You See the Trouble of the Afflicted (Psalm 10:12-18)

¹³ Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
¹³ Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?
¹⁴ But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
¹⁵ Break the arm of the wicked man;
call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
that would not otherwise be found out.

¹⁶ The Lord is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
¹⁷ You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
¹⁸ defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that mere earthly mortals
will never again strike terror.

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This section of the psalm is a prayer that God would rise up and care for the afflicted and helpless.  In this case, the psalmist prays for the Lord to act on behalf of those who are victims of the wicked.  He expresses confidence that God will not forgot the helpless.  Instead, God sees their troubles.  He hears their desires, listens to their cry, and defends them from those who strike terror.

As I have pointed out before in these Abide devotions on the psalms, for the New Testament Christian, the wicked enemy is not other people.  Christ calls us to love our earthly enemies, to forgive those who do us wrong, and to pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43-48).  So, for us, this is not a psalm calling on God to act against the people we don’t like.

Our enemies are spiritual (Ephesians 6:10-20).  The chief enemy of course is Satan.  But the enemies that afflict the helpless are all those manifestations of the fallen broken world.  As our world reels from a pandemic, the enemies include fear, greed, despair, anger, selfishness, lovelessness and all the other afflictions of our souls.  The virus itself, and its devastating impact on so many lives and communities, is also an enemy, as it rages against the helpless.

So, for me, this is a prayer for all those who are afflicted during this time.  We pray that the Lord “break the arm of the wicked man.”  In other words, we pray that in our lives the Lord would overcome all that is afflicted in us and others.  We pray for an end to this disease and all the suffering that it has caused.  We pray for the victims themselves, those who are ill, those who have lost loved ones, and those who struggle daily with fear and anxiety.

May God indeed hear the cries of the afflicted and defend them.

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