is vile. The prominent place that sin occupies in our society today—and in David’s—is wholly the result of men rejecting the pure words of the Lord.