Imagine a courtroom. On one side, stands an arrogant defendant. His face is calm, confident that power and cunning will protect him. On the other side, there are the victims: a widow who has lost her life support, an orphan who has lost her voice, or an immigrant who has lost his footing. Witnesses choose to remain silent out of fear, evidence is manipulated by powerful hands, and the truth seems to be trapped behind the curtain of legal procedures.

In such a courtroom, there is a bitter whisper from the heart of the victim, "Is justice dead?" This image is very close to the psalmist's complaint in Psalm 94. He sees the wicked doing evil and boasting, "crushing" the people of the LORD, slaughtering widows and strangers, and killing orphans (verse 4 & 6). They arrogantly said, "The LORD has not seen it, the God of Jacob has not heeded it" (verse 7). This psalm is not just a lament, but a moral challenge to a world order that allows evil to grow and human conscience to freeze.

Psalm 94 occupies a privileged position in the pantheon of royal psalms (Psalms 93 & 100). In the midst of singing about the glory of God as King, this psalm acts like a mirror reflecting the face of a world corrupted by pride and abuse of power. Verse 1 & 7 depicts moral darkness: justice is silenced, laws are used as tools of oppression, and evildoers feel safe because they are invisible. But in verse 8 & 11, the psalmist affirms that God is not blind and deaf to human suffering, "He who inclines the ear does not hear? He who forms the eyes does not see?

God is portrayed as a Judge of integrity, who not only judges with law, but also with knowledge and love that penetrates the depths of the human heart. This psalm affirms that behind the silence of history, there is a divine reality that remains on the side of truth and upholds justice with restorative love.

This psalm echoes the awareness of the lex superior, the law that is higher than any man-made rule. When the psalmist offends those who "devise disaster by ordinance" (verse 20), he is revealing the dangers of legalism without morality. Laws bereft of justice are no longer protectors of life, but masks for oppression.

This is where God emerges as the true Judge, He is not only just in verdict, but also merciful in action. Divine justice is not motivated by vengeance, but rather by the will to restore the moral balance of the world. As Martin Buber said, true relationship is always "I – Thou ’, not "I – That ’, and God in this Psalm is present as the "Thou ’ who hears, accompanies, and acts on behalf of the oppressed."

Friends of the Bible, today's psalm reminds us that true justice is only possible when it goes hand in hand with love. In a world that often exchanges truth for gain, we are called to emulate the Judge who cannot be bribed. To be people who are firm without losing empathy, and loving without turning a blind eye to evil.

The faith is not an escape from reality, but rather the courage to believe in and realize a higher order, where law meets love, and justice becomes the visible face of God's mercy in the world. When human laws fail to uphold righteousness, faith gives us hope: that the Judge of integrity and compassion will rise, hear the cry of the oppressed, and dispense justice that can no longer be falsified.