Psalms 109

i. The Psalmist appeals for help against a gang of merciless enemies, who are endeavouring to effect his ruin by false accusations or treacherous slanders. Their hostility is not merely causeless: it is a deliberate return of evil for good, of hate for love (Psalms 109:1-5). ii. Singling out the leader of his persecutors the Psalmist invokes upon him and all that belong to him the retribution which his inhuman conduct deserves. May he be tried and found guilty! May he be degraded from his office and die a premature death! May his children be impoverished and his name speedily become extinct! May all the sins of his ancestors be remembered against him! Because he has deliberately been merciless to the poor and weak, and chosen not to benefit but to injure his neighbour, let him find no mercy or blessing at the hands of God (Psalms 109:6-20). iii. Then, changing his tone, the Psalmist prays once more for help, pleading the pitiableness of his own plight (Psalms 109:21-25); and his prayer rises into a confident anticipation of ultimate deliverance, and consequent thanksgiving to Jehovah the champion of the poor and needy (Psalms 109:26-31). Thus the Psalm consists of six stanzas, each of five verses, except the last, which contains six, and falls into three divisions. Commentators who maintain the Davidic authorship, have supposed it to refer to Doeg, or Ahithophel, or Shimei. But there is nothing in the Psalm to indicate that its author was ever in a position of authority: rather he seems to belong to the class of the poor and oppressed, and to be the victim of a conspiracy of unscrupulous neighbours. Some features in the language point to a late date, and apparently there are allusions to the Book of Job, and to late Psalms, e.g. Psalms 102. Most probably it belongs to the post-exilic period. It has been held by some that the Psalm is not personal but national; that the speaker is Israel, persecuted and oppressed by scornful and malignant enemies. Others have supposed that the Psalmist writes as the representative of the poor and oppressed classes, and that the enemy whom he denounces is no particular individual, but the typical persecutor of the poor. But alike in its denunciations and in its complaints and in its prayers the Psalm has a personal ring; it is a cry of suffering wrung out by actual circumstances. What those circumstances were we can only conjecture. Possibly the enemy whom he singles out had been the head of a conspiracy to ruin him and his family by false charges and perversion of justice. Such a situation may be indicated by the language of Psa 109:2-3 (cp.

Psalms 109:31), and it would give special point to the form of retribution which the Psalmist invokes in Psalms 109:6 ff. His enemies were evidently of his own countrymen, and the chief enemy was a man of some position (Psalms 109:8). Was he some noble whom the judge would be ready to gratify, or even the judge himself? Cp. Micah 7:3. The narrative in Nehemiah 5 shews that national suffering had not taught the wealthier and more powerful members of the community of the Return to exercise consideration towards their poorer brethren.

Possibly, though less probably, the Psalmist’s enemies were men who had been attempting to ruin him by slander and calumny, such as almost proved fatal to Jesus the son of Sirach (Sir 51:1-10). The Psalm has much in common with Psalms 35, 69. The complaints of the causelessness of the hostility of his enemies resemble those in Psalms 35:11 ff.: the imprecations recall those of Psa 69:22 ff., but they are more terrible in their detail, and they startle and shock the Christian reader the more because they are levelled not at the guilty man himself alone, but at all his kith and kin. The moral difficulty of the Imprecatory Psalms has been discussed generally in the Introduction, pp. lxxxviii ff. We shall not attempt to justify them. They are the very opposite of the spirit of the Gospel (Matthew 5:43 ff.). But we must endeavour to understand them. They are the expression of the spirit of a dispensation, in which retribution was a fundamental principle. It is the desire for retribution, above all for retribution for gratuitous malice, which finds such passionate expression here. “As he hath done, so shall it be done to him” was the sentence of the Law (Leviticus 24:19). “Let me see thy vengeance on them” is the prayer of the persecuted prophet (Jeremiah 11:20). “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house” was the maxim of the Wise men in Israel (Proverbs 17:13). ‘Let it be so in the case of my enemy’ is the sum and substance of the Psalmist’s prayer. ‘My enemies have rewarded me evil for good, and plotted to ruin me.

