Psalm 10 — The God Who Sees in the Silences
“The LORD, why do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (English Standard Version). Psalm 10 opens with a question few dare to pray aloud. It is not unbelief; it is covenant faith speaking boldly to the God who sometimes seems to withdraw. In the ancient Hebrew tradition, Psalm 10 likely continues the acrostic begun in Psalm 9. The alphabet there is fractured—letters missing, lines out of order. That broken structure mirrors the psalm’s ache: the world is out of joint, and even the poem limps.
The Predator’s Creed Psalm 10 dissects the soul of oppression. The wicked person lives a practical atheism: “In all his thoughts there is no God.” He believes accountability will never arrive. He blesses what God condemns: in verse 3, the Hebrew hints that the one greedy for gain (betza—ill-gotten profit, the word used when Joseph’s brothers sold him) “blesses” but in the darker Job-like sense, effectively blasphemes. His mouth is full of curses; his eyes are on the helpless; his hands set snares; his arm exerts violence. The psalmist constructs an anatomy of evil—mouth, eyes, hands, arm—an embodied portrait of systemic harm.
Western readers may miss how historically grounded this is. “He lurks in ambush near the villages” evokes the unfortified hamlets and field paths between walled towns in Iron Age Judah, where bandits lay hidden in brush or terraces. Excavations across the Shephelah show watchtowers and roadside installations built precisely because the open country was perilous. The “poor” here are not merely low-income; they are those made vulnerable by predation, legal trickery, and the collapse of communal protections—what the Torah calls the orphan, widow, and sojourner.
The Turning Word Then, the hinge: “But you do see” (English Standard Version). The verb play in Hebrew is profound. The wicked says, “God will not call to account” (lo tidrosh). The psalmist answers, “You will seek out [darash] his wickedness till you find none.” The very verb denied to God becomes God’s action. “Lift up your hand,” the prayer continues—an ancient gesture of oath and battle. And “Break the arm of the wicked” is idiom for disabling power (compare Ezekiel 30:21). The anatomy of evil is answered by the anatomy of divine mercy: God’s eyes see, God’s ear hears, God’s hand acts, and the terrorizing “man of the earth” (enosh min ha’aretz—dust-bound, transient) is unseated by the King forever.
From Augustine to Calvin, readers have heard the voice of Christ and His church in this psalm. Augustine read the “poor” as Christ with His members, hunted yet entrusted to the Father. Calvin noted that delay is not neglect; divine patience is room for both repentance and the full exposure of evil. Paul reaches into this psalm too: “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness” (Romans 3:14, citing the Greek form of Psalm 10:7), gathering the charges that drive us all to grace. On the cross, Jesus entered the felt hiddenness of God (“Why have you forsaken me?”), and in the resurrection God broke the arm of the Accuser. The God who seemed far lifted His hand—and the nail marks became the world’s verdict of justice.
To Pray This Today - Name where God feels absent; then pray the hinge: “But you do see.” - Entrust the fatherless, the trafficked, the legally trapped, to the One who “inclines his ear” (v. 17). - Examine any “practical atheism” in your own habits—places where you live as if there is no final accounting.
Cross-references for meditation - Habakkuk 1:2–4; Exodus 3:7–8; Isaiah 11:4; Ezekiel 30:21; Romans 3:9–18; James 1:27; Revelation 6:10
A hymn for the way - “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” (William Cowper)
Prayer King forever, whose eyes see what the night tries to hide, lift Your hand today. Break the arm of all that harms; strengthen the heart You have heard; make the orphan safe and the oppressor small. Turn our mouths, eyes, and hands from complicity to compassion. In the pierced hand of Jesus, let justice and mercy meet. Amen.