Psalm 10:15

Psalm 10:15, in plain English

The psalmist is asking God to break the power of the wicked person—to literally stop them and hold them accountable until they're gone and can't hurt anyone else anymore.

Why it's here

This is a prayer for justice, not revenge. The psalmist is asking God to disarm the wicked person (breaking their arm is a metaphor for removing their power) and to ensure they face consequences for what they've done. It's the idea that eventually, wicked people are removed from position to hurt others.

Who's speaking

The psalmist, praying for God's justice against the wicked

Where it sits in the story

Throughout Scripture, God does eventually judge and remove wicked people from power, though often not on the timeline we'd prefer. Proverbs promises that the wicked will fall; the psalms repeatedly assert this. It's meant to comfort the suffering that God's justice is real, even if it's not always immediate.

The scholarly reading

The psalmist calls for God to break the wicked man's power—his 'arm,' the instrument of violence—and pursue accountability to its complete end.

Language and setting

The imperative שְׁבוֹר זְרוֹעַ (sbor zeruʿah, 'Break the arm') employs the arm metaphor for aggressive power (Psalm 37:17 develops this further); the wicked man's capacity to harm must be materially disabled. The verb דָּרַשׁ (darash, 'call him to account') returns for the fourth time in the psalm—the wicked man refuses to seek God, God refuses to be sought; now divine justice actively seeks the wicked. The final clause 'until none is left to be found' (עַד־לֹא־תִמְצָא אֶת־רִשְׁעוֹ, ʿad-lo-timtze et-rishʿo) employs hyperbolic language suggesting the complete obliteration of the wicked man's wickedness—not necessarily his existence, but the functional termination of his power to harm. Delitzsch noted that this represents imprecatory prayer in its proper form: not personal vendetta but a call for the vindication of God's moral order.

Voice

The righteous sufferer, invoking God's active dismantling of the wicked man's capacity for predation.

Significance

This represents the Bible's unflinching commitment to moral realism: evil must not merely be reformed but decisively terminated, a theme developed in apocalyptic literature's vision of final judgment.

13Why has the wicked man renounced God? He says to himself, “You will never call me to account.”

14But You have regarded trouble and grief; You see to repay it by Your hand. The victim entrusts himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.

15Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call him to account for his wickedness until none is left to be found.

16The LORD is King forever and ever; the nations perish from His land.

17You have heard, O LORD, the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts. You will incline Your ear,

Read all of Psalm 10 — The wicked prosper and the helpless are crushed. Why do You stand far off, Lord? A cry that the oppressed have prayed in every century.