Psalms 109:10-20

10 Turn his children into begging street urchins, evicted from their homes - homeless.

11 May the bank foreclose and wipe him out, and strangers, like vultures, pick him clean.

12 May there be no one around to help him out, no one willing to give his orphans a break.

13 Chop down his family tree so that nobody even remembers his name.

14 But erect a memorial to the sin of his father, and make sure his mother's name is there, too -

15 Their sins recorded forever before God, but they themselves sunk in oblivion.

16 That's all he deserves since he was never once kind, hounded the afflicted and heartbroken to their graves.

17 Since he loved cursing so much, let curses rain down; Since he had no taste for blessing, let blessings flee far from him.

18 He dressed up in curses like a fine suit of clothes; he drank curses, took his baths in curses.

19 So give him a gift - a costume of curses; he can wear curses every day of the week!

20 That's what they'll get, those out to get me - an avalanche of just deserts from God.

Psalms 109:10-20 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.