On this account his people will return hither. Commentators wrest this sentence into a variety of meanings. In the first place, as the relative his is used, without an antecedent indicating whose people are spoken of, some understand it simply of the ungodly, as if it had been said, That the ungodly always fall back upon this reflection: and they view the word people as denoting a great troop or band; for as soon as a wicked man raises his standard, he always succeeds in drawing a multitude of associates after him. They, therefore, think the meaning to be, that every prosperous ungodly man has people flocking about him, as it were, in troops; and that, when within his palace or magnificent mansion, they are content with getting water to drink; so much does this perverse imagination bewitch them. But there is another sense much more correct, and which is also approved by the majority of commentators; namely, that the people of God [1] return hither. Some take the word hlm, halom, which we have rendered hither, as denoting afflicted; [2] but this is a forced interpretation. The meaning is not, however, as yet, sufficiently evident, and therefore we must inquire into it more closely. Some read the whole verse connectedly, thus: The people of God return hither, that they may drain full cups of the water of sorrow. But, in my opinion, this verse depends upon the preceding statements, and the sense is, That many who had been regarded as belonging to the people of God were carried away by this temptation, and were even shipwrecked and swallowed up by it. The prophet does not seem to speak here of the chosen people of God, but only to point to hypocrites and counterfeit Israelites who occupy a place in the Church. He declares that such persons are overwhelmed in destruction, because, being foolishly led away to envy the wicked, and to desire to follow them, they bid adieu to God and to all religion. Still, however, this might, without any impropriety, be referred to the chosen seed, many of whom are so violently harassed by this temptation, that they turn aside into crooked by-paths: not that they devote themselves to wickedness, but because they do not firmly persevere in the right path. The sense then will be, that not only the herd of the profane, but even true believers, who have determined to serve God, are tempted with this unlawful and perverse envy and emulation. [3] What follows, Waters of a full cup are wrung out to them, [4] seems to be the reason of the statement in the preceding clause, implying that they are tormented with vexation and sorrow, when no advantage appears to be derived from cultivating true religion. To be saturated with waters is put metaphorically for to drink the bitterest distresses, and to be filled with immeasurable sorrows.

Footnotes

1 - The Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic, and Æthiopic versions read, "my people."

2 - "Abu Walid," says Hammond, "hath a peculiar way of rendering hlm, as if it were hlm, the infinitive, with breaking of spirit." A similar interpretation is adopted by Horsley. "For hlm," says he, "many MSS. read hlvm, which I take as the participle Pual of the verb hlm, Contusus miseria,' scilicet." He reads, "Therefore his [God's] people sit woebegone." To make out this translation, he adopts another of the various readings of MSS. "For ysyv," says he, "many MSS. have ysvv: I would transpose the vau, and read yvsv. The third person future, Hophal, signifies is made to sit, is settled, attended with grief and consternation at the unpunished audacity of the profane."

3 - While Calvin admits that the words, his people, may refer to true believers, he conceives that carnal and hypocritical Israelites are rather intended. One great objection to the opinion, that true believers are at all intended is, that stumbled though they often are at the unequal distributions of the present state, and chargeable though they may be with entertaining murmuring thoughts in reference to this matter, we can scarcely suppose that they would so far depart from every principle of truth and propriety, as to break forth into such language as is ascribed in verse 11th to the persons here spoken of, "How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?" Neither David nor Jeremiah, though much perplexed in reconciling the prosperity of the wicked and the afflicted state of God's people, with the righteousness and goodness of Divine Providence, ever gave utterance to any such language. See Psalm 38 and Jeremiah 12. Walford thinks that "it is far more agreeable to the design of the entire passage, to interpret the words, his people, of the friends and connections of the wicked, who imitate their actions." In support of this it may be observed, that the description of the condition, conduct, and words, of these prosperous ungodly men, commences at the 4th verse, and seems to be continued to the 13th verse, where the Psalmist's reflections upon the subject begin, and are continued to the close of the psalm.

4 - This has also been understood as denoting the prosperity, the abundance of all outward good things bestowed upon the persons referred to.

