Similar themes to this psalm are featured in other Old Testament passages, Psalm 37, 49
and the book of Job among them. The author wrestles with the perennial question: “How could a good God
allow me to suffer while His enemies prosper?” This question would have proved especially difficult at this time
in covenant history. The progressively unfolding nature of special revelation had not fully revealed the degree of
emphasis on the spiritual and eternal nature of covenant blessing and sanctions such as we understand with the
benefit of the gospel and proclamation of New Covenant fulfillment. The patriarchs of Old would have been far
more likely to associate temporal blessing with covenant obedience and conversely, temporal punishments for
unfaithfulness. It would be a great step of faith indeed to wrestle with the apparent opposite scenarios playing
out in one's experience. The Spirit of God is therefore vividly evident in the soul of the psalmist as He leads him
to the sanctuary and to greater understanding of the ways and means of the Lord. It becomes clear to him, as it
should to us, that the Lord often shapes His people into His image through the tempering grace of affliction
while He fattens the wicked for the slaughter through the judicial hardening of prosperous ease...