Let the evil they have been devising recoil upon the head of the author of the plot. I am innocent; he is guilty: the fate which he would unjustly have assigned to me will justly be his.’ Again, the Psalmist is Jehovah’s servant (Psalms 109:28); his cause is Jehovah’s cause; if he perishes, Jehovah’s honour will suffer (Psalms 109:21); and his deliverance seems inevitably to involve the destruction of his implacable enemies. Let it be remembered too that we are dealing with poetry, and with the language of burning indignation kindled by cruel wrong. The ruin which the Psalmist imprecates upon the wicked man is doubtless that which he conceives the wicked man had designed to inflict on him. But there is another side to the Psalmist’s character. He is capable of the tenderest love and deepest devotion. He would rather love than hate, rather bless than curse. In this respect the Psalm presents a striking contrast to the Fourth Psalm of Solomon, “Against the men-pleasers,” which has been quoted as a parallel. That Psalm is a Pharisaic attack upon the Sadducees, and breathes a spirit of rancorous and bitter religious hatred. Comp. Psalms 109:16-25 in Ryle and James’ translation. “Let dishonour be his portion, O Lord, in thy sight; Let his going out be with groaning, and his coming in with a curse; Let his life, O Lord, be spent in pain, in poverty and want: Let his sleep be in anguish and his awaking in perplexities. Let sleep be withdrawn from his eyelids in the night-season; Let him miscarry with dishonour in every work of his hands; Let him enter his house empty-handed; And let his house lack everything wherewith he can satisfy his desire. Let his old age be childless and solitary until the time of his being taken away. Let the flesh of the men-pleasers be torn in pieces by the beasts of the field, And the bones of transgressors lie dishonoured in the sight of the sun. Let ravens peck out the eyes of the men that work hypocrisy, Because they have made desolate with dishonour many men’s houses, and scattered them in their lust; And remembered not God, nor feared God in all these things; And provoked God to anger and vexed him; That he should cut them off from the earth, because with craftiness they beguiled the souls of the innocent.” It has been maintained by some commentators that in this Psalm, as in Psalms 69, the imprecations are not the imprecations of the Psalmist upon his enemies, but those of his enemies upon him, which he quotes. We are to supply saying at the end of Psa 109:5, and to explain Psalms 109:20 to mean, ‘This is mine adversaries’ award unto me; this is the sentence that they would procure against me from Jehovah.’ This view has been advocated by Dr Taylor (Gospel in the Law, pp. 244 ff.), and more recently by Dr Sharpe (Student’s Handbook to the Psalms, pp. 218 ff.). At first sight it is attractive. It accounts for the sudden change of tone and for the transition from the plural to the singular in Psalms 109:6 ff. It removes the moral difficulty. But it must be acknowledged that it is a somewhat strained and artificial interpretation.

The sudden changes of feeling, and the abrupt transition from the plural to the singular, marking out one of the band of enemies as their leader and representative, find a complete parallel in Psalms 55. If the moral difficulty were removed in this particular case, it would still remain in other Psalms; and in fact the denunciations are not more terrible than those of Jeremiah against his persecutors (see Jeremiah 11:18 ff; Jeremiah 15:15 ff; Jeremiah 17:18; Jeremiah 18:19 ff; Jeremiah 20:11 ff.); while the combination of fierce emotion with elegiac tenderness finds a complete analogy in the character of that martyr-prophet.

Psalms 109:1-5

1–5. The Psalmist appeals to God to interpose and defend him from his persecutors, whose hostility is not only causeless, but aggravated by gross ingratitude.

Psalms 109:2

2. For a wicked man’s mouth, yea a mouth of deceit, have they opened against me: They have spoken with me with a tongue of falsehood. It would be easy to smooth the style of the first line by reading ‘a mouth of wickedness’ for ‘a wicked man’s mouth’; it is only a question of vowel points in the Heb.: but the Versions support the reading of the Massoretic text, and it points at once to the leader of the gang, who has been set on by his fellows to compass the Psalmist’s ruin. The phrase they have spoken with me (R.V. to me, marg. against me) seems to be used in a forensic sense as in Psalms 127:5. His enemies—there is no need to explain to God who are meant by ‘they’—are scheming to effect his ruin by groundless charges supported by false witness. The word for falsehood is that used in Exodus 20:16, and frequently in Proverbs (Proverbs 6:19, &c.) of false witness.

Psalms 109:3

3. Yea, with words of hatred have they surrounded me, And fought against me without cause. Cp. Psalms 35:7; Psalms 35:19-20; Psalms 69:4; Proverbs 1:11. “Come and let us smite him with the tongue” was the cry of Jeremiah’s opponents (Jeremiah 18:18). “Denounce, yea, let us denounce him” (Jeremiah 20:10).

