Therefore I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like a flash of lightning.
And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth - The “judgments” here are the acts of justice executed upon a man; the “judgment upon him,” as we say. God had done all which could be done, to lay aside the severity of His own judgments. All had failed. Then His judgments, when they came, would be manifestly just; their justice clear “as the light which goeth forth” out of the darkness of night, or out of the thick clouds. God’s past loving-kindness, His pains, (so to speak,) His solicitations, the drawings of His grace, the tender mercies of His austere chastisements, will, in the Day of Judgment, stand out clear as the light, and leave the sinner confounded, without excuse. In this life, also, God’s final “judgments are as a light which goeth forth,” enlightening, not the sinner who perishes, but others, heretofore in the darkness of ignorance, on whom they burst with a sudden blaze of light, and who reverence them, owning that “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” Psalms 19:9.