As noted before, this continues the acrostic order of the previous psalm. However, in a sort of parallel, while the previous addressed external enemies, this one mourns over internal enemies.
It is unlikely David failed to understand, at least in his better moments, how God operated as the Ultimate Sovereign of human affairs. Some things will always remain outside our limited grasp. People will always have a measure of freedom to choose moral justice or pursue any number of other interests. We understand from His Word as a characterization of trends that His wrath falls on sin, but not always according to our personal sense of justice. Thus, David’s question is largely rhetorical. A more literal statement is that we long for His hand to execute justice that is beyond our grasp.
The psalm is a long recitation characterizing the sort of predators we find in every society. No one really expects God to answer in any concrete way just why He tolerates such creatures. Whether they suffer for their sins is not always obvious to us, as they seem to snicker at the very thought. This is the nightmare of every shepherd soul, which we know precisely David was. It is the one truly most unpleasant part of justified human political power to have to control the evil that arises in one’s own home, as it were. We note in passing that David was notoriously indulgent of his own kin who were immoral in part because he knew his own weaknesses.
Still, he stands with the righteous even at the risk of his own dose of wrath. Even looking in the mirror, David shouts: “Don’t let him get away with it, Lord!” As the chief executor of justice in Israel, David needs help carrying out the task of making divine justice more obvious to the people he rules. Here, as with the previous chapter, David ends with a declaration that God is not one of us mere mortals, and that we often need reminding of our mortality.
