Psalms 17:10 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

They are enclosed in their own fat They live in great splendour and prosperity, while I am exercised with many sore troubles. A similar phrase occurs Job 15:27; Psalms 73:1. Dr. Dodd considers it as “a poetical, or proverbial speech, to signify haughtiness, as caused by wealth or great prosperity; together with that indulgence of the sensual appetites, and disregard to the duties of religion, which are a consequence of such haughtiness.” Jeshurun waxed fat, that is, rich and prosperous; and the consequence was, that he kicked, grew refractory, proud, and insolent, and would not submit to the yoke of God's law, but lifted up the heel against him. The psalmist adds here, They speak proudly Boasting of their own power, and of the great things they had done, or would do. “Pride,” says Dr. Horne, “is the child of plenty, begotten by self- indulgence, which hardens the hearts of men against the fear of God and the love of their neighbours; rendering them insensible of the judgments of the former and the miseries of the latter. Let every man take care,” adds he, “that by pampering the flesh, he do not raise up an enemy of this stamp against himself.”