Therefore his people - Those that truly love God; the pious in the earth.
Return hither - Return to this subject. In their musings - their meditations on divine things - they come back to this inquiry. The subject occupies their minds, and they recur to it as a subject which perplexes them; as a thing that is incomprehensible. They think it over again and again, and are more and more perplexed and embarrassed. The difficulties which these facts suggest about God and his government are such that they cannot solve them.
And waters of a full cup are wrung out to them - literally, "waters of fullness;" or, full waters. The Chaldee renders this, "Many tears flow from them." The Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate, "And full days shall be found by them." The word rendered "are wrung out" - from מצה mâtsâh - means properly to "suck;" then, to suck out; to drink greedily. See Isaiah 51:17. It is applied to one who drinks greedily of an intoxicating cup; and then, to one who drinks a cup of poison to the dregs. Psalm 75:8. The meaning here is, that the facts in the case, and the questions which arose in regard to those facts, and which so perplexed them, were like a bitter cup; a cup of poison, or an intoxicating cup which overpowered their faculties - and that they, in their perplexities, "exhausted" the cup. They drank it all, even to the dregs. They did not merely taste it; but they drank it. It was a subject full of perplexity; a subject that wholly overpowered all their faculties, and "exhausted" all their powers.

Therefore his people return hither - There are very few verses in the Bible that have been more variously translated than this; and, like the man in the fable, they have blown the hot to cool it, and the cold to warm it. It has been translated, "Therefore God's people fall off to them; and thence they reap no small advantage." And, "Therefore let his people come before them; and waters in full measure would be wrung out from them." That is, "Should God's people come before them, they would squeeze them to the utmost; they would wring out all the juice in their bodies." The Chaldee has, "Therefore, are they turned against the people of the Lord, that they may bruise and beat them with mallets; that they may pour out to them abundance of tears." The Vulgate, "Therefore shall my people return here, and days of abundance shall be found by them." The Septuagint is the same. The Ethiopic, Arabic, and Syriac, nearly the same. The Hebrew text is, לכן ישוב עמו הלם ומי מלא ימצו למו lachen yashub ammo (עמי ammi) halom; umey male yimmatsu lamo; "Therefore shall my people be converted, where they shall find abundance of waters." That is, The people, seeing the iniquity of the Babylonians, and feeling their oppressive hand, shall be converted to me; and I shall bring them to their own land, where they shall find an abundance of all the necessaries of life. I believe this to be the meaning; and thus we find their afflictions were sanctified to them; for they obliged them to return to God, and then God caused them to return to their own land. The Vulgate translates ומי מלא umey male, "abundance of waters," by et dies pleni, "and days of plenty;" for it has read ימי yemey, days, for ומי umey, and waters. Almost all the Versions support this reading; but it is not acknowledged by any MS. The old Psalter is here mutilated.

Therefore his (e) people return hither: and waters of a full [cup] are wrung out to them.
(e) Not only the reprobate, but also the people of God often fall back seeing the prosperous estate of the wicked, and are overwhelmed with sorrows, thinking that God does not correctly consider the estate of the godly.

Therefore his people return hither,.... Either the true people of God, and so the Targum, the people of the Lord, and whom the psalmist owned for his people; for the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, read "my people"; who seeing the prosperity of the wicked, and feeling their own afflictions, return to the same way of thinking, and fall by the same snare and temptation as the psalmist did; or such who were only the people of God by profession, but hypocrites, who observing the trouble that attends a religious life, and the prosperity of wicked men, return from the good ways of God they have outwardly walked in for some time, to the conversation of these men, and join themselves to them: or else, "his" being put for "their", the sense is, the people of these wicked men, of everyone of them, return unto them, and flock about them, and caress and flatter them, because of their prosperous circumstances, and join with them in their evil practices of oppression and slander; which sense seems best to agree with what goes before and follows after:
and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them; meaning either to the people of God, and to be understood either of the abundance of their tears, on account of their afflictions inward and outward; see Psalm 6:6, so the Targum,
"and many tears flow unto them;''
or of their afflictions themselves, which are oftentimes compared to waters in Scripture; see Psalm 42:7, which are given them in measure: it is a cup of them that is put into their hands, and in full measure; they have a full cup of them; many are their tribulations, through which they enter the kingdom, and they are all of God; it is he that wrings them out to them with his fatherly hand: or else, taking the people to mean the followers and companions of the wicked, the words are to be understood of the plenty of good things which such men enjoy in this life, their cup runs over; and indeed these seem to be the persons who are introduced speaking the following words.

Hence God's people are confounded, turned hither (or back) and thither, perplexed with doubts of God's knowledge and care, and filled with sorrow.

Turn - To this wicked company. Waters - And partake of the same prosperity with their leaders. God seems to give them a full cup of consolation, as if he would wring out all his blessings upon them.