Psalms 109:4

4. In return for my love they behave as adversaries unto me, Though I (gave myself unto) prayer. Their hostility is not merely gratuitous (Psalms 109:3); it is an actual return of evil for good. The Heb. word for ‘adversaries’ is characteristic of this Psalms , vv20, 29; cp. Psalms 109:6 : elsewhere in the Psalter only in Psalms 38:20; Psalms 71:13. It may mean not ‘enemies’ in general, but ‘accusers,’ opponents in a court of law. For the forcible idiom I (was) prayer cp. Psalms 120:7, “I am peace”; Psalms 110:3, “Thy people are freewill offerings.” The A.V., But I give myself unto prayer, retained in R.V., takes the meaning to be that in his need he commits his cause to God (cp.

Psalms 69:13). But the parallel passage in Psalms 35:13 is decidedly in favour of supposing that his prayers for them in past times are meant, and this explanation suits the context best. To these prayers he refers as the proof of his love, the good for which they are now (Psalms 109:5) requiting him with evil.

Psalms 109:5

5. they have rewarded me &c.] Lit. they have laid evil upon me in return for good. Cp. Psalms 35:12; Psalms 38:20; Jeremiah 18:20.

Psalms 109:6-20

6–20. The thought of the enormity of this ingratitude overmasters the Psalmist. He breaks out suddenly into a passionate prayer that due retribution may fall upon the chief offender. May the ruin he was planning for another overtake himself! The singular (‘over him’ &c.), which now takes the place of the plural, may be collective, the Psalmist’s enemies being regarded as a whole; or distributive, each one of the mass being singled out: but more probably it fastens upon the leader of the gang (Psalms 109:2) upon whom rests the real guilt. Cp. for the sudden transition Psalms 55:12 ff., Psalms 55:20 ff.

Psalms 109:7

7. When he is Judged, he shall come out guilty] Lit. wicked: he will be shewn to be what he is and condemned accordingly. Cp. Psalms 37:33. and his prayer shall be held as a sin] This cannot mean that his plea to the judge or to his accuser (Matthew 18:26) will be regarded as an aggravation of his offence, for the word for prayer is never used of requests made to men; but that when he cries to God for help, his prayer will only be regarded as a sin and find no hearing. Terrible as this statement is, it is only in accord with the teaching of many other passages. See Psalms 66:18 ff.; Proverbs 1:28 ff; Proverbs 15:8; Proverbs 21:27; Proverbs 28:9; Isaiah 1:15. A prayer, wrung from the wicked man in his extremity, and prompted by no true penitence, would only be an appeal to God to take the part of the wicked, to the confusion of the moral order of the world. The Versions and commentators generally ignore the fact that the verb in the second line is not in the optative (jussive) form let it be held, but a simple future (imperfect), it shall be held: and presumably the verb in the first line is also to be translated as a future not an optative, though in this case no distinctive form exists.

Psalms 109:8

8. Let his life come prematurely to an end (Psalms 37:35-36; Psalms 55:23), and let another man succeed him in his post of authority: or perhaps, let his life be short and withal dishonoured by degradation from his office. Cp. Isaiah 22:19 ff. The rendering let another take his store is less probable. The second clause is quoted together with Psalms 69:25 in Acts 1:20. Judas was the antitype of the man who requited love with treachery, and the words of Scripture are appealed to as a solemn sanction for filling up his office by the election of another Apostle.

Psalms 109:9-10

9, 10. The curse of his misdeeds falls even upon his wife and children. This is the climax of awfulness in the imprecation. But a man’s family was regarded as part of himself; his punishment was not complete unless they were included in it; and for full retribution they must share his ruin, for doubtless, this man’s schemes, if successful, would have involved the ruin of the Psalmist’s family. See Introd. p. xcii.

Psalms 109:10

10. let them seek &c.] And seek (their bread) far from their ruined home. Let the wicked man’s home become a ruin, and his children have to get their living away from it. The LXX however points to the reading, and let them be driven out of their ruined home.

Psalms 109:11

11. Let a creditor ensnare all that he hath, And let foreigners plunder his labour. Ensnare is a graphic word for the wily schemes by which an unscrupulous creditor or usurious money-lender would contrive to get possession of all a man’s property. For examples of the destitution to which Israelites were sometimes brought by creditors see 2 Kings 4:1 ff.; Nehemiah 5:1-7.

Psalms 109:12

12. Let him have none to continue lovingkindness to him as represented in his children; nor any one to have pity on his orphans.

Psalms 109:13

13. Cp. Psalms 37:28; Psalms 37:38; Job 18:13-21. May his sons die childless, and in the next generation their name be removed from the register of citizens. Cp. Psalms 69:28. An Israelite, with his strong sense of family solidarity, looked forward to living on in his descendants; and the extinction of the family was contemplated as the most terrible of calamities. P.B.V. ‘his name,’ follows the Vulg. from the LXX.

