Psalms 146:9
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
The LORD preserves the strangers; he relieves the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
American King James Version (AKJV)
The LORD preserves the strangers; he relieves the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Jehovah preserveth the sojourners; He upholdeth the fatherless and widow; But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
The Lord takes care of those who are in a strange land; he gives help to the widow and to the child who has no father; but he sends destruction on the way of sinners.
Webster's Revision
The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
World English Bible
Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
English Revised Version (ERV)
The LORD preserveth the strangers; he upholdeth the fatherless and widow; but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
Clarke's Psalms 146:9 Bible Commentary
Preserveth the strangers - He has preserved you strangers in a strange land, where you have been in captivity for seventy years; and though in an enemy's country, he has provided for the widows and orphans as amply as if he had been in the promised land.
The way of the wicked he turneth upside down - He subverts, turns aside. They shall not do all the wickedness they wish; they shall not do all that is in their power. In their career he will either stop them, turn them aside, or overturn them.
Barnes's Psalms 146:9 Bible Commentary
The Lord preserveth the strangers - He regards them with interest; he defends and guides them. This is the ninth reason why those who trust in the Lord are happy. The stranger - away from home and friends; with no one to feel an interest in him or sympathy for him; with the feeling that he is forsaken; with no one on whom he can call for sympathy in distress - may find in God one who will regard his condition; who will sympathize with him; who is able to protect and befriend him. Compare Exodus 12:49; Exodus 22:21; Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33; Deuteronomy 1:16; Deuteronomy 10:18-19; Isaiah 56:3, Isaiah 56:6.
He relieveth the fatherless and widow - He is their friend. This is the tenth reason why those who put their trust in the Lord are happy. It is that God is the Friend of those who have no earthly protector. See the notes at Psalm 68:5 : "A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation."
But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down - He overturns their plans; defeats their schemes; makes their purposes accomplish what they did not intend they should accomplish. The Hebrew word here means to bend, to curve, to make crooked, to distort; then, to overturn, to turn upside down. The same word is applied to the conduct of the wicked, in Psalm 119:78 : "They dealt perversely with me." The idea here is, that their path is not a straight path; that God makes it a crooked way; that they are diverted from their design; that through them he accomplishes purposes which they did not intend; that he prevents their accomplishing their own designs; and that he will make their plans subservient to a higher and better purpose than their own. This is the eleventh reason why those who put their trust in God are happy. It is that God is worthy of confidence and love, because he has all the plans of wicked men entirely under his control.
