Psalm 52:8
‘Why, O man, do you boast yourself in mischief?… You love evil…. You love all devouring words…. God shall destroy you for ever!… He shall…root you out of the land of the living…. The righteous too shall see…. I am like a green olive-tree in the House of God. I trust in the mercy of God, for ever and ever! I will praise You for ever!’ Psalm 52:1-9.
Doeg had greatly wronged David. Calvin comments: “The treachery of Doeg must have tended considerably to stagger David’s faith…. ‘Your tongue reckons up mischiefs’…. David(‘s)…object in dwelling upon the aggravated guilt of Doeg, was to prove the certainty of his approaching doom…. ‘God shall…destroy you forever!’…
“God shall ‘destroy you’; ‘take you away’; ‘root you out'” — lay you prostrate; dissolve you by fire; sweep you away; and totally extirpate you, root and branch! “In adding…God would root him out of his ‘dwelling-place’ or ‘tent’ and ‘out of the land of the living’ — he insinuates…the wicked will be destroyed by God, however securely they…repose…in the vain hope of living on Earth for ever….
“‘The righteous too shall see’…. The ruin of Doeg might be expected…. It would promote religion in the hearts of the Lord’s people…. The wicked are incapable of profiting by the judgments of God, being blind…. It was therefore only the righteous who could see it…. They are led to reverence Him the more, when they see that He is the Avenger of cruelty and injustice….
“‘But I am like a green olive-tree!’…. David was enabled by the exercise of faith to look down upon…Doeg with a holy contempt…. Now we find him rising superior to all…. He compares himself, in the confidence of coming prosperity, to a green olive…. The destruction of Doeg could only communicate comfort to his mind…, convincing him that God was the avenging Judge of human cruelty…. He would advance him to renewed measures of prosperity!”
I am like a vigorous olive-tree! David “‘hoped in the goodness of God'” — for ever! “His confidence would extend itself far into futurity. He declares…that his hopes were stretched unto eternity!…. He surrenders himself entirely to God, in all that regarded this life — or his death. The passage puts…the grand distinction between the genuine children of God, and those who are hypocrites…. The one class abides for ever in the steadfastness of a well-founded hope — while the other is driven away in the vanity of its false confidences.”
Calvin also says in his Institutes III:20:26 & !!:10:17: “David was repeatedly delivered by the power of God…. ‘The righteous…shall see’…(Psalm 52:6)…. David calls upon God to give him what he asks…, so that the righteous may…be…encouraged to hope…. ‘I am like a green olive-tree in the House of God!’ (Psalm 52:8).”
Calvin further says in his Psychopannychia, of the ungodly: “‘The Lord will pluck…your root from the land of the living!’…(Psalm…52:7).” And of the godly: “‘I will confess to (or “praise”) You for ever!’…(Psalm…72:9).” Like a green olive-tree, I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever!
