Psalms 109:9-19

9 Let his sons be fatherless, and his wife a widow;

10 Let his sons be vagabonds and beg, and let them seek [their bread] far from their desolate places;

11 Let the usurer cast the net over all that he hath, and let strangers despoil his labour;

12 Let there be none to extend kindness unto him, neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children;

13 Let his posterity be cut off; in the generation following let their name be blotted out:

14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with Jehovah, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out;

15 Let them be before Jehovah continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth:

16 Because he remembered not to shew kindness, but persecuted the afflicted and needy man, and the broken in heart, to slay him.

17 And he loved cursing; so let it come unto him. And he delighted not in blessing; and let it be far from him.

18 And he clothed himself with cursing like his vestment; so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones;

19 Let it be unto him as a garment with which he covereth himself, and for a girdle wherewith he is constantly girded.

Psalms 109:9-19 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]. Or 'ruins:' so Ps. 102.6: 'waste,' Lev. 26.31,33.
• [b]. Or 'continue mercy,' chesed.
• [c]. Or 'And let him clothe.'