1 God of my praise, be not silent,
2 For a wicked man's mouth and a mouth of deceit have they opened
on me.
3 And with words of hate have they compassed me,
And have fought [against] me causelessly.
4 In return for my love, they have been my adversaries,
But I--I was [all] prayer.
5 And they have laid upon me evil in return for good,
And hate in return for my love.
6 Set in office over him a wicked man,
And may an adversary stand at his right hand!
7 When he is judged, let him go out guilty,
And let his prayer be [counted] for sin!
8 Be his days few,
His office may another take!
9 Be his children orphans,
And his wife a widow!
10 And may his children wander up and down and beg,
May they seek [bread] [far] from the ruins [of their house]!
11 May a creditor get into his nets all that he has,
And may strangers plunder [the fruit of] his toil!
12 May there be no one to continue loving-kindness to him,
And may there be no one that shows favour to his orphans!
13 May his posterity be cut off,
In the next generation may their name be blotted out!
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before Jehovah,
And the sin of his mother not be blotted out!
15 May they be before Jehovah continually,
And may He cut off their memory from the earth!
16 Because he remembered not to show loving-kindness,
And persecuted the afflicted and poor man,
And the heart-stricken, to do him to death.
17 And he loved cursing--and it came on him,
And delighted not in blessing--and it remained far from him.
18 And he clothed himself [with] cursing like his garment,
And it came like water into his inwards,
And like oil into his bones.
19 May it be to him like a robe [with which] he covers himself,
And for a girdle [which] he continually girds on!
20 Be this the wage of my adversaries from Jehovah,
And of those who speak evil against my soul!
21 But Thou, Jehovah, Lord, deal with me for Thy name's sake,
Because Thy loving-kindness is good, deliver me,
22 Because afflicted and poor am I,
And my heart is pierced within me.
23 Like a shadow when it stretches out am I gone,
I am shaken out, like the locust.
24 My knees give out through fasting,
And my flesh falls away from fatness.
25 And I--I have become a reproach to them,
They see me, they nod their head.
26 Help me, Jehovah, my God,
Save me, according to Thy loving-kindness:
27 That they may know that this is Thy hand,
Thou--Thou, Jehovah, hast done it.
28 They--they curse, but Thou--Thou dost bless;
They arose, and were put to shame,
And Thy servant rejoices.
29 My adversaries clothe themselves [with] disgrace,
And cover themselves like a mantle with their shame.
30 I will praise Jehovah greatly with my mouth,
And amidst many will I praise Him.
31 For He stands at the right hand of the poor,
To save him from those that judge his soul.
This is the last and the most terrible of the imprecatory psalms.
Its central portion (vv. 6-20) consists of a series of wishes,
addressed to God, for the heaping of all miseries on the heads of
one "adversary" and of all his kith and kin. These maledictions are
enclosed in prayers, which make the most striking contrast to them;
vv. 1-5 being the plaint of a loving soul, shrinkingly conscious of
an atmosphere of hatred, and appealing gently to God; while vv. 21-31
expatiate in the presentation to Him of the suppliant's feebleness
and cries for deliverance, but barely touch on the wished-for
requital of enemies. The combination of devout meekness and trust
with the fiery imprecations in the core of the psalm is startling
to Christian consciousness, and calls for an effort of "historical
imagination" to deal with it fairly. The attempts to attenuate the
difficulty, either by making out that the wishes are not wishes,
but prophecies of the fate of evil-doers, or that vv. 6-20 are the
psalmist's quotation of his enemies' wishes about him, or that the
whole is Messianic prediction of the fate of Judas or of the enemies
of the Christ, are too obviously makeshifts. It is far better to
recognise the discordance between the temper of the psalmist and that
enjoined by Christ than to try to cover it over. Our Lord Himself has
signalised the difference between His teaching and that addressed
to "them of old time" on the very point of forgiveness of enemies,
and we are but following His guidance when we recognise that the
psalmist's mood is distinctly inferior to that which has now become
the law for devout men.
