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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.

24 My knees are become feeble. Though David had the necessaries of life, yet he emaciated himself by voluntary abstinence, to which, as well as to prayer, he gave himself, and therefore we may regard this verse as expressive of his sorrow and sadness. We may also understand it as expressive of his having no relish for meat or drink, knowing, as we do, that persons who are in sorrow and sadness have no appetite for food; even life itself is burdensome to them. Should any one prefer restricting the interpretation to David’s being in want of the necessaries of life, when he hid himself in the dens of wild beasts, to escape the fury of his enemies, and was then subjected to hunger and thirst, he may do so. It appears to me, however, that by this language he intends to point out the extreme anguish which he felt, because, with death staring him in the face, he loathed all food; and this is in accordance with the next clause, in which he says, my flesh faileth of fatness; because “a sorrowful spirit drieth up the bones,” (Proverbs 17:22) By the term, fatness, some understand delicacies; meaning that he was deprived of all that food which is pleasing to the palate. The more natural way is to consider it as denoting his becoming emaciated by reason of grief and fasting, inasmuch as the natural moisture was wasted. Another proof of his sad situation arises from this, that, according to what he states in Psalm 22:7, he was held in scorn by all. It is, indeed, a sad and bitter thing which God’s children endure, when they are made to feel that the curse which he denounces against the transgressors of his law is directed against themselves; for the law says to the despisers of it,

“Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and laughing-stock,” (Deuteronomy 28:37)

With this species of temptation David was assailed; and he declares that he was not only regarded as a condemned person, but also cruelly derided; God at the same time coming in for a share of it; for it is usual with the ungodly to conduct themselves with insolence and pride towards us when they see us oppressed under afflictions, and, at the same time, to rail at our faith and piety, because God renders us no help in our miseries.