Section 1
"Author and occasion of the psalm." This psalm, like Psalm 1:1-6; Psalm 2:1-12, and many others, has no title to indicate its authorship; nor is there anything in the psalm itself which can enable us to determine this with any certainty. From the place which it occupies among the acknowledged Psalm of David, it is morally certain that it was regarded by those who arranged the Book of Psalm, as having been composed by him. There is nothing in the psalm to forbid this supposition.
Of course nothing is known as to the occasion on which it was composed. In the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, Ps. 9 and Ps. 10 are united, and reckoned as Ps. 9; and thenceforward the reckoning proceeds according to this arrangement, the eleventh in the Hebrew being numbered in those versions as the tenth, etc. This arrangement continues to Psalm 113:1-9 (inclusive). In those versions, Psalm 114:1-8 and Ps. 115 of the Hebrew form but one psalm, and the reckoning coincides. But Ps. 116 in Hebrew is, in those versions, (divided into two, and Ps. 147 in Hebrew is, in those versions, divided into two, thus completing the number of 150 psalms - making the number in the Hebrew, and the Latin Vulgate, and the Septuagint, the same. It is not now known by whom these divisions were made, or on what pretence they were made. There is no known reason for making the divisions of the Psalm that occur in the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate.
There is no evidence, therefore, that this psalm was composed at the same time, and on the same occasion, as Ps. 9, and there is nothing in the psalm itself that would necessarily lead to this supposition. It is as independent of that in its structure, as one psalm usually is of another.
So far as appears from the psalm itself, it was composed like the former, and like many others, when the writer was in the midst of trouble; and when, for the time, he seemed to be forsaken by God, Psalm 10:1. The nature of that trouble is so far indicated as to show that it arose from the conduct of some formidable enemy, some one who was wicked, someone who was pursuing a secret and underhanded, a clandestine and treacherous course, to destroy the reputation or the life of the author of the psalm. In these circumstances the writer calls upon God to interpose for him. Nothing is indicated, however, by which we can ascertain who this enemy was, or on what occasion, in the life of David, the psalm was composed. It is only necessary to add, that there were several occasions in the life of David which corresponded with what is stated in the psalm, and that it is not necessary to understand the particular occasion more clearly in order to see the meaning of the psalm.
Section 2
"Contents of the psalm." The psalm is properly divided into two parts.
The first contains an account of the character of the enemy to whom the writer refers, Psalm 10:1-11; the second is an appeal to God to interpose and deliver him from the machinations of this foe, Psalm 10:12-18.
I. The characteristics of the enemy, Psalm 10:1-11. Those characteristics were the following:
(a) He was proud, and on that account persecuted the poor, Psalm 10:2.
(b) He was a boaster, and especially, it would seem, was one who was disposed to boast of his wealth, Psalm 10:3.
(c) He was a practical atheist; one too proud to seek after God, or to acknowledge his dependence on him, Psalm 10:4.
(d) His ways were always grievous, or adapted to produce evil, and the reason was that he had no just views on mortal subjects - that the great principles of truth and right were "far above out of his sight," Psalm 10:5.
(e) He was a man who had no apprehensions about the future; one who felt that his course would be one of continued prosperity, and that adversity would never come upon him, Psalm 10:6.
(f) He was profane and openly fraudulent, Psalm 10:7
(g) He was insidious, artful, and underhanded in his doings; a man who would stoop to any act of duplicity and treachery to accomplish his purposes, Psalm 10:8-10.
(h) And he acted as if God had "forgotten," that is, as if God would pass over offences; as though He did not see or regard them, Psalm 10:11.
II. An appeal to God to deliver him from the machinations of this foe, Psalm 10:12-18. This appeal consists of the following parts:
(a) A solemn address to God, beseeching him to remember the cry of the humble or the afflicted, Psalm 10:12.
(b) Arguments to enforce this appeal, or reasons why God should interpose, Psalm 10:13-15. These arguments are:
(1) That he had seen all this; that the effort of the wrong-doer to conceal what he had done was vain; and
(2) that the poor and afflicted had committed himself to God with a firm confidence that he would protect those who relied on him.
(c) The expression of a solemn and full conviction on the part of the writer of the psalm that God would thus interfere, and save those who put their trust in Him, Psalm 10:16-18.

