Psalm 109[a]
Prayer for One Falsely Accused
1 For the director.[b] A psalm of David.
[c]O God, whom I praise,
do not remain silent.
2 Wicked and deceitful men
have opened their mouths against me;[d]
they have spoken against me with lying tongues.
3 They confront me with words of hatred
and assail me without cause.
4 In return for my love they denounce me
even as I offer up prayers for them.[e]
5 They give me back evil in exchange for good
and hatred in place of my love.[f]
6 [g]They say:[h]
“Choose a wicked man to oppose him,
an accuser to stand on his right.
7 At his judgment, let him be found guilty,
with even his prayers deemed sinful.[i]
8 “May his remaining days be few,
with someone else appointed to take his office.[j]
9 May his children become fatherless
and his wife become widowed.
10 “May his children be vagrants and beggars,
driven from the ruins they use for shelter.
11 May the creditor seize all he has,
and strangers abscond with his life savings.
12 [k]“May no one extend mercy to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
13 May his posterity be doomed to extinction
and his name be blotted out within a generation.
14 “May the iniquity of his ancestors be remembered by the Lord,
and the sin of his mother never be wiped out.
15 May their guilt be continually before the Lord,
and may he banish all remembrance of them from the earth.
16 [l]“For he never thought of showing mercy;
rather, he hounded to death
the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted.
17 He loved to level curses[m] at others;
may they recoil on him.
He took no pleasure in blessing;
may no blessing be his.
18 [n]“He clothed himself with cursing as his garment;
it seeped into his body like water
and into his bones like oil.
19 May it be like the robe that envelops him,
like the belt that encircles him every day.”
20 May these evils my accusers wish for me
be inflicted upon them by the Lord.[o]
21 [p]But you, O Lord, my God,
treat me kindly for your name’s sake;[q]
deliver me because of your overwhelming kindness.
22 For I am poor and needy,[r]
and my heart is pierced within me.
23 I am fading away[s] like an evening shadow;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees are weak from fasting;
my flesh is wasting away.
25 I have become an object of ridicule to my accusers;
upon seeing me, they toss their heads.[t]
26 Come to my aid, O Lord, my God;
save me because of your kindness.[u]
27 Let them know that your hand has done this,
that you, O Lord, have accomplished it.
28 When they curse, you will bless;
when they attack, they will be put to shame,
and your servant will rejoice.[v]
29 My accusers will be clothed in disgrace,
wrapped in their shame as in a cloak.
30 I will thank the Lord with my lips,
and before all the people I will praise him.[w]
31 For he stands at the right hand of the poor
to save him from his accusers who pass judgment on him.[x]
Footnotes
- Psalm 109:1 The Psalter contains other cries of hatred or revenge (Pss 9; 35; 137; 139), but none is harsher than this one (Ps 109:6-19). It is ordinarily attributed to the psalmist who has been speaking from the beginning of the psalm. However, an attentive examination of the context leads some scholars to attribute these imprecations to another person—most likely, the leader of the psalmist’s enemies.
It is a fact, of course, that in the East people enjoy exaggerated expressions, and it is also a fact that it was written before the Christian faith changed the harsh law of revenge or law of talion. But the Gospel itself contains curses (see Mt 23:13-26; Lk 6:24-26), and while it is true that Jesus and the apostles were able to forgive their enemies, they also saw the “ancient serpent” (Rev 12:9) at work against God’s will and for their destruction.
In taking up these imprecatory psalms, the Church invites Christians to commence an unceasing struggle against the spirit of evil (see Eph 6:12). Except for a few details, the formulas of this prayer were suitable for Jesus to express his own situation and sentiments and to describe the attitude and machinations of his enemies. In fact, the evangelists record that his enemies fulfilled certain passages to the letter (v. 25; see Mt 27:39; Mk 15:20). - Psalm 109:1 For the director: these words are thought to be a musical or liturgical notation.
- Psalm 109:1 This psalmist has never said and done anything other than good; will betrayal, hatred, and slander be his recompense? Bitter is the calumny that crushes the righteous.
- Psalm 109:2 Opened their mouths against me: see note on Ps 5:10.
- Psalm 109:4 I offer up prayers for them: the psalmist is not a man of evil and slander; he even prays for his foes, as in Ps 35:13f.
- Psalm 109:5 The psalmist has done nothing but good to his enemies whereas they have repaid him with evil in exchange for goodness and hatred in exchange for friendliness. The psalmist puts this fact before the Lord. Will God the Judge overlook such wicked behavior? This verse recalls Pss 35:12, 22; 38:20-21; 69:5; Jer 18:20.
