To execute vengeance on the heathen, and punishments on the people;
To execute vengeance on the heathen, and punishments on the people;
To execute vengeance upon the nations, And punishments upon the peoples;
To give the nations the reward of their sins, and the peoples their punishment;
To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;
To execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples;
To execute vengeance upon the nations, and punishments upon the peoples;
To execute vengeance upon the heathen - This may refer simply to their purpose of defending themselves to the uttermost, should their enemies attack them while building their wall: and they had every reason to believe that God would be with them; and that, if their enemies did attack them, they should be able to inflict the severest punishment upon them.
Punishments upon the people - The unfaithful and treacherous Jews; for we find that some, even of their nobles, had joined with Sanballat and Tobiah; (see Nehemiah 6:17-19): and it appears also that many of them had formed alliances with those heathens, which were contrary to the law; see Nehemiah 13:15-29.
To execute vengeance upon the heathen - To inflict punishment upon them as a recompence for their sins. The word pagan here means nations. The allusion is, doubtless, to those who had oppressed and injured the Hebrew people - perhaps referring to those who had destroyed the city and the temple at the time of the Babylonian captivity. They were now to receive the punishment due for the wrongs which they had done to the nation; a just recompence at the hand of God, and by the instrumentality of those whom they had wronged. Compare the notes at Psalm 137:7-9.
And punishments upon the people - The people of those lands. Those who had waged war with the Hebrew nation.
149:7 Vengeance — For all their cruelties and injuries towards God's people. This was literally accomplished by David upon the Philistines, Ammonites, Syrians and other neighbouring nations.