strength · noun, common masculine singular construct
vengeance
נְקָמ֥וֹתne.ka.Mot
H5360
avengement · noun, common feminine plural absolute
God
אֵ֖ל'el
H410
strength · noun, common masculine singular construct
vengeance
נְקָמ֣וֹתne.ka.Mot
H5360
avengement · noun, common feminine plural absolute
shew
הוֹפִֽיַעho.Fi.ya'
H3313
to shine · verb, hiphil imperative, 2nd 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
Isaiah 35:4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will…
Nahum 1:2 God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reservet…
Deuteronomy 32:35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that…
Hebrews 10:30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
Deuteronomy 32:41-42 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate…
Romans 12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
2 Thessalonians 1:8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Isaiah 59:17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 94:1-11
In these verses we have,
I. A solemn appeal to God against the cruel oppressors of his people, Psa 94:1, Psa 94:2. This speaks terror enough to them, that they have the prayers of God's people against them, who cry day and night to him to avenge them of their adversaries; and shall he not avenge them speedily? Luk 18:3, Luk 18:7. Observe here,
1. The titles they give to God for the encouraging of their faith in this appeal: O God! to whom vengeance belongeth; and thou Judge of the earth. We may with boldness appeal to him; for, (1.) He is judge, supreme judge, judge alone, from whom every man's judgment proceeds. He that gives law gives sentence upon every man according to his works, by the…
O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth,.... As it does to God, and to him only; not to Heathen deities, one of which has the name of Vengeance given it, Acts 28:4, nor to Satan, the enemy and avenger, and his spiteful principalities and powers; nor to men, who are not to exercise private revenge on their fellow creatures; only to civil magistrates, to whom public revenge belongs, they being God's viceregents, and representing him; otherwise to God only it belongs, against whom sin is committed; and he will, in his own time and way, execute it; he is "the God of revenges" (e), as the words may be rendered; and this is applicable to Christ, who is the true Jehovah, and God over all: it was he…
Psalm 94:1-6
1. O Jehovah! God of vengeances; God of vengeances, [12] shine forth. [13] 2. Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth! render a reward to the proud. 3. O Jehovah! how long shall the wicked -- how long shall the wicked triumph? 4. They pour forth, they speak hard things, all the workers of iniquity lift up themselves. 5. They break in pieces thy people, O Jehovah! and afflict thy inheritance. 6. They slay the widow, and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
1 O Jehovah! God of vengeances We know that the Jews were surrounded by many neighbors who were not well affected towards them, and were thus incessantly subject to the assaults and oppression of bitter enemies. As this…
The Church Fathers
Deus ultionum Dominus, Deus ultionum libere egit — "The God of vengeance is the Lord; the God of vengeance has acted freely." Whether you say the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, according to the principle of the Trinity which we set forth in the Gospel, he is both God and Lord. "The God of vengeance has acted freely": he who was despised in his lowliness will afterward take vengeance in his majesty.
We are always discussing the title, so that from the title the psalm too may be understood. "A psalm of David, on the fourth day of the week." The fourth day of the week is in the middle of the week, as if in the heart of the week — that is, in the middle of the seven days. For it is the fourth day, and the fourth day has an equal number of days on either side. For on one side it has the first, second, and third day; and on the other side it has the fifth, sixth, and seventh day. You see, therefore, that the fourth day — that is, the fourth day of the week — is made firm on either side by a double trinity. And at the same time it must be considered that the fourth number, in its power, is the tenth. How so? For if you count and make an ordered sum — one, two, three, four — the number ten is produced. You see, therefore, that the fourth number produces the tenth. And consider from this that the four Gospels are reckoned within the Decalogue, so that whatever was said in the Decalogue is fulfilled in the four Gospels, so that the old Law is not at variance with the dignity of the Gospel. So much, for the moment, we have said about the title; now let us come to the psalm.
"The Lord is the God of vengeances; the God of vengeances has acted freely." He who for so long lay hidden and did not appear among the people, afterward acted freely. He who before was unknown, afterward triumphed on the cross. "The Lord is the God of vengeances." If the Lord is the God of vengeances ("Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord"), why do you, O man, desire to avenge yourself? You have the Lord as your avenger. The Apostle says this too: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink: for in doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head." This does not seem to belong to kindness, but to cruelty. For if I do him good so that God may do him evil, this does not come from kindness, but from a cruelty of mind. For what does the Apostle say? "If your enemy is hungry, feed him." A dutiful utterance. "If he thirsts, give him drink." Up to this point it seems to be mercy. But what he adds — "for in doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head" — does not seem to belong to mercy, but to cruelty. For you seem to give bread and to give water to drink for this reason: that he may be tormented for ages. And does the Apostle say this — does the preacher of mercy teach cruelty? It must therefore not be taken so, but in another sense. If your enemy strikes you, offer him the other cheek as well; if he does you evil, do him good: for if you do this, you will heap coals of fire upon his head. What he says is this: you will cleanse him from sin; for his cruelty will be overcome by your patience. If you aim an arrow at a stone, and the stone is hard, not only is it not driven in, but it rebounds: so your enemy, if he has struck you and has not been struck back, overcome by your patience will return to better things.
Dictionary and topics
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Vengeance · Belongs to God — Belongs 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 first strophe prays that God would at length put a judicial restraint upon the arrogance of ungodliness. Instead of חופיע (a less frequent form of the imperative for הופע, Ges. ֗53, rem. 3) it was perhaps originally written הופיעה (Psa 80:2), the He of which has been lost owing to the He that follows. The plural נקמות signifies not merely single instances of taking vengeance (Eze 25:17, cf. supra Psa 18:48), but also intensively complete revenge or recompense (Jdg 11:36; Sa2 4:8). The designation of God is similar to אל גּמלות in Jer 51:56, and the anadiplosis is like Psa 94:3, Psa 94:23, Psa 93:1, Psa 93:3. הנּשׂא, lift Thyself up, arise, viz., in judicial majesty, calls to mind Psa 7:7…
Ps 94 This plea for the Lord’s justice includes both communal and individual expressions of lament (94:1-7, 16-23). The psalmist gives voice to the pain and suffering caused by the wicked, but he also depicts the comfort and stability of the Lord’s protection. He calls on the Lord to avenge the needy against the arrogant and foolish, he rebukes such people for their folly (94:8-11), and he pronounces a blessing on the wise (94:12-15).
94:1-7 After the community falls victim to the wicked (94:5-7), they pray that the Lord will render justice (see 7:11; 9:12).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 94:1
O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.
O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; 0 God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself: or, God of retribution, Jehovah, God of retribution, shine forth! A very natural prayer when innocence is trampled down, and wickedness exalted on high. If the execution of justice be a right thing, —and who can deny the fact?—then it must be a very proper thing to desire it; not out of private revenge, in which case a man would hardly dare to appeal to God, but out of sympathy with right, and pity for those who are made wrongfully to suffer, Who can see a nation enslaved, or even an individual downtrodden, with…
