Deus, laudem meam.
David in the person of Christ, prayeth against his persecutors; more
especially the traitor Judas: foretelling and approving his just
punishment for his obstinacy in sin and final impenitence.
108:1. Unto the end, a psalm for David.
108:2. O God, be not thou silent in my praise: for the mouth of the
wicked and the mouth of the deceitful man is opened against me.
108:3. They have spoken against me with deceitful tongues; and they
have compassed me about with words of hatred; and have fought against
me without cause.
108:4. Instead of making me a return of love, they detracted me: but I
gave myself to prayer.
108:5. And they repaid me evil for good: and hatred for my love.
108:6. Set thou the sinner over him: and may the devil stand at his
right hand.
Set thou the sinner over him, etc. . .Give to the devil, that
arch-sinner, power over him: let him enter into him, and possess him.
The imprecations, contained in the thirty verses of this psalm, are
opposed to the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed our
Lord; and are to be taken as prophetic denunciations of the evils that
should befall the traitor and his accomplices the Jews; and not
properly as curses.
108:7. When he is judged, may he go out condemned; and may his prayer
be turned to sin.
108:8. May his days be few: and his bishopric let another take.
108:9. May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
108:10. Let his children be carried about vagabonds, and beg; and let
them be cast out of their dwellings.
108:11. May the usurer search all his substance: and let strangers
plunder his labours.
108:12. May there be none to help him: nor none to pity his fatherless
offspring.
108:13. May his posterity be cut off; in one generation may his name be
blotted out.
108:14. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered in the sight of
the Lord: and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
108:15. May they be before the Lord continually, and let the memory of
them perish from the earth:
108:16. because he remembered not to shew mercy,
108:17. But persecuted the poor man and the beggar; and the broken in
heart, to put him to death.
108:18. And he loved cursing, and it shall come unto him: and he would
not have blessing, and it shall be far from him. And he put on cursing,
like a garment: and it went in like water into his entrails, and like
oil in his bones.
108:19. May it be unto him like a garment which covereth him; and like
a girdle with which he is girded continually.
108:20. This is the work of them who detract me before the Lord; and
who speak evils against my soul.
108:21. But thou, O Lord, do with me for thy name's sake: because thy
mercy is sweet. Do thou deliver me,
108:22. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is troubled within me.
108:23. I am taken away like the shadow when it declineth: and I am
shaken off as locusts.
108:24. My knees are weakened through fasting: and my flesh is changed
for oil.
For oil. . .Propter oleum. The meaning is, my flesh is changed, being
perfectly emaciated and dried up, as having lost all its oil or
fatness.
108:25. And I am become a reproach to them: they saw me and they shaked
their heads.
108:26. Help me, O Lord my God; save me; according to thy mercy.
108:27. And let them know that this is thy hand: and that thou, O Lord,
hast done it.
108:28. They will curse and thou wilt bless: let them that rise up
against me be confounded: but thy servant shall rejoice.
108:29. Let them that detract me be clothed with shame: and let them be
covered with their confusion as with a double cloak.
108:30. I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth: and in the
midst of many I will praise him.
108:31. Because he hath stood at the right hand of the poor, to save my
soul from persecutors.