psa 94:0
An appeal to God against oppressors, Psa 94:1-7. Expostulations with the workers of iniquity, Psa 94:8-11. God's merciful dealings with his followers, Psa 94:12-15; and their confidence in him, Psa 94:16-19. The punishment of the wicked foretold, Psa 94:20-23.
This Psalm has no title either in the Hebrew or Chald:ee. The Vulgate, Septuagint, Ethiopic, and Arabic, have "A Psalm of David, for the fourth day of the week;" but this gives us no information on which we can rely. In three of Kennicott's MSS. it is written as a part of the preceding. It is probably a prayer of the captives in Babylon for deliverance; and was written by the descendants of Moses, to whom some of the preceding Psalms have been attributed. It contains a description of an iniquitous and oppressive government, such as that under which the Israelites lived in Babylon. Psalms 94:1
psa 94:0
The Consolation of Prayer under the Oppression of Tyrants
This Psalm, akin to Psa 92:1-15 and Psa 93:1-5 by the community of the anadiplosis, bears the inscription Ψαλμὸς ᾠδῆς τῷ Δαυίδ, τετράδι σαββάτου in the lxx. It is also a Talmudic tradition
(Note: According to B. Erachin 11a, at the time of the Chald:aean destruction of Jerusalem the Levites on their pulpits were singing this 94th Psalm, and as they came to the words "and He turneth back upon them their iniquity" (Psa 94:23), the enemies pressed into the Temple, so that they were not able to sing the closing words, "Jahve, our God, will destroy them." To the scruple that Ps 94 is a Wednesday, not a Sunday, Psalm (that fatal day, however, was a Sunday, מוצאי שׁבת), it is replied, it may have been a lamentation song that had just been put into their mouths by the circumstances of that time (אלייא בעלמא דעלמא דנפל להו בפומייהו).)
that it was the Wednesday song in the Temple liturgy (τετράδι σαββάτου = ברביעי בשׁבת). Athanasius explains it by a reference to the fourth month (Jer 39:2). The τῳ Δαυίδ, however, is worthless. It is a post-Davidic Psalm; for, although it comes out of one mould, we still meet throughout with reminiscences of older Davidic and Asaphic models. The enemies against whom it supplicates the appearing of the God of righteous retribution are, as follows from a comparison of Psa 94:5, Psa 94:8, Psa 94:10, Psa 94:12, non-Israelites, who despise the God of Israel and fear not His vengeance, Psa 94:7; whose barbarous doings, however, call forth, even among the oppressed people themselves, foolish doubts concerning Jahve's omniscient beholding and judicial interposition. Accordingly the Psalm is one of the latest, but not necessarily a Maccabaean Psalm. The later Persian age, in which the Book of Ecclesiastes was written, could also exhibit circumstances and moods such as these. Psalms 94:1