Psalms 9:5

“Thou hast rebuked the Heathen, etc.] The people of the Philistines, as the Targum and Kimchi explain it, though some Jewish writers f151 understand it of Amalek the chief of the Heathen nations; but it rather refers to Gospel times, and to the rebukes of the Heathen, by the preaching of the Gospel, for their idolatry and superstition; and especially to the latter day, and to the rebukes of the antichristian states, the Papists who are called Gentiles; which will be with flames of fire, and will issue in their utter extirpation, upon which a profound peace and prosperity will succeed in the Christian churches, according to (<230204>Isaiah 2:4); which is a prophecy of those times; thou hast…”

“Thou hast rebuked the heathen - Not the pagan in general, or the nations at large, but those who are particularly referred to in this psalm - those who are described as the enemies of the writer and of God. On the word rendered “heathen” here - גוים gôyim - see the notes at Psalms 2:1. The word rebuke here does not mean, as it does usually with us, to chide with words, but it means that he had done this by deeds; that is, by overcoming or vanquishing them. The reference is, undoubtedly, to some of those nations with whom the writer had been at war, and who were the enemies of himself and of God, and to some signal act of the divine interposition by which they had been overcome, or in which…”

“9:5 God created the heavens and the earth with a word (Gen 1), and he can bring nations to an end with a word (see Ps 2:5). Evil and those who do evil will come to an absolute end (69:28; 109:13; Rev 21:4).”

“rebuked: Psa 2:1, Psa 2:8, Psa 2:9, Psa 78:55, Psa 79:10, Psa 149:7; Sa1 17:45-51; Sa2 5:6-16, Sa2 8:1-15; Sa2 10:6-9, Sa2 21:15-22, Sa2 22:44-46; Rev 19:15 destroyed: Psa 5:6; Sa1 25:32, Sa1 31:4; Sa2 17:23; Mal 4:3 put out: Deu 9:14; Pro 10:7, Pro 13:9 Psalms 9:6”

“(Heb.: 9:6-7) The strophe with ג, which is perhaps intended to represent ד and ה as well, continues the confirmation of the cause for thanksgiving laid down in Psa 9:4. He does not celebrate the judicial act of God on his behalf, which he has just experienced, alone, but in connection with, and, as it were, as the sum of many others which have preceded it. If this is the case, then in Psa 9:6 beside the Ammonites one may at the same time (with Hengstenb.) think of the Amalekites ( Sa1 8:12), who had been threatened since the time of Moses with a "blotting out of their remembrance" ( Exo 17:14; Deu 25:19, cf. Num 24:20). The divine threatening is the word of omnipotence which destroys in…”