The psalmist complains to God of the oppressions which the poor suffer from the wicked man, whom he describes as the hater of the poor, Psalm 10:1, Psalm 10:2; proud, Psalm 10:3; one who will not seek God, Psalm 10:4; and is regardless of his judgments, Psalm 10:5; self-confident, Psalm 10:6; blasphemous and deceitful, Psalm 10:7; strives by subtlety and treachery to destroy the poor, Psalm 10:8-10; and supposes that God is regardless of his conduct, Psalm 10:11. The psalmist calls earnestly on God to preserve the poor and humble, and cast down the oppressor, Psalm 10:12-15. He foresees that his prayer is heard; that judgment will be executed, and the poor delivered, Psalm 10:16-18.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 10
This psalm in the Septuagint version, and those that follow it, is a part and continuation of the preceding psalm, and makes but one with it; hence in these versions the number of the following psalms differ from others, and what is the eleventh with others is the tenth with them, and so on to the hundred fourteenth and one hundred fifteenth, which also are put into one; but in order to make up the whole number of one hundred and fifty, the hundred sixteenth and the hundred forty seventh are both divided into two; and indeed the subject of this psalm is much the same with the former. Antichrist and antichristian times are very manifestly described; the impiety, blasphemy, and atheism of the man of sin; his pride, haughtiness, boasting of himself, and presumption of security; his persecution of the poor, and murder of innocents, are plainly pointed at; nor does the character of the man of the earth agree to well to any as to him: his times are times of trouble; but at the end of them the kingdom of Christ will appear in great glory, when the Gentiles, the antichristian nations, will perish out of his land, Psalm 10:1.

(Psalm 10:1-11) The psalmist complains of the wickedness of the wicked.
(Psalm 10:12-18) He prays to God to appear for the relief of his people.

Plaintive and Supplicatory Prayer under the Pressure of Heathenish Foes at Home and Abroad
This Psalm and Ps 33 are the only ones that are anonymous in the First book of the Psalm. But Ps 10 has something peculiar about it. The lxx gives it with Ps 9 as one Psalm, and not without a certain amount of warrant for so doing. Both are laid out in tetrastichs; only in the middle portion of Ps 10 some three line strophes are mixed with the four line. And assuming that the ק-strophe, with which Ps 9 closes, stands in the place of a כ-strophe which one would look for after the י-strophe, then Ps 10, beginning with ל, continues the order of the letters. At any rate it begins in the middle of the alphabet, whereas Ps 9 begins at the beginning. It is true the ל-strophe is then followed by strophes without the letters that come next in order; but their number exactly corresponds to the letters between ל and ק, ר, שׁ, ת with which the last four strophes of the Psalm begin, viz., six, corresponding to the letters מ, נ, ס, ע, פ, צ, which are not introduced acrostically. In addition to this it is to be remarked that Ps 9 and Psalm 10:1 are most intimately related to one another by the occurrence of rare expressions, as לעתּות בצּרה and דּך; by the use of words in the same sense, as אנושׁ and גּוים; by striking thoughts, as "Jahve doth not forget" and "Arise;" and by similarities of style, as the use of the oratio directa instead of obliqua, Ps 9:21; Psalm 10:13. And yet it is impossible that the two Psalm should be only one. Notwithstanding all their community of character they are also radically different. Ps 9 is a thanksgiving Psalm, Ps 10 is a supplicatory Psalm. In the latter the personality of the psalmist, which is prominent in the former, keeps entirely in the background. The enemies whose defeat Ps 9 celebrates with thanksgiving and towards whose final removal it looks forward are גּוים, therefore foreign foes; whereas in Ps 10 apostates and persecutors of his own nation stand in the foreground, and the גוים are only mentioned in the last two strophes. In their form also the two Psalm differ insofar as Ps 10 has no musical mark defining its use, and the tetrastich strophe structure of Ps 9, as we have already observed, is not carried out with the same consistency in Ps 10. And is anything really wanting to the perfect unity of Ps 9? If it is connected with Ps 10 and they are read together uno tenore, then the latter becomes a tail-piece which disfigures the whole. There are only two things possible: Ps 10 is a pendant to Ps 9 composed either by David himself, or by some other poet, and closely allied to it by its continuance of the alphabetical order. But the possibility of the latter becomes very slight when we consider that Ps 10 is not inferior to Ps 9 in the antiquity of the language and the characteristic nature of the thoughts. Accordingly the mutual coincidences point to the same author, and the two Psalm must be regarded as "two co-ordinate halves of one whole, which make a higher unity" (Hitz.). That hard, dull, and tersely laconic language of deep-seated indignation at moral abominations for which the language has, as it were, no one word, we detect also elsewhere in some Psalm of David and of his time, those Psalm, which we are accustomed to designate as Psalm written in the indignant style (in grollendem Stil).