Psalms 9:12 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bible Comments

When. — Better, for he maketh inquisition; literally, the seeker of bloods: i.e., “the avenger of blood.” The allusion is to the goel, the nearest relative of the murdered man, who must, according to Oriental custom, avenge him. The verbs are better in the past, “remembered,” “forgot not.”

Themi.e., the sufferers to be mentioned now.

Humble. — This follows the Hebrew margin. Better here, the afflicted. In the Hebrew the two readings give two forms from the same root, generally taken to have, one of them, an ethical, the other, a physical sense; but the distinction is not borne out by Biblical use.

Psalms 9:12

12 When he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them: he forgetteth not the cry of the humble.c