“Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.”
This verse continues the psalmist's invocation of judgment, describing the enemies' perpetual hunger and wandering as both punishment for their wickedness and a sign of divine dissatisfaction with their fundamental nature and intentions. The metaphor of howling creatures forced to sleep unsatisfied establishes the degradation accompanying divine judgment, where the powerful become like beasts, stripped of human dignity and reduced to base animal drives. The image of nocturnal wandering in search of food conveys both desperation and futility, suggesting that the enemies' schemes, pursued relentlessly, will never achieve satisfaction or success. This portrayal of judgment emphasizes not momentary punishment but the chronic condition of those who persist in opposition to God, establishing that rebellion breeds its own punishment through alienation from the source of all sustenance and satisfaction.
Church Fathers on Psalms 59:15
The First Part. 1. As the Scripture is wont to set mysteries of the Psalms on the titles, and to deck the brow of a Psalm with the high announcement of a Mystery, in order that we that are about to go in may know (when as it were upon the door-post we have read what within is doing) either of whom the house is, or who is the owner of that estate: so also in this Psalm there has been written a title, of a title. For it has, “At the end, corrupt not for David himself unto the…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a reflection on this verse
No reflections on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!