Psalm 109 Commentary
Let Him Be Found Guilty
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KEY THOUGHT: Let his days be few, And let another take his office. [Psalm 109:8 NKJV]
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Psalm 109 NKJV
Plea for Judgment of False Accusers
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
109 Do not keep silent,
O God of my praise!
2 For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful
Have opened against me;
They have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They have also surrounded me with words of hatred,
And fought against me without a cause.
4 In return for my love they are my accusers,
But I give myself to prayer.
5 Thus they have rewarded me evil for good,
And hatred for my love.
6 Set a wicked man over him,
And let an [a]accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he is judged, let him be found guilty,
And let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few,
And let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless,
And his wife a widow.
10 Let his children [b]continually be vagabonds, and beg;
Let them [c]seek their bread also from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has,
And let strangers plunder his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy to him,
Nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
13 Let his [d]posterity be cut off,
And in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
And let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be continually before the Lord,
That He may cut off the memory of them from the earth;
16 Because he did not remember to show mercy,
But persecuted the poor and needy man,
That he might even slay the broken in heart.
17 As he loved cursing, so let it come to him;
As he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment,
So let it enter his body like water,
And like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be to him like the garment which covers him,
And for a belt with which he girds himself continually.
20 Let this be the Lord’s reward to my accusers,
And to those who speak evil against my person.
21 But You, O God the Lord,
Deal with me for Your name’s sake;
Because Your mercy is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy,
And my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting,
And my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness.
25 I also have become a reproach to them;
When they look at me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God!
Oh, save me according to Your mercy,
27 That they may know that this is Your hand—
That You, Lord, have done it!
28 Let them curse, but You bless;
When they arise, let them be ashamed,
But let Your servant rejoice.
29 Let my accusers be clothed with shame,
And let them cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle.
30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth;
Yes, I will praise Him among the multitude.
31 For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor,
To save him from those [e]who condemn him.
Footnotes
a. Psalm 109:6 Heb. satan
b. Psalm 109:10 wander continuously
c. Psalm 109:10 So with MT, Tg.; LXX, Vg. be cast out
d. Psalm 109:13 descendants be destroyed
e. Psalm 109:31 Lit. judging his soul
New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Psalm 109 Commentary
It’s not every day that you find a psalm as lacking in generosity as this one. Instead of blessing, he has cursed. He has wished misfortune on the ungodly.
How does this psalm stand in the congregation of the New Testament thoughts that specifically call the saints to forgive and pray for their enemies?
Yet there is no contradiction. Or maybe there is. The contradiction exists in the very nature of the Creator God. The God we saw at Mount Sinai hasn’t changed at all.
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
This psalm has picked on the last part of God’s nature and expands it with graphics. It is the justice part of the LORD. How justice and love combine at the same time is a mystery mortals cannot understand.
Yes, the LORD didn’t have mercy on the sinner. His wrath was poured out completely and unchecked. The sinner got what he deserved. He died a shameful death by hanging. In the cry, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani,” the ultimate sinner saw complete isolation from the Creator God. The created had bottomed. It couldn’t get worse.
Yes, look at Calvary and see what sin deserves.
But, is it not the same Calvary that gave mortals a lease of freshness and hope for immortality? There and then, mortals could find salvation through the love that flowed freely from the perfect sacrifice. Yes, at Calvary, justice and love combined in perfection!
So this psalm must be read through the lens of the Cross. Let not the reader forget what awaits the ungodly if they elect to reject the offer of love as expressed at Calvary.
Without the Calvary, mortals stand condemned. Their days are cut short. Their iniquities are remembered before the LORD. The psalmist has used graphics to communicate the total exclusion from the blessedness of a restored life under the care of the Shepherd-King.
The picture changes very quickly from the unrepentant oppressor to the repentant oppressed.
He is poor and needy. What a combination! It is terrible but perfect. The poor may include individuals with less than enough to live on. The needy include everyone under the term humanity. A rich man gasping for oxygen at some executive clinic somewhere is needy. He doesn’t have what a poor man has in abundance under open skies.
This section of the psalm invites us to reflect on life and the meaning of these terms. Our dependency on God is total. We cannot miss this point. The world can pretend to have it all covered, but needy we are, and salvation only comes when we humbly submit to the lordship of the LORD Jesus Christ.
In the meantime, a saint is an object of scorn. He prays; he fasts. He appeals to the compassion and mercy of the LORD.
Yes, the saint can always pray.
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