Psalms 109:14-15

14, 15. Let the full penalty for the sins of his ancestors be exacted from him, in accordance with the warning of the law, that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. See Exodus 20:5; cp. Matthew 23:32-36.

Psalms 109:15

15. Let them be] The iniquity and sin. Cp. Psalms 90:8; Lamentations 1:22. the memory of them] Of his ancestors and all their posterity. Cp. Psalms 34:16.

Psalms 109:16-20

16–20. This curse is deserved: it is the just retribution for his deliberate choice of evil.

Psalms 109:17

17. And he loved cursing, and it came to him; And delighted not in blessing, and it was far from him:

Psalms 109:18

18. And he clad himself with cursing as with his robe, And It came into his inward parts like water, and like oil into his bones:

Psalms 109:19

19. (So) let it be unto him as the garment in which he wraps himself, And as the belt wherewith he girds himself continually. As the text stands, the verbs in Psalms 109:17-18 cannot be rendered as optatives, let it come … let it be far … let it come. At first sight it is tempting to make the slight change in vocalisation which would give this sense (cp. LXX and Jer.); but the text admits of a good explanation. The past tenses it came … it was far … it came are not to be explained as ‘futures of certainty,’ water and oil (possibly with a reference to the water of jealousy, Numbers 5:22) being regarded as figures for what will inevitably penetrate his whole body. Water and oil naturally denote what is refreshing and strengthening (Job 15:16; Job 34:7; Proverbs 3:8). The wicked man deliberately chose the policy of cursing, and welcomed it to a home in his heart; he banished blessing from his thoughts and purposes.

Cursing became the habit of mind, which he assumed each day as naturally as his garment: it was a positive refreshment and invigoration of his whole being. Therefore let it cleave inseparably to him and let him never be able to free himself from it Let it cling to him like a Nessus-shirt of venom.

Psalms 109:20

20. Let this be the reward] Or as R.V., This (is) the reward; the wages, as the word implies, which they have earned by their behaviour. adversaries] See note on Psalms 109:4.

Psalms 109:21-25

21–25. From the pitilessness of man the Psalmist turns to implore the mercy of God.

Psalms 109:22

22. Cp. Psalms 109:16; Psalms 40:17; Psalms 55:4.

Psalms 109:23

23. Like a shadow when it declines or is stretched out towards evening (Psalms 102:11), and is about to disappear altogether, so am I made to depart: the form of the verb implies compulsion from without. I am tossed up and down] Or, driven away. The point of comparison is the helplessness of the locust swept along by the wind (Exodus 10:19; Joe 2:20).

Psalms 109:24

24. faileth of fatness] Hath grown lean and lost fatness may be the meaning. But more probably, is shrunken for want of oil. In his distress he had no appetite for food (Psalms 102:4), and like a mourner (2 Samuel 14:2) abstained from the use of oil.

Psalms 109:25

25. And I—I am become a reproach unto them: When they see me, they shake their head, a gesture of contempt and abhorrence, as though I were the object of the wrath of God. Cp. Psalms 22:7; Psalms 69:10-12; Lamentations 2:15; Job 16:4.

Psalms 109:26-31

26–31. Repeated prayers for help, ending with calm assurance that the end of suffering is at hand.

Psalms 109:27

27. that this is thy hand] That thou hast interposed for the deliverance of Thy servant. With hast done it cp. Psalms 109:21, lit. do thou with me.

Psalms 109:28

28. They may curse, but thou wilt bless: They arise and are put to shame, but thy servant shall rejoice. They and thou are emphatically contrasted.

Psalms 109:29

29. Mine adversaries shall be clothed with dishonour, And shall wrap themselves in their own shame as in a mantle. Cp. Psalms 109:18-19; Psalms 71:13; Psalms 35:26.

Psalms 109:30

30. I will give great thanks unto Jehovah with my mouth] Confidently he anticipates the resumption of his former thanksgivings and praises (Psalms 109:1) in the congregation.

Psalms 109:31

31. A contrast to Psalms 109:6-7. Jehovah stands at the right hand of the needy (Psalms 109:16; Psalms 109:22) as his advocate and champion, while the accuser is to stand at the right hand of the wicked man. The wicked man is to be found guilty, as he deserves, while his victim will be saved from the persecutors who are minded to judge his soul, i.e. condemn him to death.