Psalm 9:6 - Printer Friendly

ESV: The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins; their cities you rooted out; the very memory of them has perished.

NIV: Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies, you have uprooted their cities; even the memory of them has perished.

NASB: The enemy has come to an end in everlasting ruins, And You have uprooted the cities; The very memory of them has perished.

CSB: The enemy has come to eternal ruin; you have uprooted the cities, and the very memory of them has perished.

NLT: The enemy is finished, in endless ruins; the cities you uprooted are now forgotten.

KJV: O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.

NKJV: O enemy, destructions are finished forever! And you have destroyed cities; Even their memory has perished.

The armies that attacked David and Israel gained nothing but lost everything. In His righteous judgment the Lord Most High brought them "to an end in everlasting ruins." The Lord also uprooted the enemies' cities and blotted out the memory of them forever (Psalm 9:3–5).

Although David is celebrating judgments in his past, these words preview a future judgment as well. Just as God overthrew the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving them in ashes and smoke (Genesis 19:23–28), even so He will overthrow the cities of the nations that oppose Him and His people at the end of tribulation period. This is part of the end times. Revelation 16:19 reports: "The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath." Someday, cities that reveled in sin and opposed God will fade from memory.

Psalm 9:1–8 opens the song as David ascribes praise to God. He celebrates the Lord for saving him and his army from the nations that attacked him and his people. He recalls the triumph the Lord accomplished over the enemy. The victory evidenced the Lord's righteous judgment and sovereignty. The nations perished but the Lord's name lives forever.

David praises God in a song which follows an acrostic pattern: the psalm is divided into phrases which begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The pattern continues through Psalm 10, leading some to suggest they were intended as a single work, or as closely related halves. In this psalm, David promises to praise God for His great deeds, including awesome victory over evil. The Lord's eternal justice is also praised, as David asks for further rescue from those who seek to kill him. The passage ends with a prayer for God to remind mankind of His authority.

This is a thanksgiving song, where David shows appreciation for the Lord's rescue. This shares similar themes to Psalm 10, though from a very different tone. Some scholars think Psalms 9 and 10 were originally a single work. This is part of the first section of the book of Psalms, including Psalms 1 through 41.

The book of Psalms is composed of individual songs, hymns, or poems, each of which is a ''Psalm'' in and of itself. These works contain a wide variety of themes. Some Psalms focus on praising and worshipping God. Others cry out in anguish over the pain of life. Still other Psalms look forward to the coming of the Messiah. While some Psalms are related, each has its own historical and biblical context.

Accessed 5/4/2024 9:49:52 AM