Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.

Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; and with the just let them not be written.

They are blotted out of the book of life, And with the righteous are not written.

Let their names be taken from the book of the living, let them not be numbered with the upright.

Add iniquity unto their iniquity; And let them not come into Thy righteousness.

Let them be blotted out from the book of the living. [1] This is the last imprecation, and it is the most dreadful of the whole; but it nevertheless uniformly follows the persevered in impenitence and incorrigible obduracy of which the Psalmist has spoken above. After having taken away from them all hope of repentance, he denounces against them eternal destruction, which is the obvious meaning of the prayer, that they might be blotted out of the book of the living; for all those must inevitably perish who are not found written or enrolled in the book of life. This is indeed an improper manner of speaking; but it is one well adapted to our limited capacity, the book of life being nothing else than the eternal purpose of God, by which he has predestinated his own people to salvation. God, it is certain, is absolutely immutable; and, further, we know that those who are adopted to the hope of salvation were written before the foundation of the world, (Ephesians 1:4;) but as God's eternal purpose of election is incomprehensible, it is said, in accommodation to the imperfection of the human understanding, that those whom God openly, and by manifest signs, enrols among his people, are written. On the other hand, those whom God openly rejects and casts out of his Church are, for the same reason, said to be blotted out. As then David desires that the vengeance of God may be manifested, he very properly speaks of the reprobation of his enemies in language accommodated to our understanding; as if he had said, O God! reckon them not among the number or ranks of thy people, and let them not be gathered together with thy Church; but rather show by destroying them that thou hast rejected them; and although they occupy a place for a time among thy faithful ones, do thou at length cut them off, to make it manifest that they were aliens, though they were mingled with the members of thy family. Ezekiel uses language of similar import when he says, "And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel." (Ezekiel 13:9) That, however, continues true which is spoken by the Apostle John, (1 John 2:19,) that none who have been once really the children of God will ever finally fall away or be wholly cut off. But as hypocrites presumptuously boast that they are the chief members of the Church, the Holy Spirit well expresses their rejection, by the figure of their being blotted out of the book of life. Moreover, it is to be observed that, in the second clause, all the elect of God are called the righteous; for, as Paul says in 1-Thessalonians 4:3, 4, 7, "This is the will of God, even our sanctification, that every one of us should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor: for God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." (1-Thessalonians 4:3, 4, 7) And the climax which the same Apostle uses in the 8th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, at the 30th verse, is well known: "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." (Romans 8:30)

Footnotes

1 - "This phrase," observes Bishop Mant, "which is not unusual in Scripture, alludes to the custom of well ordered cities, which kept registers, containing all the names of the citizens. Out of these registers the names of apostates, fugitives, and criminals, were erased, as also those of the deceased: whence the expression blotting,' or erasing names from the book of life.'"

Let them be blotted out of the book of the living - That is, Let them cease to live; let them not be numbered among living people; let them be cut off. This language is taken from the custom of registering the names of persons in a list, roll, or catalogue, Exodus 32:32. See the notes at Philippians 4:3. Compare Revelation 3:5. The language has no reference to the future world; it is "not" a prayer that they should not be saved.
And not be written with the righteous - Let them not be registered or numbered with the righteous. As they "are" wicked, so let them be numbered; so regarded. Let them be reckoned and treated as they are. They deserve to be punished; so let them be. All that this "necessarily" means is, that they should not be treated as righteous, when they were in fact "not" righteous. It cannot be shown that the author of the psalm would not have desired that they should "become" righteous, and that they should "then" be regarded and treated as such. All that the language here implies is, a desire that they should be regarded and treated as they were; that is, as they deserved. The language is evidently derived from the idea so common in the Old Testament that length of days would be the reward of a righteous life (see Job 5:26; Proverbs 3:2; Proverbs 9:11; Proverbs 10:27), and that the wicked would be cut off in the midst of their days. See the notes at Psalm 55:23.

Let them be blotted out - They shall be blotted out from the land of the living. They shall be cut off from life, which they have forfeited by their cruelty and oppression. The psalmist is speaking of retributive justice; and in this sense all these passages are to be understood.
And not be written with the righteous - They shall have no title to that long life which God has promised to his followers.

Let them be blotted out of the (x) book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
(x) They who seemed by their profession to have been written in your book, yet by their fruits prove the contrary, let them be known as reprobates.

Let them be blotted out of the book of life,.... Which some understand of this animal life, or of the catalogue of living saints; of their being not written among the living in Jerusalem, or in the writing of the house of Israel, Isaiah 4:3. The Targum is,
"let them he blotted out of the book of the memory of the living.''
Let their names rot and perish, being buried in everlasting oblivion. Aben Ezra interprets this book of the heavens; where, he says, all things that should come to pass were written, at the time they were created; see Luke 10:20. But this is the book of divine predestination or election, often in the New Testament called the book of life; in which the names of some persons are written, and others not, Philippians 4:3; so called, not with respect to the present life, and the affairs of it, which belong to the book of Providence; but with respect to the life of the world to come, or eternal life, as Kimchi explains it. It is no other than God's ordination or foreappointment of men to eternal life; which being called a book, and names written in it, show that election is personal or particular; the exact knowledge God has of his chosen ones; his great care of them, and value for them; his constant remembrance of them, and the certainty of their salvation; for such whose names are written here in reality can never be blotted out: this would be contrary to the unchangeableness of God, the firmness of his purposes, and the safety of his people. Wherefore the design of this imprecation is, that those persons who had, in their own conceits, and in the apprehensions of others, a name in this book; that it might appear, both to themselves and others, they had none, by the awful ruin and destruction that should be brought upon them;
and not be written with the righteous; neither in the book of life with them; by which it appears, that to be blotted out, and not be written, are the same: nor in a Gospel church state; so they were the branches broken off: nor be among them at the resurrection of the just, and in the judgment day. Kimchi observes, that it is the same thing in different words; to be blotted out is the same as not to be written.

book of the living--or "life," with the next clause, a figurative mode of representing those saved, as having their names in a register (compare Exodus 32:32; Isaiah 4:3).

Living - Of eternal life.