Psalms 92:6

6. A brutish man … a fool] Men who are mere sensuous animals, stupid and unreceptive, incapable of discerning spiritual things. Cp. Psa_49:10; Psa_73:22; Psa_94:8.

this] Namely, the truth expressed in Psa_92:7-8, that the wicked flourish only to perish, while Jehovah is eternally supreme. There should be a colon only at the end of Psa_92:6.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 92:6 A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.

Ver. 6. A brutish man knoweth not] A sottish sensualist, who hath his soul for salt only, to keep his body from putrefying (as we say of swine); he takes no knowledge of God’s great works, but grunts and goes his ways, contenting himself with a natural use of the creatures, as beasts do.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_92:6

A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.

The degradation of man

In this psalm we have a contrast between the animal and the spiritual life, the latter exulting in God, uttering His praise, receiving His thoughts, studying His works; the former cleaving to the earth, wallowing in the dust, with no ambition that soars higher than the husks which it eats, or the roof of the sty which it occupies. A brutish man. It is originally a compound expression--a brute-man. It is a degrading epithet, and it is employed in common daily life.

I. Mans nature is very closely allied to that of the animal. It is difficult to define the boundary between instinct and reason. The mental faculties of man and of the animals run in parallel lines to a point high up on the scale, Where the difference begins. Animals serve man, and should be treated justly, considerately, kindly.

II. The degradation of man to the level of the animal.

1. When he is ruled by appetite, not by conscience. A man will sometimes attempt to justify his avarice, his pride, his vindictiveness, his sensuality by saying that he is only following the lead of passions which God has implanted in him; that the light which leads astray is light from heaven, that God has created the appetite in his nature. Yes; but God never intended it to rule or lead; He intended it to serve, to be under the control of reason and conscience and religious principle.

2. When he eats and drinks, and does not worship. Training may produce a great change in animals; education may turn the stolid rustic into an intelligent, cultured scholar; but there is something greater than any advantage which education may confer--that is, the capacity of union and communion with God of lifting up the soul to the Most High. And yet there are some who ignore this, who cast this pearl before the swine of evil passions, darken the window that looks heavenwards, nail the shutters over it, so that not a ray of light can reach the spirit; go down, down to the animal, as if there were no God, no worship, no adoration, no gratitude. The altar is in ruins; and the man has become as the brute.

3. Because he is working blindly. Take a man who is bent on acquiring wealth, who sacrifices everything on the altar of Mammon; he is shrewd, quick to take advantage of the favourable breeze, successful, makes his pile, as they say. Is he working blindly? Yes, blindly; he has never discerned the meaning of what he is doing, he has never appraised the course at its right value, never estimated its bearing, its consequences to his moral nature; he is like a mole, scratching and burrowing in the dust, with no eye for the broad universe, and the light of God that floods it. And there is no thought of the future. He degrades himself to an equality with the brute, forgetting that while the beast goes downwards to the earth, the spirit of man goeth upward, and that man shall receive in another state according to that he hath done in the body, whether it be good or bad.

III. The consequences of this degradation.

1. He has no eye for the greatest and noblest in life. Just as the eyes and the light, the air and the lungs correspond to each other, so it is with beauty and taste, science and intellect, friends and affection. And there is a spiritual faculty by which we discern spiritual things. The brutish man represses, restrains, stifles this faculty; resists the Spirit of God, who would quicken, direct, enlarge it.

2. He does not, then, value his nature, as God values it. He has degraded himself to a level with the swine; he has no sense of sonship, no feeling of spiritual dignity, he has gone down and down to the mire. Happy is he if he comes to himself, if in a sane moment the animal is cowed, and the angel asserts itself, and the ragged swineherd says, I will arise and go to my Father.

3. He has no resources in time of suffering and trouble. God is a stranger--he dreads the thought of God--would fain hope that God does riot exist. He is like the brute; he has nothing to fall back upon. Very different is the experience of the spiritual man. Trouble comes; but he sees God in it. The tempest gathers; but His way is in the whirlwind, etc. The deep, full, bitter cup is presented--but it has been mingled by a Fathers love. The bear deprived of her whelps can only rage and moan; the brutish man bereaved of his children can only curse and rebel; the godly man, missing his loved ones in the gloom of the gorge of death, can say (Job_1:21). (J. Owen.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 92:6. A brutish man — Who cannot, or doth not, seriously consider things; whose mind is corrupted by sensual and brutish appetites; who is led by sense, and not by reason and faith, knoweth not — That thy works are so inexpressibly great and wonderful; neither doth a fool understand this — The depth of wisdom displayed in thy counsels, and of power in thine operations, or the particular work of God, described Psa 92:7. “Glorious are thy works, profound thy counsels, marvellous thy dispensations in nature, in providence, in grace; but all are lost to the man void of spiritual discernment; who, like his fellow-brutes, is bowed down to earth, and knoweth no pleasures but those of sense. Here he hath chosen his paradise, and set up his tabernacle; not considering that his tabernacle must shortly be taken down, and he must remove hence for ever.” — Horne. Reader, is this thy character?

