Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

109. Psalm 109

¹ My God, whom I praise,
   do not remain silent,
² for people who are wicked and deceitful
   have opened their mouths against me;
   they have spoken against me with lying tongues.
³ With words of hatred they surround me;
   they attack me without cause.
⁴ In return for my friendship they accuse me,
   but I am a man of prayer.
⁵ They repay me evil for good,
   and hatred for my friendship.

    ⁶ Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;
   let an accuser stand at his right hand.
⁷ When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
   and may his prayers condemn him.
⁸ May his days be few;
   may another take his place of leadership.
⁹ May his children be fatherless
   and his wife a widow.
¹⁰ May his children be wandering beggars;
   may they be driven Septuagint; Hebrew sought from their ruined homes.
¹¹ May a creditor seize all he has;
   may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
¹² May no one extend kindness to him
   or take pity on his fatherless children.
¹³ May his descendants be cut off,
   their names blotted out from the next generation.
¹⁴ May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD;
   may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
¹⁵ May their sins always remain before the LORD,
   that he may blot out their name from the earth.

    ¹⁶ For he never thought of doing a kindness,
   but hounded to death the poor
   and the needy and the brokenhearted.
¹⁷ He loved to pronounce a curse—
   may it come back on him.
He found no pleasure in blessing—
   may it be far from him.
¹⁸ He wore cursing as his garment;
   it entered into his body like water,
   into his bones like oil.
¹⁹ May it be like a cloak wrapped about him,
   like a belt tied forever around him.
²⁰ May this be the LORD’s payment to my accusers,
   to those who speak evil of me.

    ²¹ But you, Sovereign LORD,
   help me for your name’s sake;
   out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
²² For I am poor and needy,
   and my heart is wounded within me.
²³ I fade away like an evening shadow;
   I am shaken off like a locust.
²⁴ My knees give way from fasting;
   my body is thin and gaunt.
²⁵ I am an object of scorn to my accusers;
   when they see me, they shake their heads.

    ²⁶ Help me, LORD my God;
   save me according to your unfailing love.
²⁷ Let them know that it is your hand,
   that you, LORD, have done it.
²⁸ While they curse, may you bless;
   may those who attack me be put to shame,
   but may your servant rejoice.
²⁹ May my accusers be clothed with disgrace
   and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.

    ³⁰ With my mouth I will greatly extol the LORD;
   in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him.
³¹ For he stands at the right hand of the needy,
   to save their lives from those who would condemn them.

Moreover, he also subjoins the form in which he rendered thanks; namely, that God stood at the right hand of the poor By this language he intimates, that when God had apparently forsaken and abandoned him, and stood far from him, even then he was always near and ready to render him seasonable and needful help; and, assuredly, his poverty and affliction gave some reason for suspecting that he was forsaken of God, inasmuch as he then either withdrew or concealed his loving-kindness. Notwithstanding of this seeming departure, he acknowledges that, during his affliction and poverty, God never ceased to be present to render him assistance. In saying that he was saved from the judges of his life, he sets forth, in a still stronger light, the very trying situation in which he was placed; his having to deal with very formidable enemies, such as the king and the princes of the realm, who, proudly presuming upon their grandeur and greatness, and regarding his recovery hopeless, treated him as if he had been a dead dog. It is my firm conviction, that in this passage he complains both of the torturing cruelty of his enemies, and also that his character had been unjustly aspersed by calumny and reproach; for we know that he was borne down by the malignity and wickedness of those who, being invested with authority, boastingly, yet falsely, pretended that they wished to act as judges and as the executors of justice, which plausible pretexts they adopt as a cloak for their iniquity.