Divine retribution for evil was the truth of the Old Testament, as
forgiveness is that of the New. The conflict between God's kingdom
and its enemies was being keenly and perpetually waged, in most
literal fashion. Devout men could not but long for the triumph of
that with which all good was associated, and therefore for the
defeat and destruction of its opposite. For no private injuries,
or for these only in so far as the suffering singer is a member of
the community which represents God's cause, does he ask the descent
of God's vengeance, but for the insults and hurts inflicted on
righteousness. The form of these maledictions belongs to a lower
stage of revelation; the substance of them, considered as passionate
desires for the destruction of evil, burning zeal for the triumph of
Truth, which is God's cause, and unquenchable faith that He is just,
is a part of Christian perfection.
The usual variety of conjectures as to authorship exists. Delitzsch
hesitatingly accepts the superscription as correct in assigning the
psalm to David. Olshausen, as is his custom, says, "Maccabean"; Cheyne
inclines to "the time of Nehemiah (in which case the enemy might be
Sanballat), or even perhaps the close of the Persian age" ("Orig. of
Psalt.," 65). He thinks that the "magnanimous David" could not have
uttered "these laboured imprecations," and that the speaker is "not a
brave and bold warrior, but a sensitive poet." Might he not be both?
To address God as the "God of my praise," even at such a moment of
dejection, is a triumph of faith. The name recalls to the psalmist past
mercies, and expresses his confidence that he will still have cause to
extol his Deliverer, while it also pleads with God what He has done as
a reason for doing the like in new circumstances of need. The suppliant
speaks in praise and prayer; he asks God to speak in acts of rescuing
power. A praying man cannot have a dumb God. And His mighty Voice,
which hushes all others and sets His suppliants free from fears and
foes, is all the more longed for and required, because of those cruel
voices that yelp and snarl round the psalmist. The contrast between the
three utterances--his, God's, and his enemies'--is most vivid. The foes
have come at him with open mouths. "A wicked man's mouth" would read,
by a slight alteration, "a mouth of wickedness"; but the recurrence of
the word "wicked man" in ver. 6 seems to look back to this verse, and
to make the rendering above probable. Lies and hatred ring the psalmist
round, but his conscience is clear. "They have hated me without a
cause" is the experience of this ancient sufferer for righteousness'
sake, as of the Prince of all such. This singer, who is charged with
pouring out a flood of "unpurified passion," had, at any rate, striven
to win over hatred by meekness; and if he is bitter, it is the pain
and bitterness of love flung back with contumely, and only serving to
exacerbate enmity. Nor had he met with evil the first returns of evil
for good, but, as he says, "I was [all] prayer" (compare Psalm cxx. 7,
"I am--peace"). Repelled, his whole being turned to God, and in calm
communion with Him found defence and repose. But his patient meekness
availed nothing, for his foes still "laid evil" on him in return for
good. The prayer is a short record of a long martyrdom. Many a foiled
attempt of patient love preceded the psalm. Not till the other way had
been tried long enough to show that malignity was beyond the reach of
conciliation did the psalmist appeal to the God of recompenses. Let
that be remembered in judging the next part of the psalm.
The terrible maledictions (vv. 6-20) need little commentary. They
may be left in all their awfulness, which is neither to be extenuated
nor degraded into an outburst of fierce personal vindictiveness. It
is something far more noble than that. These terrible verses are
prophecy, but they are prayers too; and prayers which can only be
accounted for by remembering the spirit of the old dispensation.
They are the more intense, because they are launched against an
individual, probably the chief among the foes. In vv. 6-15 we have
imprecations pure and simple, and it is noteworthy that so large a
part of these verses refers to the family of the evil-doer. In vv.
16-20 the grounds of the wished-for destruction are laid in the
sinner's perverted choice, and the automatic action of sin working
its own punishment is vividly set forth.
