the Lord (used as a proper name of God only) · proper noun, a title
laugh
יִשְׂחַקyis.chak-
H7832
to laugh (in pleasure or detraction) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
seeth
רָ֝אָ֗הra.'Ah
H7200
to see · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
day
יוֹמֽוֹyo.Mo
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
coming
יָבֹ֥אya.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Proverbs 1:26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
1 Samuel 26:10 David said furthermore, As the LORD liveth, the LORD shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall descend into battle, and per…
Daniel 5:26 This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
Ezekiel 21:25 And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end,
Ezekiel 21:29 Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, wh…
Job 18:20 They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted.
Jeremiah 50:27 Slay all her bullocks; let them go down to the slaughter: woe unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 37:7-20
In these verses we have,
I. The foregoing precepts inculcated; for we are so apt to disquiet ourselves with needless fruitless discontents and distrusts that it is necessary there should be precept upon precept, and line upon line, to suppress them and arm us against them. 1. Let us compose ourselves by believing in God: "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him (Psa 37:7), that is, be well reconciled to all he does and acquiesce in it, for that is best that is, because it is what God has appointed; and be well satisfied that he will still make all to work for good to us, though we know not how or which way." Be silent to the Lord (so the word is), not with a sullen, but a submissive sil…
(Compare Psa 2:4).
seeth--knows certainly.
his day--of punishment, long delayed, shall yet come (Heb 10:37).
John Gill on Psalms 37:13
The Lord shall laugh at him,.... Have him and his plots in derision, confound his schemes, and disappoint him of his designs, bring him into calamity, and laugh at it; see Psalm 2:4;
for he seeth that his day is coming; either the day of the Lord, which he has appointed to judge the world in, and which comes suddenly, at unawares, as a thief in the night, and is known unto the Lord, though to none else; or the day of the wicked man's ruin and destruction, to which he is appointed, and which is the same; and so the Targum is, "the day of his calamity": which the Lord observes is hastening on, when he will be for ever miserable.
John Calvin on Psalms 37:12-15
Psalm 37:12-15
12. The wicked plotteth against the righteous, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. 13. But the Lord [27] shall laugh at him; for he seeth that his day is coming. 14. The wicked draw their sword, and bend their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay those that are of upright ways. 15. But their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken.
12. The wicked plotteth against the righteous. David here anticipates an objection which might have been taken to the preceding verse. Where, it might be said, can tranquillity and joy be found when the wicked are mad with rage, and plot every kind of mischief against the children of God? And how shall…
The Church Fathers
Then follow these words: "The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth" (ver. 12): "But the Lord shall laugh at him" (ver. 13). At whom? Surely at the sinner, "gnashing upon" the other "with his teeth." But wherefore shall the Lord "laugh at him"? "For He foreseeth that his day is coming." He seems indeed full of wrath, while, ignorant of the morrow that is in store for him, he is threatening the just. But the Lord beholds and "foresees his day." "What day?" That in which "He will render to every man according to his works." For he is "treasuring up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of God." But it is the Lord that foresees it; thou dost not foresee it. It hath been revealed to thee by Him who foresees it. Thou didst not know of the "day of the unrighteous," in which he is to suffer punishment. But He who knows it hath revealed it to thee. It is a main part of knowledge to join thyself to Him who hath knowledge. He hath the eyes of knowledge: have thou the eyes of a believing mind. That which God "sees," be thou willing to believe. For the day of the unjust, which God foresees, will come. What day is that? The day for all vengeance! For it is necessary that vengeance should be taken upon the ungodly, that vengeance be taken upon the unjust, whether he turn, or whether he turn not. For if he shall turn from his ways, that very thing, that his "injustice is come to an end," is the infliction of vengeance....
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Afflictions Of The Wicked, The · God holds in derision — God holds in derision
Anthropomorphisms · .Laughing — .Laughing
Laughter · Attributed to God — Attributed to God
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The verb זמם is construed with ל of that which is the object at which the evil devices aim. To gnash the teeth (elsewhere also: with the teeth) is, as in Psa 35:16, cf. Job 16:9, a gesture of anger, not of mockery, although anger and mockery are usually found together. But the Lord, who regards an assault upon the righteous as an assault upon Himself, laughs (Psa 2:4) at the enraged schemer; for He, who orders the destinies of men, sees beforehand, with His omniscient insight into the future, his day, i.e., the day of his death (Sa1 26:10), of his visitation (Psa 137:7, Oba 1:12, Jer 50:27, Jer 50:31).
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Psalms 37:12-17
The wicked seek to destroy the Lord’s order, but he defeats them.
37:12-13 The wicked snarl to express their bitter envy. They plot to bring an end to the godly, but the Lord derides them because they cannot succeed (2:4).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 37:13
The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.
The Lord shall laugh at him. The godly man needs not trouble himself, but leave well deserved vengeance to be dealt out by the Lord, who will utterly deride the malice of the good man's enemies. Let the proud scorner gnash his teeth and foam at the mouth; he has one to deal with who will look down upon him and his ravings with serene contempt. For he seeth that his day is coming. The evil man does not see how close his destruction is upon his heels; he boasts of crushing others when the foot of justice is already uplifted to trample him as the mire of the streets. Sinners, in the hand of an angry God, and yet plotting against…