- Psalm 109:6 Pitiless are the words of those who curse the innocent psalmist; he has taken them to heart and remembered every one. See note on Ps 5:11 concerning redress for wrongs.
- Psalm 109:6 They say: these words are lacking in the Hebrew, but they are called for by the context. Wicked man: or “the evil one.” Accuser: i.e., a “satan” (see Job 1:6), a name later given to the devil (see 1 Chr 21:1). He stood as an advocate (Ps 109:31) at the right of the accused (see Zec 3:1).
- Psalm 109:7 With even his prayers deemed sinful: another possible translation is: “with even his pleas being in vain.”
- Psalm 109:8 With someone else appointed . . . office: applied to Judas in Acts 1:20.
- Psalm 109:12 The Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel all give warnings of what the sins of ancestors can bring down upon the children (see Ex 20:5; 1 Sam 2:31ff; Lk 19:41ff). Name be blotted out: see note on Ps 69:29.
- Psalm 109:16 No other place expresses with such vivid intensity the terrible logic of judgment whereby what humans choose, they ultimately receive to the full.
- Psalm 109:17 Curses: see note on Ps 10:7.
- Psalm 109:18 These words, leveled at the psalmist by his enemies, claim that cursing was his clothing as well as his food and drink; he lived, so to speak, by cursing (see Prov 4:17). Cursing was intended to destroy a person, his position, his family, and the remembrance of his name.
- Psalm 109:20 May these . . . by the Lord: literally, “May this be the recompense of my accusers from the Lord / and of those who speak evil against me.” Accordingly, the preceding curses may be understood as spoken either by the psalmist against his primary foe or by his enemies first and then willed by him to recoil against them. Another translation for the verse is also possible: “This is the work of those / who wish to call down harm upon me from the Lord.” In that case, the only imprecations of the psalmist would be the mild ones in verse 29.
- Psalm 109:21 The poem seems to begin again at this point. The poor man once again invokes God, reveals his distress, asks for health, cries out his imprecations, and promises to give thanks. It is the rhythm of the prayer of a persecuted person. It testifies to a conviction: in the time of God’s judgment, the evil one will return in defeat to the world of darkness where he willed to swallow up everything, but the righteous will obtain access to the glory of the Lord.
- Psalm 109:21 For your name’s sake: see note on Ps 5:12. The Lord’s kindness is one of his most defining attributes (see notes on Pss 5:8; 6:5; Ex 34:6; see also Pss 25:10-11; 69:17; 79:8-9; 86:15; 103:8; Num 14:18; Joel 2:13). Kindness is also the love of the covenant between the Lord and his people, and it includes the sentiments that are found in each (grace and love on the part of the Lord and piety on the part of the faithful). It specifically refers to all that God promised to his people (see Deut 7:9, 12) through the Davidic dynasty (see Ps 89:25, 29, 34; 2 Sam 7:15; Isa 55:3).
- Psalm 109:22 Poor and needy: see note on Ps 22:27. Heart: see note on Ps 4:8.
- Psalm 109:23 I am fading away: the psalmist’s illness draws the scorn of enemies (see note on Ps 5:10). Like an evening shadow: similar to Ps 102:12. Shaken off like a locust: allusion to the custom of brushing locusts off the plants in order to kill them on the ground. Another translation possible is: “swept away like a locust,” an image similar to Job 30:22; in Palestine a strong wind sometimes ends a plague of locusts by blowing them out into the sea (see Ex 10:19; Joel 2:20).
- Psalm 109:25 His accusers seek the psalmist’s downfall by casting scorn on him (see Pss 31:12; 79:4; 89:42) and by rejecting him ([tossing] their heads: see Ps 22:8; Mt 27:39).
- Psalm 109:26 Kindness: see note on Ps 6:5.
- Psalm 109:28 This is a good prayer to turn the edge of an attack (see Rom 8:31ff).
- Psalm 109:30 A vow to praise the Lord for his deliverance (see note on 7:18).
- Psalm 109:31 The final verse puts everything in perspective. At the beginning of this psalm, the enemies of the psalmist are seeking for someone to stand at his right hand in order to accuse him (v. 6) according to the custom of the time. Here we see that the Lord himself is already at the psalmist’s right hand—not to accuse but to defend him. The Lord is ever “near to all who call out to him” (Ps 145:18; see also Deut 4:7; Isa 55:6; 58:9; Jer 29:13).