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Salmos 58

BLIVRE · Chapter 58/150

1Salmo “Mictão” de Davi, para o regente, conforme “Altachete”: Congregação, por acaso falais verdadeiramente o que é justo? Vós, Filhos dos homens, julgais corretamente?

2Na verdade vós praticais perversidades em [vosso] coração; sobre a terra pesais a violência de vossas mãos.

3Os perversos se desviam desde o ventre da mãe; afastam-se desde o ventre os mentirosos.

4O veneno deles [é] semelhante ao veneno de serpente; são como a cobra surda, que tapa seus ouvidos,

5Para não ouvirem a voz dos encantadores, do encantador sábio em encantamentos.

6Deus, quebra os dentes deles em suas bocas; arranca os queixos dos filhos dos leões, SENHOR.

7Que eles escorram como águas, que vão embora; quando ele armar sua flecha, sejam eles cortados em pedaços.

8Como a lesma, que se desmancha, que [assim] saiam embora; como o aborto de mulher, [assim também] nunca vejam o sol.

9Antes que vossas panelas sintam os espinhos, tanto vivos, como aquecidos, ele os arrebatará furiosamente.

10O justo se alegrará ao ver a vingança; [e] lavará seus pés no sangue do perverso.

11Então o homem dirá: Certamente há recompensa para o justo; certamente há Deus, que julga na terra.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

David denounces corrupt judges who have practiced violence from birth and likens their wickedness to serpent venom, asking God to break their power so that justice will finally be recognized on earth.

Explanation

This is another imprecatory psalm directed specifically against corrupt judicial authorities ('O congregation,' probably referring to judges or leaders who should uphold justice but do the opposite). The comparison to the 'deaf adder that stoppeth her ear' so as not to hear the charmers refers to real snake-charming practices known in the ancient world, used here as a metaphor for moral corruption that refuses to hear any correction. The psalm's conclusion ('there is a God that judgeth in the earth') affirms that, despite the appearance of impunity, there is a final justice that corrects what human systems fail to correct.

Fun facts

  • Snake charming, mentioned in verse 5, is a practice documented since ancient Egypt, typically using cobras, which actually respond more to the visual movement of the instrument than to sound, contrary to popular belief — but at the time it was believed they responded to music.
  • This psalm is one of the most frequently cited biblical texts in discussions about corruption in the judicial system, used by social reform movements throughout history as a basis for calling for structural justice.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Salmos 58:1The word translated "congregation" comes from a difficult Hebrew term, which other versions render as "rulers" or even "gods" — perhaps an ironic way of addressing human judges who were supposed to represent divine justice but fail at it.
  2. Salmos 58:2"Ye weigh the violence" uses the image of the marketplace scale: it suggests these judges calculate injustice the way someone measures out goods, a premeditated violence, not a passing fit of rage.
  3. Salmos 58:3"From the womb" is Hebrew poetic exaggeration, not a literal statement about newborn babies. The idea is that the tendency toward evil in certain people seems so deeply rooted that it sounds as if it had been there since birth.
  4. Salmos 58:4Comparing the speech of the wicked to serpent's venom turns words into something physically lethal: just as venom kills by degrees, the wickedness of these people works unseen, yet destroys all the same.
  5. Salmos 58:5The image of the snake charmer was a well-known practice in the ancient Near East, attempting to calm snakes with music. Comparing the enemies to a viper that stops its ears is saying they are deaf to any appeal to reason, no matter how skillful.
  6. Salmos 58:6"Break their teeth" is an imprecation, a direct plea for punishment against enemies. The image comes from wild animals: pulling a lion's teeth leaves it unable to do harm, so the request is for the enemies to lose their power to wound.
  7. Salmos 58:7Asking for enemies to "melt away as waters" is wishing they vanish without a trace, the way water disappears into dry ground. Arrows broken in pieces are the image of an enemy already disarmed.
  8. Salmos 58:8"That they may not see the sun" is one of the harshest images in the Psalter, comparing the enemies to something that never actually came to exist. It belongs to the same genre of shocking imprecation found in other laments — the outcry of someone suffering injustice, not a model prayer to imitate literally.
  9. Salmos 58:9This is one of the hardest verses in the Psalter to translate: the image seems to be a pot set over thorns that haven't even caught fire yet — a way of saying the punishment will arrive fast, before their plans have time to "cook."
  10. Salmos 58:10It is a hyperbolic image of total victory over evil, common in the war poetry of the ancient Near East, not a literal instruction about washing one's feet in "the blood of the wicked." The point of the psalm is to affirm that there is a justice finally vindicated, after so much apparent impunity.
  11. Salmos 58:11The psalm closes with the conclusion anyone would draw upon seeing the wicked punished: the certainty that there really is justice and a God who judges what happens on earth, not an indifferent world.

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