Vv. 6-8 are best taken in close connection, as representing the
trial and condemnation of the object of the psalmist's imprecations,
before a tribunal. He prays that the man may be haled before a wicked
judge. The word rendered "set" is the root from which that rendered
"office" in ver. 8 comes, and here means to set in a position of
authority--_i.e._, in a judicial one. His judge is to be "a wicked
man" like himself, for such have no mercy on each other. An accuser
is to stand at his right hand. The word rendered _adversary_ (the
verb cognate with which is used in ver. 4) is "Satan"; but the
general meaning of hostile accuser is to be preferred here. With
such a judge and prosecutor the issue of the cause is certain--"May
he go out [from the judgment-hall] guilty." A more terrible petition
follows, which is best taken in its most terrible sense. The
condemned man cries for mercy, not to his earthly judge, but to God,
and the psalmist can ask that the last despairing cry to Heaven may
be unanswered, and even counted sin. It could only be so, if the
heart that framed it was still an evil heart, despairing, indeed, but
obdurate. Then comes the end: the sentence is executed. The criminal
dies, and his office falls to another; his wife is a widow, and his
children fatherless. This view of the connection gives unity to
what is otherwise a mere heap of unconnected maledictions. It also
brings out more clearly that the psalmist is seeking not merely the
gratification of private animosity, but the vindication of public
justice, even if ministered by an unjust judge. Peter's quotation of
ver. 8_b_ in reference to Judas (Acts i. 20) does not involve the
Messianic character of the psalm.
Vv. 10-15 extend the maledictions to the enemy's children and
parents, in accordance with the ancient strong sense of family
solidarity, which was often expressed in practice by visiting
the kindred of a convicted criminal with ruin, and levelling his
house with the ground. The psalmist wishes these consequences to
fall in all their cruel severity, and pictures the children as
vagabonds, driven from the desolation which had, in happier days,
been their home, and seeking a scanty subsistence among strangers.
The imprecations of ver. 11 at first sight seem to hark back to an
earlier stage in the wicked man's career, contemplating him as still
in life. But the wish that his wealth may be "ensnared" by creditors
and stolen by strangers is quite appropriate as a consequence of his
sentence and execution; and the prayer in ver. 12, that there may
be no one to "draw out loving-kindness" to him, is probably best
explained by the parallel clause. A dead man lives a quasi-life in
his children, and what is done to them is a prolongation of what
was done to him. Thus helpless, beggars, homeless, and plundered,
"the seed of evil-doers" would naturally be short-lived, and the
psalmist desires that they may be cut off, and the world freed from
an evil race. His wishes go backwards too, and reach to the previous
as well as the subsequent generation. The foe had come of a bad
stock--parents, son, and son's sons are to be involved in a common
doom, because partakers of a common sin. The special reason for
the terrible desire that the iniquity of his father and mother may
never be blotted out seems to be, the desire that the accumulated
consequences of hereditary sin may fall on the heads of the third
generation--a dread wish, which experience shows is often tragically
fulfilled, even when the sufferers are far less guilty than their
ancestors. "Father, forgive them" is the strongest conceivable
contrast to these awful prayers. But the psalmist's petition implies
that the sins in question were unrepented sins, and is, in fact, a
cry that, as such, they should be requited in the "cutting off the
memory" of such a brood of evil-doers "from the earth."
In ver. 16 a new turn of thought begins, which is pursued till
ver. 20--namely, that of the self-retributive action of a perverted
choice of evil. "He remembered not" to be gracious to him who needed
compassion; therefore it is just that he should not be remembered
on earth, and that his sin should be remembered in heaven. He
deliberately chose cursing rather than blessing as his attitude and
act towards others; therefore cursing comes to him and blessing
remains far from him, as others' attitude and act to him. The world
is a mirror which, on the whole, gives back the smile or the frown
which we present to it. Though the psalmist has complained that
he had loved and been hated in return, he does not doubt that, in
general, the curser is cursed back again and the blesser blessed.
