Psalms 109:1-19

Prayer against an Enemy

1

For the choir director. A Davidic psalm.

1 God of my praise, do not be silent.

2 For wicked and deceitful mouths open against me; they speak against me with lying tongues.

3 They surround me with hateful words and attack me without cause.^[a]

4 In return for my love they accuse me, but I continue to pray.^[b]

5 They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my love.^[c]

6 Set a wicked person over him; let an accuser^[d] stand at his right hand.^[e]

7 When he is judged, let him be found guilty, and let his prayer be counted as sin.

8 Let his days be few; let another take over his position.^[f]

9 Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

10 Let his children wander as beggars, searching [for food] far^[g] from their demolished homes.

11 Let a creditor seize all he has; let strangers plunder what he has worked for.

12 Let no one show him kindness, and let no one be gracious to his fatherless children.

13 Let the line of his descendants be cut off; let their name be blotted out in the next generation.^[h]

14 Let his forefathers' guilt be remembered before the Lord,^[i] and do not let his mother's sin be blotted out.

15 Let their sins^[j] always remain before the Lord, and let Him cut off [all] memory of them from the earth.

16 For he did not think to show kindness, but pursued the wretched poor and the brokenhearted in order to put them to death.

17 He loved cursing-let it fall on him; he took no delight in blessing-let it be far from him.

18 He wore cursing like his coat- let it enter his body like water and go into his bones like oil.

19 Let it be like a robe he wraps around himself, like a belt he always wears.

Psalms 109:1-19 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Ps 35:7; 69:4; Jn 15:25
• [b]. Lit but I, prayer
• [c]. Ps 35:11-13; 38:20; Pr 17:13
• [d]. Or adversary
• [e]. Zch 3:1
• [f]. Ac 1:20
• [g]. LXX reads beggars, driven far
• [h]. Jb 18:17,19; Pr 10:7
• [i]. Ex 34:7
• [j]. Lit Let them