Psalm 96:13 Before the LORD: for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness… Compare the idea of God's coming to judge with the basis idea of all this series of psalms, that God was beginning to reign, setting up again his kingdom among his restored people. Here the Judge is put poetically for the King, because deciding cases, magistracy, is the main feature of Eastern kingship. Absalom enticed the people from their allegiance to David by a half-veiled promise of considerateness, if not favouritism, in the king's work of judging. The first thing recorded of Solomon is an act of skilful judgment. The association of this passage with a "day of judgment" is purely a Christian association. God the Judge is simply God the active, present Ruler and King. But we may see the element of judging as punishing, in the verse, if we take the standpoint of the returned exiles; for any intervention of God for the salvation of his people necessarily involves some judgment on those from whom they are delivered; and so the redeeming King is found to be also a Judge. Just as the idea of God's "coming to judge" endangered the sense of his actual presence and actual working as Ruler and Judge, so the idea of Christ's second coming may be so entertained as to spoil the living sense of his actual presence and abiding relations with his people. The idea of a continual appraisement of human action, of a Divine judgment, with adequate rewards and punishments, as always going on, is coming more and more into Christian thought, and is replacing the older idea of the delegation of everything to a final assize day. Two things are indicated in this verse of the text, as characteristic of God's rule or judgment. I. IT IS ETERNALLY RIGHT. "With righteousness shall he judge." Find the absolute standard of right, and all God's kingly ways will be found in precise accordance with it. II. IT IS ADAPTED TO CIRCUMSTANCES. "With equity shall he judge." Equity is righteousness applied to the individual as placed in particular circumstances. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Before the LORD: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth. |
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