Psalm 73:14-18
‘I saw the prosperity of the wicked…. There are no bands in their death…. I have been plagued all day long, and chastened every morning…. It was too painful for me — until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their end! Surely, You set them on slippery places! You cast them down into destruction! How they are brought into desolation, in a moment! They are utterly consumed!’
Psalm 73:3-19.
Calvin commented: “He (David) saw the present prosperous state of the wicked…. Some explain ‘bands to death’ as meaning…that the wicked die suddenly…. Diseases…are so many messengers of death, warning us of the frailty and short duration of our life….
“He tells us that he was ‘scourged daily’…. As often as the sun rose, some affliction or other was prepared for him…. It is assuredly nothing less than a divine miracle that the Church which is so furiously assaulted by Satan and innumerable hosts of enemies, continues safe.”
‘It was too painful for me — until I went into the sanctuary of God! Then, I understood their end!’ “I came to acknowledge in good earnest, that men are not created to flourish for a short time in this world…, but that their condition here is that of pilgrims whose aspirations during their earthly pilgrimage should be towards Heaven…. David very properly puts ‘entering into the sanctuaries’ for ‘coming to the school of God’…. His meaning, were this: ‘Until God become my Schoolmaster, and until I learn by His Word!’….
“By the ‘end’ of the wicked, is not meant their exit from the world or their departure from the present life…. But the world ‘end’ is to be regarded as referring to the judgments of God…. The ungodly…suddenly decay…. All the wicked shall perish miserably…. The end or the last day has not yet arrived!….
“The ungodly continue to stand for a brief season. Yet they are as it were perched on slippery places — so that they may fall, ere long, into destruction!…
“How they have been destroyed, as it were in a moment!’… Their destruction, being sudden and unlooked for, tends the more effectually to awaken us…. It is said, ‘They are consumed’…. God thunders upon them…. He…brings them to nothing, solely by the terror of His Breath…. He inflicts upon the ungodly, judgments of a very severe kind and pursues them with unusual tokens of His wrath — as if He would make the Earth to tremble, in order thereby to correct our dullness of apprehension!”
Calvin also added in his Institutes II:10:16: “Nor can those things…said as to the prosperous success of believers, be understood in any other sense than as referring to the manifestation of celestial glory…. The Psalmist (73:2-17) says…’As for me, my feet were almost gone!’… At length…he concludes…: ‘Until I went into the sanctuary of God! Then I understood their end!'” For I have been plagued; but the wicked shall be destroyed!
