Psalms 41:9

Yea, mine own familiar friend,.... Or, "the man of my peace" (z); who did live peaceably with him, and ought always to have done so; whom he treated as his friend, as the rest of the apostles;

Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

Mine own familiar friend; he means either Ahithophel, or some other perfidious counsellor or courtier, who was a type of Judas, to whom therefore it is applied, , as David was a type of Christ in being thus betrayed. So these words were literally fulfilled in David, and yet the Holy Ghost, which dictated them, looked further in them, even to Christ and Judas, in whom they received a further and fuller accomplishment. Hath lifted up his heel; a phrase implying injury, joined with insolency and contempt; taken from an unruly horse, which kicks at him that owns and feeds him.

Psalms 41:9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up [his] heel against me.Ver. 9. Yea, mine own familiar friend] Heb. the man of my peace. This was a great cut to David, τιγαρμειζονελκοςηφιλοςαδικων, saith Sophocles. What greater wound can there be than a treacherous friend? such as was Ahithophel to David, Judas to our Saviour, Brutus to Julius Caesar (who was slain in the Senate house with three and twenty wounds, given for most part by them whose lives he had preserved), Magnentius to Constans, the emperor, who had formerly saved his life from the soldiers’ fury; Michael Balbus to the Emperor Leo Armenius, whom he slew the same night that he had pardoned and released him. This evil dealing made Socrates cry out, φιλοιουδειςφιλος, Friends, there is hardly a friend to be found; and Queen Elizabeth complain, that in trust she had found treason; and King Antigonus pray to God to preserve him from his friends; and King Alphonsus to complain of the ingratitude of his favourites. In whom I trusted] So did not our Saviour in Judas, for he knew him better than so, and therefore this clause is left out, John 13:18, where he applieth this saying to himself. Jerome and some others apply the whole psalm to Christ, and for that end they render these words actively, Cui credidi, to whom I intrusted or committed my ministry. Who did eat of my bread] My fellow commoner, with whom I had eaten little less than a bushel of salt. A man’ s enemies are many times those of his own house, the birds of his own bosom. Judas dipped in the same dish with Jesus, betrayed him with a kiss. Caveatur osculum Iscarioticum. Beware the kisses of Judas. Hath lift up his heel against me] Heb. Hath magnified the heel, or the foot sole, sc. to supplant me, or to trample upon me, or to spurn against me. Metaphora ab equis calcitronibus, saith Vatablus, a metaphor from unruly and refractory horses. See Judges 15:8. It importeth contempt, despite, and cruelty.

(9) Hath lifted up his heel.—See margin. The meaning is, possibly, kicked violently at me. But Böttcher’s conjecture is valuable, “has magnified his fraud against me,” which is supported by the LXX. and Vulg., “has magnified his supplanting of me.” (For the quotation of this verse in John 13:18, see New Testament Commentary.) The rights of Oriental hospitality must be remembered, to bring out all the blackness of the treachery here described. The expressive Hebrew idiom, “man of my peace,” is retained in the margin. Possibly (see Note, Obadiah 1:7) the second clause recalls another idiom, “man of my bread.”

Verse 9. Mine own familiar friend] This is either a direct prophecy of the treachery of Judas, or it is a fact in David's distresses which our Lord found so similar to the falsity of his treacherous disciple, that he applies it to him, John 13:18. What we translate mine own familiar friend, איש שלומי ish shelomi, is the man of my peace. The man who, with the שלום לך shalom lecha, peace be to thee! kissed me; and thus gave the agreed-on signal to my murderers that I was the person whom they should seize, hold fast, and carry away. Did eat of my bread] Was an inmate in my house. Applied by our Lord to Judas, when eating with him out of the same dish. See John 13:18; John 13:26. Possibly it may refer to Ahithophel, his counsellor, the man of his peace, his prime minister; who, we know, was the strength of Absalom's conspiracy.

9. mine own familiar friend] Lit. the man of my peace. Cp. Psalms 7:4; Jeremiah 20:10; Jeremiah 38:22; Obadiah 1:7; and the similar complaints of ingratitude in Psalms 35:12 ff., Psalms 55:12 ff. (where the Heb. for familiar friend is quite different). which did eat of my bread] Bound to me by the tie of hospitality; and, if the speaker is David, by the honour of entertainment at the royal table. Cp. 2 Samuel 9:10 ff.; 1 Kings 18:19; 2 Kings 25:29. hath lift up his heel against me] Lit. made great the heel: spurned me with brutal violence, exerted himself to trip me up and throw me down. Cp. Psalms 55:12; Jeremiah 9:4. The words ‘he that eateth my bread lifted up his heel against me’ are quoted by Christ in John 13:18 as fulfilled by the treachery of Judas. The words of the Psalm are not a direct prediction, but the treachery and the fate of Ahithophel foreshadowed the treachery and the fate of Judas. What saints of old time had suffered by the desertion of friends must be suffered with an aggravated bitterness by the Son of Man. Their experience must be fulfilled in His. Cp. John 17:12; Acts 1:16. See Introd. p. lxxix.

Yea, mine own familiar friend - Margin, as in Hebrew: “the man of my peace.” The man with whom I was at peace; who had no cause of alienation from me; with whom I was associated in the most peaceful and friendly relations.

9. Yea—âí, (gam,) here takes the sense of also, moreover, even, as giving an accession to what had already been said.