Psalms 73:17 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then understood I their end— This certainly cannot mean their destruction by death; for he had before expressly taken notice of their felicity or ease in this respect. Nor is it easy to say how the sanctuary, or any thing there, could inform him of the manner of the death of wicked men. This must be learned from observation. Nor can what follows in the next verse be understood consistently with the rest of the psalm, of a temporal destruction, but of their future wretched state in another world; which is often represented in Scripture by death and destruction; and so, indeed, the following verses explain it. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! Psalms 73:19 i.e. The moment that they pass from this life to another, they are utterly consumed with terrors. Psalms 73:20. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, in arousing or awakening them, for so it should be rendered, Thou wilt despise or debase their image. This, obscurely as it is expressed, evidently points at something after death; for it is then alone that the finally impenitent can be thoroughly awakened to see their misery. If, therefore, the word rendered their image, means the ειδωλον, as Homer calls it, the separated soul; methinks there is an exquisite propriety in the word here used, and rendered despise or debase: "Thou shalt debase, spurn, and render contemptible, the separate spirits of those haughty wretches, whose pride had raised them in their own conceit above all other men, and even led them to despise their Maker and his laws. Their condition in the region of departed souls shall be as low and despicable, as here it was in appearance high and happy." The Chaldee paraphrast understands the passage of the day of judgment; and Dr. Hammond compares it with that of Daniel 12:2 that some shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt. See Peters, and more on the 24th verse.