Outwardly and inwardly, the man is wrapped in and saturated with
"cursing." Like a robe or a girdle, it encompasses him; like a
draught of water, it passes into his inmost nature; like anointing
oil oozing into the bones, it steals into every corner of his soul.
His own doings come back to poison him. The kick of the gun which
he fires is sure to hurt his own shoulder, and it is better to be
in front of the muzzle than behind the trigger. The last word of
these maledictions is not only a wish, but a declaration of the Law
of Divine Retribution. The psalmist could not have found it in his
heart to pray such a prayer unless he had been sure that Jehovah paid
men's wages punctually in full, and that conviction is the kernel of
his awful words. He is equally sure that his cause is God's--because
he is sure that God's cause is his, and that he suffers for
righteousness and for the righteous Jehovah.
The final part (vv. 21-31) returns to lowly, sad petitions for
deliverance, of the kind common to many psalms. Very pathetically, and
as with a tightening of his grasp, does the singer call on his helper
by the double name "Jehovah, Lord," and plead all the pleas with God
which are hived in these names. The prayer in ver. 21_b_ resembles that
in Psalm lxix. 16, another of the psalms of imprecation. The image of
the long-drawn-out shadow recurs in Psalm cii. 11. The word rendered
"am I gone" occurs here only, and implies compulsory departure. The
same idea of external force hurrying one out of life is picturesquely
presented in the parallel clause. "I am shaken out," as a thing which a
man wishes to get rid of is shaken out of the folds of a garment. The
psalmist thinks of himself as being whirled away, helpless, as a swarm
of locusts blown into the sea. The physical feebleness in ver. 24 is
probably to be taken literally, as descriptive of the havoc wrought
on him by his persecutions and trouble of soul, but may be, as often,
metaphor for that trouble itself.
The expression in ver. 24_b_ rendered above "_falls away_ from
fatness" is literally "has become a liar," or faithless, which is
probably a picturesque way of saying that the psalmist's flesh had, as
it were, become a renegade from its former well-nourished condition,
and was emaciated by his sorrow. Others would keep the literal meaning
of the word rendered "fatness"--_i.e._, oil--and translate "My flesh
has shrunk up for lack of oil" (so Baethgen and Kay).
One more glance at the enemies, now again regarded as many, and one
more flash of confidence that his prayer is heard, close the psalm.
Once again God is invoked by His name Jehovah, and the suppliant
presses close to Him as "my God"; once again he casts himself on that
loving-kindness, whose measure is wider than his thoughts and will
ensure him larger answers than his desires; once again he builds
all his hope on it, and pleads no claims of his own. He longs for
personal deliverance; but not only for personal ends, but rather
that it may be an undeniable manifestation of Jehovah's power. That
is a high range of feeling which subordinates self to God even while
longing for deliverance, and wishes more that He should be glorified
than that self should be blessed. There is almost a smile on the
psalmist's face as he contrasts his enemies' curses with God's
blessing, and thinks how ineffectual are these and how omnipotent
is that. He takes the issue of the strife between cursing men and a
blessing God to be as good as already decided. So he can look with
new equanimity on the energetic preparations of his foes; for he sees
in faith their confusion and defeat, and already feels some springing
in his heart of the joy of victory, and is sure of already clothing
themselves with shame. It is the prerogative of Faith to behold
things that are not as though they were, and to live as in the hour
of triumph even while in the thick of the fight.
The psalm began with addressing "the God of my _praise_"; it ends
with the confidence and the vow that the singer will yet _praise_
Him. It painted an adversary standing at the right hand of the wicked
to condemn him; it ends with the assurance that Jehovah stands at the
right hand of His afflicted servant, as his advocate to protect him.
The wicked man was to "go out guilty"; he whom God defends shall come
forth from all that would judge his soul. "If God be for us, who can
be against us? It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth?"