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. (Psa 92:6) A man-brute will not know, and a fool will not understand this. The compound term at the beginning means a man who is no better than a brute, i.e. equally irrational. See above, on Psa 73:22, and below, on Psa 94:8. Will not, cannot, or does not know. This, i.e. what has just been said as to the depth of God's providential plans and purposes.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, the wicked consider not God’s works, nor his judgments against them, and therefore most justly perish.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 6. A brutish man knoweth not] איש בער ish baar, the human hog-the stupid bear-the boor; the man who is all flesh; in whom spirit or intellect neither seems to work nor exist. The brutish man, who never attempts to see God in his works.

Neither doth a fool understand this.] כסיל kesil, the fool, is different from בער baar, the brutish man; the latter has mind, but it is buried in flesh; the former has no mind, and his stupidity is unavoidable.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6 The foolish man shall not know them. This is added with propriety, to let us know that the fault lies with ourselves, in not praising the Divine judgments as we ought. For although the Psalmist had spoken of them as deep and mysterious, he here informs us that they would be discerned without difficulty, were it not for our stupidity and indifference. By the foolish, he means unbelievers in general, tacitly contrasting them with believers who are divinely enlightened by the word and Spirit. The ignorance and blindness to which he alludes have possession of all without exception, whose understandings have not been illuminated by Divine grace. It ought to be our prayer to God, that he would purge our sight, and qualify us for meditation upon his works. In short, the Psalmist vindicates the incomprehensible wisdom of God from that contempt which proud men have often cast upon it, charging them with folly and madness in acting such a part; and he would arouse us from that insensibility which is too prevalent, to a due and serious consideration of the mysterious works of God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(6) A brutish man.—The Hebrew is apparently from a root meaning “to eat,” and so refers to the man of mere animal nature, who lives for his appetites.

Fool.—From root meaning “fat,” hence “gross,” “stupid.”

In the one case the moral sense has not come into play at all, in the other it is overgrown by sensuality, so that spiritual discernment, insight into the glories of the Divine mind, is impossible.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A brutish man knoweth not,.... The lovingkindness of the Lord, and his faithfulness, nor how to show them forth, nor his great works and deep thoughts; man was made originally far above the brute creatures, and had them all under his dominion; but, sinning, became like the beasts that perish; and is in Scripture often compared to one or other of them, as the horse, ass, &c. a brutish man is one that only knows things naturally, as brute beasts do, and in which also he corrupts himself; he is governed by sense, and not by reason, and much less by faith, which he has not; one that indulges his sensual appetite, whose god is his belly, and minds nothing but earth and earthly things; and, though he has an immortal soul, has no more care of it, and concern about it, than a beast that has none; he lives like one, without fear or shame; and in some things acts below them, and at last dies, as they do, without any thought of, or regard unto, a future state:

neither doth a fool understand this; what is before said, or else what follows in the next verse, as Jarchi and others interpret it, concerning the end and event of the prosperity of the wicked; Arama interprets it of the Gentiles not knowing this law of the land, the sabbath, and so rejected it: a "fool" is the same with the "brutish" man, one that is so, not in things natural and civil, but in things moral, spiritual, and religious.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

A brutish man knoweth not - A man who is stupid, and who is like the beasts or brutes; that is, a man whose tastes and propensities are like the brutes, or who does not seem to act as if endowed with a rational nature. The idea evidently is, that there are many such people, and that it is not to be wondered at that they have no exalted idea of the greatness of God. As a matter of fact there are many in human form - many made in the image of God - who seem to have no more notion of God, and who see no more wisdom and goodness in his works, than the horse or the ox. Compare Isa 1:3.

Neither doth a fool understand this - A fool, in the sense that he has been made foolish and stupid by sin; that he does not worship and honor God. He has no right understanding in regard to the Maker and the Governor of the universe.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

A brutish man; who cannot or doth not seriously consider things, whose mind is corrupted by his sensual and brutish appetites; who is led by sense, and not by reason and faith.

