Psalm 140:10

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 10. Let burning coals fall upon them, etc. The Psalmist seems here to allude to the destruction of the Sodomites. In these imprecations he considered his enemies as the enemies of God, rather than as his own; and lie thus cursed them, as knowing, in the quality of a prophet, that God himself had cursed them: and therefore these sorts of imprecations do not authorize other persons to curse their enemies. --Thomas Fenton.

Verse 10. Let burning coals full upon them, etc. An imprecation which (with the similar previous one, Psalms 9:6 , etc.) is a prophecy; and one which, while it has had no fulfilment in the case of David's enemies, or any persecutors of the church in times past, brings again vividly before the mind the fiery judgment of the Lord's coming, and the awful sentence already pronounced against "the beast and false prophet", the leaders of the confederation of the kings of the earth and their armies, then "gathered together to make war against him" -- "these were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone": Revelation 19:19-20 . So before, Psalms 55:15 63:9. --William De Burgh.