The Lord is righteous - Righteous in permitting this; righteous in what he has done, and will do, in the treatment of those who inflict such wrongs. We may now safely commit our cause to him in view of what he has done in the past. He was not indifferent then to our sufferings, or deaf to the eries of his people; he interposed and punished the oppressors of his people, and we may trust him still.

He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked - By which they bound us. He did this in our "youth;" when we were oppressed and beaten in Egypt. Then he interposed, and set us free.

The Lord - hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked - The words have been applied to the sufferings of Christ; but I know not on what authority. No such scourging could take place in his case, as would justify the expression: -

"The ploughers made long furrows there,

Till all his body was one wound."

It is not likely that he received more than thirty-nine stripes. The last line is an unwarranted assertion.

The Lord is righteous,.... Or gracious and merciful; hence acts of mercy are called righteousness in the Hebrew language; the Lord has compassion on his people under their afflictions, and delivers them; or is faithful to his promises of salvation to them, and just and righteous to render tribulation to them that trouble them, and take vengeance upon them;

he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked: alluding to the cords with which the plough is fastened to the oxen, which being cut, they cannot go on ploughing; or to the cords of whips, which when, cut cannot be used to any purpose: it designs the breaking of the confederacies of wicked men against the people of God; the confounding their counsels and schemes, and disappointing their devices; so that they cannot perform their enterprises, or carry their designs into execution, or go on with and finish their intentions. The Targum renders it,

"the chains of the wicked;''

see Isaiah 5:18.

The LORD is {b} righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.

(b) Because God is righteous, he cannot but plague his adversary, and deliver his as oxen out of the plough.

129:4 Righteous - Faithful or merciful. The cords - Wherewith the plow was drawn. By these cords he understands all their plots and endeavours.

4. the cords-that is, which fasten the plough to the ox; and cutting denotes God's arresting the persecution;

129:1-4 The enemies of God's people have very barbarously endeavoured to wear out the saints of the Most High. But the church has been always graciously delivered. Christ has built his church upon a rock. And the Lord has many ways of disabling wicked men from doing the mischief they design against his church. The Lord is righteous in not suffering Israel to be ruined; he has promised to preserve a people to himself.