Psalms 73:10 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Therefore his people return hither “It seems impossible to ascertain,” says Dr. Horne, “with any degree of precision, the meaning of this verse, or to whom it relates. Some think it intends those people who resort to the company of the wicked, because they find their temporal advantage by it; while others are of opinion that the people of God are meant, who, by continually revolving in their thoughts the subject here treated of, namely, the prosperity of the wicked, are sore grieved, and enforced to shed tears in abundance.” Certainly a variety of discordant interpretations have been given of the verse. But a literal translation, which the following is, seems, in some degree at least, to determine its meaning. Therefore Hebrew, לכן, lachen, on this account, his people shall return thither, and waters of fullness shall be wrung out to them As if he had said, Because of the prosperity of the wicked, and the afflicted state of the righteous, his people, that is, the people of God, will be under a strong temptation to return; and many will actually return to the company of the ungodly, which they had forsaken, in order to share their prosperity: but in consequence thereof, waters of a full cup shall be wrung out to them, they shall bring upon themselves many chastisements and troubles, and shall be oppressed with grief and sorrow for their sin and folly. Waters, in Scripture, frequently signify afflictions, although, it must be acknowledged, they also often signify mercies and comforts; but the former, and not the latter sense of the metaphor, seems to be intended here: for when did, or do, the people of God receive mercies and comforts, or blessings of any kind, by returning to the sins and follies which they had forsaken, or to the society of the ungodly, from which they had withdrawn themselves? Do they not uniformly meet with chastisement and trouble? The clause, “waters of a full cup,” &c., may probably refer to the cups of liquor, mingled with poison, which were, in those days, given to criminals. The verse, it must be observed, is in the future tense, and it seems most natural, as Mr. Scott has remarked, to interpret it as expressive of the psalmist's apprehension, that the prosperity of daring sinners would eventually prove a strong temptation, and a great source of sorrow to believers.