LORD, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.
How is this verse, and many others like it, to be understood? Certainly the foremost desire of the psalmist is for the LORD to step into our world and shake things up, bringing justice for all who are in such desperate need of it.
But when the LORD actually steps into our world, rather than executing justice on the oppressors, he becomes one of the oppressed.