This; the depth of God’s counsels and works mentioned Psa 92:5, or that particular work of God described Psa 92:7.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 6. A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this. In this and the following verses the effect of the psalm is heightened by contrast; the shadows are thrown in to bring out the lights more prominently. What a stoop from the preceding verse; from the saint to the brute, from the worshipper to the boor, from the psalmist to the fool! Yet, alas, the character described here is no uncommon one. The boorish or boarish man, for such is almost the very Hebrew word, sees nothing in nature; and if it be pointed out to him, his foolish mind will not comprehend it. He may be a philosopher, and yet be such a brutish being that he will not own the existence of a Maker for the ten thousand matchless creations around him, which wear, even upon their surface, the evidences of profound design. The unbelieving heart, let it boast as it will, does not know; and with all its parade of intellect, it does not understand. A man must either be a saint or a brute, he has no other choice; his type must be the adoring seraph, or the ungrateful swine. So far from paying respect to great thinkers who will not own the glory or being of God, we ought to regard them as comparable to the beasts which perish, only vastly lower than mere brutes, because their degrading condition is of their own choosing. O God, how sorrowful a thing it is that men whom thou hast so largely gifted, and made in thine own image, should so brutify themselves that they will neither see nor understand what thou hast made so clear. Well might an eccentric writer say, "God made man a little lower than the angels at first, and he has been trying to get lower ever since."

Ver. 6. Expressively he wrote: "The man brute will not know; the fool will not understand this", viz., that when the wicked spring up with rapid and apparently vigorous growth as the summer flowers in Palestine, it is that they may ripen soon for a swift destruction. The man brute precisely translates the Hebrew words; one whom God has endowed with manhood, but who has debased himself to brutehood; a man as being of God's creation in his own image, but a brute as being self moulded (shall we say self made?) into the image of the baser animals! Henry Cowles.

Ver. 6. A brutish man knoweth not, etc. A sottish sensualist who hath his soul for salt only, to keep his body from putrefying (as we say of swine) he takes no knowledge of God's great works, but grunts and goes his ways, contenting himself with a natural use of the creatures, as beasts do. John Trapp.

Ver. 6. A brutish man knoweth not, etc. That is, he being a beast, and having no sanctified principle of wisdom in him, looks no further than a beast into all the works of God and occurrences of things; looks on all blessings as things provided for man's delight by God; but he extracts seldom holy, spiritual, and useful thoughts out of all, he wants the art of doing it. Thomas Goodwin.

Ver. 6. A brutish man knoweth not. How universally do men strive, by the putrid joys of sense and passion, to destroy the fineness of the sensibilities which God has given them. This mind, which might behold a world of glory in created things, and look through them as through a transparent veil to things infinitely more glorious, signified or contained within the covering, is as dull and heavy as a piece of anthracite coal. Who made it so? Alas, habits of sense and sin have done this. If from childhood the soul had been educated for God, in habits accordant with its spiritual nature, it would be full of life, love, and sensibility, in harmony with all lovely things in the natural world, beholding the spiritual world through the natural, alive to all excitement from natural and intellectual beauty, and as ready to its duty as a child to its play. What a dreadful destruction of the mind's inner sensibilities results from a sensual life! What a decline, decay, and paralysis of its intuitive powers, so that the very existence of such a thing as spiritual intuition, in reference to a spiritual world, may be questioned, if not denied!

A man may be frightfully successful in such a process of destruction if long enough continued, upon his own nature. "Who can read without indignation of Kant", remarks De Quincey, "that at his own table in social sincerity and confidential talk, let him say what he would in his books, he exulted in the prospect of absolute and ultimate annihilation; that he planted his glory in the grave, and was ambitious of rotting for ever! The King of Prussia, though a personal friend of Kant's, found himself obliged to level his State thunders at some of his doctrines, and terrified him in his advance; else I am persuaded that Kant would have formally delivered Atheism from the professor's chair, and would have enthroned the horrid ghoulish creed, which privately he professed, in the University of Königsberg. It required the artillery of a great king to make him pause. The fact is, that as the stomach has been known by means of its natural secretion, to attack not only whatsoever alien body is introduced within it, but also (as John Hunter first showed), sometimes to attack itself and its own organic structure; so, and with the same preternatural extension of instinct, did Kant carry forward his destroying functions, until he turned them upon his own hopes, and the pledges of his own superiority to the dog, the ape, the worm." George B. Cheever, in "Voices of Nature", 1852.

