The proud have digged pits for me,
Which are not after thy law (Psa 119.85).
We may pronounce everyone healthy but that doesn’t make them better or stop them from dying. Likewise the modern impulse to euphemize the ethical landscape is not only ineffective, but by masking the real problem, it keeps people from genuine salvation.
The naïve diagnosis is ubiquitous. No one is evil, only sick. We all mean well, but things just don’t turn out as we had hoped. There is no objective standard of right and wrong, so we must not sit in judgment of other people’s free choices.
Modern society is largely built on this sandy foundation, and it is the hidden reason our house is falling down. As soon as these deeply-held assumptions are exposed and criticized, our fellow homeowners keep assuring us that if only we restore the props and patch the walls everything will be alright—or if not, that’s the best we can do anyway. Meanwhile they attack Calvinists as most uncharitable in our bleak evaluation.
The psalmist did not candy-coat the poisonous malice of his enemies. Possessing divine wisdom, he clearly recognized their true character, hurtful intentions, and rebellion against God. Recognizing the hideous reality is not being mean. It is most loving to direct the hopeless away from depending on themselves to trusting the only true Savior.
Confronted by such evil, the psalmist engaged the enemy by the most effective means. His spiritual analysis and strategy would accomplish much to recover our generation from its insane blindness.
THEIR CONCEIT
David accurately designated his enemies as “the proud.” The original Hebrew uses an awful word which means the “arrogant, haughty, insolent, self-willed, and not humble as a moral defect.” It can mean one who is rebellious or disobedient. “Because the person is proud he asserts his own will to the point of rebelling against one in authority over him.” Of course the authority David had in mind was God, as the last line of this verse indicates.
Not just Israelites but all people are responsible to God our Creator. Having made us, he owns us and has governing rights over us and our lives from beginning to end. This applies to believers and idolaters—even atheists. Whether David had Jews or Gentiles in mind as his enemies, for he suffered opposition from both, it was all the same. The former had sinned against greater spiritual light, but even the pagans had a built-in conscience. In both cases the proud ones had exalted their own thoughts and wishes over almighty God, and there is no greater arrogance.
We recognize that being conceited is a thing most reprehensible, but we generally find the arrogance of others more obvious and repugnant than our own. David’s enemies probably did not think of themselves in these unflattering terms; nevertheless, they were proud.
The average person today is typically at a loss to account for the most horrific crimes. Would not a recognition of this cosmic anti-God pride go a long way toward our understanding? The proud can be expected to behave according to their nature. They think they are a law unto themselves, and so they do what they please, without love, faith, or much restraint of any kind.
THEIR CUNNING
David uses a graphic metaphor to describe their plots against him. He says they “have dug pits [or, pitfalls] for me.” We need not take this literally, as when Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit (Gen 37). Here, it is a richly visual analogy from the hunting world. One may effectively catch large animals by digging a larger and deep hole in the ground, covering it flimsily, and hiding it with appropriate camouflage. Then the unsuspecting one, by simply passing over the spot, will suddenly plummet to its demise (cf. Psa 9.15).
This metaphor suggests malice, preplanning, deceit, and possibly conspiracy. In the spiritual realm David has in mind nothing less than Satan working through men. When the original liar and murderer entered the garden, he was aptly disguised as a serpent, “more subtil [or, cunning, NKJV] than any beast of the field” (Gen 3.1). Succumbing to his solicitations, our first parents and all their posterity became enslaved to him and then we began to share his perverse nature.
There is some truth in the saying, “It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.” One important part of a realistic worldview is that some people are malicious liars who would destroy you, whether that is their conscious intent or not. The apostle Peter, having suffered himself, says that we must be sober and vigilant, because our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5.8). The unconverted are his unwitting agents. They are hateful and hating one another (Tit 3.3), and their hostility to the righteous is even greater (John 15.18-19).
Therefore, be assured that the arrogant are still digging pits for anyone who gets in the way of their own selfish gratification. Fallen human nature has not changed.
THEIR CRIMINALITY
Since David was a godly man, he saw all immoral behavior in its true light as transgression of God’s holy Word. “The proud have dug pits for me, which are not after [or, according to] thy law.” This is, if anything, an understatement. Not only were they failing to implement the righteousness the law commands, but they were flagrantly violating the express prohibitions of God’s moral law against any sort of malicious treatment, the spirit of which appears in Prov 3.29-30, “Do not plan evil against your neighbor, who dwells trustingly beside you. Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm” (ESV).
As any informed Christian knows, the essence of biblical righteousness is love—first, that we love God supremely and consequently that we love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22.35-40). Love to God and neighbor correspond to the first (commandments 1-4; Exod 20.3-11) and second (commandments 5-10) parts of the Decalogue (Exod 20.12-17). These twin duties are always found together, for each is impossible without the other. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4.20-21).
Therefore, all the loving acts you might perform toward anyone else are comprehended in what God’s written moral code has already required of you, and any spiteful words or deeds are cases of law-breaking. Commenting on Rom 13.8-10, John Murray perceptively wrote,
What our modern apostles of love really mean is the very opposite of this: they mean that love fulfills its own dictates, that love not only fulfills, but that it is also the law fulfilled, that love is as it were an autonomous, self–instructing and self–directing principle, that not only impels to the doing of the right but also tells us what the right is. This is certainly not what Paul meant when he said, “love is the fulfilling of the law.” He tells us not only that love fulfills, but also what the law is which it fulfills. . . . It is in the decalogue that Paul finds the epitome of moral law. And second, it is that law that love fulfills. The directing principle of love is objectively revealed statutory commandments, not at all the dictates which it might itself be presumed to excogitate [i.e., to devise].
So David’s is a profound observation, since it recognizes that God’s law is the law of love. Further, it suggests that failure to love is not merely anti-social, but a sin against God who requires us to love. Pride leads to malice, and malice, to actual transgressions of God’s moral law, and actual transgressions to personal guilt before God, and guilt to divine condemnation.
MY COUNTERACTION
While not returning evil for evil, the godly are not wholly passive victims either. One of the most important responses we can offer—one that is generally thought practically worthless—is prayer.
On the battlefield of spiritual warfare, praying against enemies is not just a reaction, but a counteraction. With God’s blessing, prayer actively strengthens the saints, while it opposes and vanquishes our spiritual enemies, either by their conversion or eventual overthrow.
This verse is essentially a prayerful appeal to God. David is not just complaining about how much he has suffered, but he is a plaintiff in the supreme court of justice. He knows that God is just and will ultimately punish all sin—even each and every sin. The Judge of all the earth will finally bring an end to all the villainous rampages against his church, and all this will be to the praise of his glory. Therefore, the suffering one comes boldly by grace into God’s presence, presents the case, and trusts in the Almighty to hear and deliver.
Filled with the Spirit of prophecy as this verse was written, David sets a godly example. Yes, the unconverted are our proud enemies. Yes, they oppose, frustrate, and persecute us. Yes, they practice lawlessness. Prayer to the Lord is our first and most effective recourse. Do not repay evil for evil, but pray. May we all have grace for this. Amen.
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