2 Full of hot air, the wicked are hot on the trail of the poor. Trip them up, tangle them up in their fine-tuned plots. 3 The wicked are windbags, the swindlers have foul breath. 4 The wicked snub God, their noses stuck high in the air. Their graffiti are scrawled on the walls: "Catch us if you can!" "God is dead." 5 They care nothing for what you think; if you get in their way, they blow you off. 6 They live (they think) a charmed life: "We can't go wrong. This is our lucky year!" 7 They carry a mouthful of hexes, their tongues spit venom like adders. 8 They hide behind ordinary people, then pounce on their victims. 9 They mark the luckless, then wait like a hunter in a blind; When the poor wretch wanders too close, they stab him in the back. 10 The hapless fool is kicked to the ground, the unlucky victim is brutally axed.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 10:2-10
Commentary on Psalm 10:1-11
(Read Psalm 10:1-11)
God's withdrawings are very grievous to his people, especially in times of trouble. We stand afar off from God by our unbelief, and then complain that God stands afar off from us. Passionate words against bad men do more hurt than good; if we speak of their badness, let it be to the Lord in prayer; he can make them better. The sinner proudly glories in his power and success. Wicked people will not seek after God, that is, will not call upon him. They live without prayer, and that is living without God. They have many thoughts, many objects and devices, but think not of the Lord in any of them; they have no submission to his will, nor aim for his glory. The cause of this is pride. Men think it below them to be religious. They could not break all the laws of justice and goodness toward man, if they had not first shaken off all sense of religion.