Ver. 6. A fool. The simpleton is an automaton, he is a machine, he is worked by a spring; mere gravity carries him forward, makes him move, makes him turn, and that unceasingly and in the same way, and exactly with the same equable pace: he is uniform, he is never inconsistent with himself; whoever has seen him once, has seen him at all moments, and in all periods of his life; he is like the ox that bellows, or the blackbird which whistles; that which is least visible in him is his soul; it does not act, it is not exercised, it takes its rest. Jean de la Bruyère (1639-1696), quoted by Ramage.

Ver. 6. Neither doth a fool understand this.

He roved among the vales and streams,

In the green wood and hollow dell;

They were his dwellings night and day,

But nature never could find the way

Into the heart of Peter Bell.

In vain, through every changeful year,

Did Nature lead him as before;

A primrose by a river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more.

In vain, through water, earth, and air,

The soul of happy sound was spread,

When Peter on some April morn,

Beneath the broom or budding thorn,

Made the warm earth his lazy bed.

At noon, when by the forest's edge

He lay beneath the branches high,

The soft blue sky did never melt

Into his heart; he never felt

The witchery of the soft blue sky!

There was a hardness in his cheek,

There was a hardness in his eye,

As if the man had fixed his face,

In many a solitary place,

Against the wind and open sky.

W. Wordsworth, 1770-1850.

Psalms 92:7*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. Brutish man—A stupid man. Compared to a brute because he lives to appetite, and enters not into the true reasons of things; not recognising God as creator and ruler. See Psa_49:12; Psa_49:20.

Fool—The word signifies a dull, sluggish person, with the accessory idea of impiety, and answers to “brutish man” in the preceding line. Such men have no perception of the wise and wonderful moral government which is pledged to the certain overthrow of the wicked and the establishment of the righteous.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this. A rude, uncultivated man has no conception of the wonderful depth of God"s thoughts the marvellousness of those counsels which underlie the general scheme of things, and make it what it is. (comp. Rom_11:33, Rom_11:34)

Eyes dimmed to spiritual things.

Two terms are used to describe those who are unable to discern either the greatness of God"s works or the depth of God"s thoughts. "A brutish man." "A fool." The distinction between them seems to be this a "brute" cannot, and a "fool" will not, see spiritual things. But both incapacity and self-willedness are regarded as sins. The brutish man has made himself brutish; and the fool encourages his self-will. The Prayer book Version gives "unwise" for "brutish." But the Hebrew words suggest, for "brutish," the mere animal nature, the man who lives for his appetite; and for "fool," the stupid, inconsiderate man. "In the one case the moral sense has not come into play at all; in the other it is overgrown by sensuality, so that spiritual discernment, insight into the glories of the Divine mind, are impossible.

I IN SOME MEN THE FACULTY OF SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT NEEDS TO BE AROUSED. In a sense this is true of every man. The spiritual faculty is dormant, as is the mental faculty. The educational element has its place in material as well as in spiritual knowledge. Usually, in religious spheres, the spiritual faculty is cultured. But vast masses of humanity, at home and abroad, have little chance of getting beyond the animal stage. The psalmist, however, is evidently thinking of those who voluntarily imprison their thoughts and interests in the things of the flesh and sense. To be a natural brute when we may be a man, is an infinite pity; to be a willing brute when we might be a son of God, is an infinite shame.

II IN SOME MEN THE FACULTY OF SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT NEEDS TO BE DELIVERED. It has been aroused. It has had times of power. But business, pleasure, intellectual pride, material interests, have dimmed it. The man has become a "fool" to his best interests. He has persistently limited his vision to this world, until he has come really to believe that there is no world but this. Press this conclusion: We are responsible for our attitude towards spiritual things; and for our capacity to apprehend spiritual truths. If we pamper the body, we shall be sure to dim the spiritual vision. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A brutish man - Who is led by sense, not by reason and faith. This - The depth of God's counsels and works.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

brutish

animal-like

When the wicked sprout like the grass

This compares evil people to grass, which grows quickly and in many places. AT: "When evil people appear quickly and seem to be everywhere, like grass" (See: Simile)

they are doomed to eternal destruction

This can be translated in active form. AT: "God has decided that he will destroy them completely" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

know

fool

evil

evildoer

doom

eternity

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.