Psalm 109:21-27

21 But You, O God the Lord, Deal with me for Your name's sake; Because Your mercy is good, deliver me.

22 For I am poor and needy, And my heart is wounded within me.

23 I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like a locust.

24 My knees are weak through fasting, And my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness.

25 I also have become a reproach to them; When they look at me, they shake their heads.

26 Help me, O Lord my God! Oh, save me according to Your mercy,

27 That they may know that this is Your hand-- That You, Lord, have done it!

Psalm 109:21-27 Meaning and Commentary

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. This psalm was written by David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, concerning Judas the betrayer of Christ, as is certain from Acts 1:16 hence it is used to be called by the ancients the Iscariotic psalm. Whether the occasion of it was the rebellion of Absalom, as some, or the persecution of Saul, as Kimchi; and whoever David might have in view particularly, whether Ahithophel, or Doeg the Edomite, as is most likely; yet it is evident that the Holy Ghost foresaw the sin of Judas, and prophesies of that, and of the ruin and misery that should come upon him; for the imprecations in this psalm are no other than predictions of future events, and so are not to be drawn into an example by men; nor do they breathe out anything contrary to the spirit of Christianity, but are proofs of it, since what is here predicted has been exactly accomplished. The title in the Syriac version is, "a psalm of David when they created Absalom king without his knowledge, and for this cause he was slain; but to us it expounds the sufferings of the Christ of God;" and indeed he is the person that is all along speaking in this psalm.