Ps. 58.10-11 (the judges are judged)

The righteous / will rejoice / because they see / their vindication
the will / wash their feet / in the blood / of the wicked.
People will say:
Surely / there is a reward (fruit) / for the righteous
surely / there is a god / who judges on earth. 

This final section follows the destructive curses leveled against the evil judges. As we saw in our last reflection, the curses were aimed primarily at rooting out, completely, all traces of the wicked judges so that justice might again take place and be performed within the community. Every verse pointed to this total destruction: “smash their teeth”, “break off their lion-fangs”, “…drain away like water…”, “like an aborted fetus…”, “swept away alive as in a storm”. And, as we also saw, because these are public figures and exploited their public power, their effect in the public realm must also be cleansed by way of public condemnation and humiliation. This is no private judgment. A judge is, by definition, one who effects the justice within the community and is, therefore, a public figure. When their destruction comes, then, it will be in the full view of the public arena. This is where our verse now picks up with the rejoicing of the righteous. It will be a public affair: “they will see their vindication”. And, their cleansing from the perverted form of justice, will be through the blood of the wicked. In other words, they will be cleansed through the destruction of the wicked. And, whereas the wicked perverted justice in order to “make a way for the violence of their hands”, now the righteous will “wash their feet in the blood of the wicked”. The righteous will now walk, with cleansed feet, in the righteous ‘way’ (rather than the ‘way’ of violence of the wicked). That is the rejoicing of the righteous at their vindication. This vindication, however, is extends even further into the public sphere—it becomes a light to the “peoples” who, in almost a liturgical-repetitive way declare, “Surely…..; surely…”. Their first declaration is about what God has done for the righteous: given them fruit (a reward). The second is crucial—after the destruction of the false judges who had arrogated to themselves the divine mission of dispensing justice, God himself is now seen to be the one “who judges on earth”. This is subtle—the opening lines refers to the judges as “Mighty Ones” and it seems the psalmist could be referring to divine figures that have been appointed to rule over the peoples. The point, though, is that the human judges are acting in and through the power of these ‘divine figures’ in order to mediate justice to the world; they are participating within that rule. However, as we saw, they are falsely arrogating to themselves this divine power and using for their own ends. Here, at the end, that ability to intercept the divine mission and twist it for their own purposes is destroyed in that God himself is now revealed to be one who judges not “in heaven” but “on earth” through his ‘casting down’ of the false judges. The judges have been judged.