Psalms 109: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The psalmist asks God not to stay silent while liars attack him without cause and repay his love with hatred. Most of the psalm is a long string of curses called down on one enemy, covering his position, his life span, his children, his property, and the memory of his family. The psalmist then turns back to his own case, describing himself as poor, weak, and mocked, and asks for rescue so his accusers will know it was God's hand. He ends by promising to praise the LORD in public.

Claim by Claim

1. 109:1
   • The psalm is addressed to the chief musician.
   • The psalm is a psalm of David.
   • The speaker calls God the God of his praise.
   • The speaker asks God not to keep silent.
2. 109:2
   • The mouth of a wicked man is opened against the speaker.
   • The mouth of deceit is opened against the speaker.
   • They have spoken to the speaker with a lying tongue.
3. 109:3
   • They surrounded the speaker with words of hatred.
   • They fought against the speaker without cause.
4. 109:4
   • In return for the speaker's love they accuse him.
   • The speaker says of himself that he is prayer.
5. 109:5
   • They repaid the speaker evil in place of good.
   • They repaid the speaker hatred in place of his love.
6. 109:6
   • The speaker asks that a wicked man be appointed over him.
   • The speaker asks that an accuser stand at his right hand.
   • The word for the one standing at his right hand means an accuser or adversary, and the King James renders it as Satan.
7. 109:7
   • The speaker asks that when he is judged he come out guilty.
   • The speaker asks that his prayer become sin.
8. 109:8
   • The speaker asks that his days be few.
   • The speaker asks that another take his office.
9. 109:9
   • The speaker asks that his children be fatherless.
   • The speaker asks that his wife be a widow.
10. 109:10
    • The speaker asks that his children wander continually.
    • The speaker asks that his children beg.
    • The speaker asks that his children seek out of their ruined places.
11. 109:11
    • The speaker asks that a creditor seize all that he has.
    • The speaker asks that strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.
12. 109:12
    • The speaker asks that there be no one to extend kindness to him.
    • The speaker asks that there be no one to show favor to his fatherless children.
13. 109:13
    • The speaker asks that his posterity be cut off.
    • The speaker asks that their name be blotted out in the following generation.
14. 109:14
    • The speaker asks that the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by the LORD.
    • The speaker asks that the sin of his mother not be blotted out.
15. 109:15
    • The speaker asks that they be before the LORD continually.
    • The speaker asks that the LORD cut off their memory from the earth.
16. 109:16
    • The reason given is that he did not remember to show kindness.
    • He persecuted the poor and needy man.
    • He persecuted the man broken in heart.
    • His purpose was to put such a one to death.
17. 109:17
    • He loved cursing.
    • The speaker asks that cursing come upon him.
    • He did not delight in blessing.
    • The speaker asks that blessing be far from him.
18. 109:18
    • He clothed himself with cursing as with his garment.
    • The speaker asks that it come into his inward parts like water.
    • The speaker asks that it come into his bones like oil.
19. 109:19
    • The speaker asks that it be to him like a garment he wraps around himself.
    • The speaker asks that it be like a belt he girds on continually.
20. 109:20
    • The speaker asks that this be the wage his accusers receive from the LORD.
    • The speaker identifies his accusers as those who speak evil against his soul.
21. 109:21
    • The speaker addresses God as the Lord GOD.
    • The speaker asks God to act on his behalf for the sake of God's name.
    • The speaker says God's steadfast love is good.
    • The speaker asks God to deliver him.
22. 109:22
    • The speaker says he is poor and needy.
    • The speaker says his heart is wounded within him.
23. 109:23
    • The speaker says he is gone like a shadow when it stretches out.
    • The speaker says he is shaken off like a locust.
24. 109:24
    • The speaker's knees are weak from fasting.
    • The speaker's flesh has grown lean from lack of fatness.
25. 109:25
    • The speaker became an object of reproach to them.
    • When they see him they shake their heads.
26. 109:26
    • The speaker asks the LORD his God to help him.
    • The speaker asks to be saved according to God's steadfast love.
27. 109:27
    • The speaker asks that they know that this is God's hand.
    • The speaker asks that they know that the LORD has done it.
28. 109:28
    • The speaker says they curse.
    • The speaker asks that God bless.
    • The speaker asks that when they arise they be ashamed.
    • The speaker asks that God's servant rejoice.
29. 109:29
    • The speaker asks that his accusers be clothed with disgrace.
    • The speaker asks that they wrap themselves in their own shame as with a robe.
30. 109:30
    • The speaker will greatly give thanks to the LORD with his mouth.
    • The speaker will praise the LORD among many people.
31. 109:31
    • The LORD stands at the right hand of the needy man.
    • The LORD stands there to save him from those who condemn his soul.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

109:1

"Do not stay silent" is courtroom language: the psalmist is asking God to speak up on his behalf, the way a witness or judge breaks silence. Much of this psalm is set as a trial, with accusers, testimony, a verdict and a defender.

109:2

Wicked means choosing to do bad things on purpose.

109:3

"Compassed me about" means surrounded me on every side, the way a group closes in around one person.

109:4

The Hebrew of the second half reads, very compactly, "but I, prayer," which translators render either as "I am a man of prayer" or "I keep on praying." The word behind "accuse" is the verb related to the noun in verse 6.

109:5

In 1611 English a "reward" was simply what you got back for something, good or bad. Here it means they paid him back with evil.

109:6

The word translated "accuser" is the Hebrew *satan*, which at this period meant a prosecutor or legal opponent rather than a proper name; at a trial the accuser stood at the defendant's right side. Note also that verses 6–19 are a long string of curses, and the Hebrew gives no marker of who is speaking them. They may be the psalmist cursing his enemy, or the psalmist quoting back the curses his accusers have been pronouncing on him. Ancient and modern translators divide on this, and both readings fit the Hebrew.

109:7

"Let even his prayer count as a sin" means his appeal for mercy is not merely refused but is itself entered against him, as further evidence of guilt.

109:8

The word behind "position" means an appointed office or charge of responsibility, a post someone holds by commission, not just a job.

109:9

In ancient Israel a household with no adult man had no legal standing and no one to press its case; widows and fatherless children were the standard example of people with no protection, which is why the curse takes this form.

109:10

The Hebrew of the second line is difficult. It can mean that the children search for food far from their ruined homes, or that they are driven out of the ruins where they are sheltering; the old Greek translation read it the second way.

109:11

"Extortioner" in 1611 English meant a creditor, someone owed money who can legally seize a debtor's property.

109:13

A man's name survived through his descendants; to have the family line cut off was to be erased entirely, which made it the most severe curse available. "Wiped out" pictures a name scrubbed off a written list or register.

109:14

Ancient Israelite thinking could reckon a family's guilt as a single running account rather than person by person, so an ancestor's unpunished wrong could still be "on the books." "Remember" here does not mean recall to mind but act on, the opposite of wiping the record clean.

109:17

A spoken curse was treated as a real and potent thing, released into the world and able to attach itself to someone, not merely a rude wish. The request is that the curses the man let loose settle back onto him.

109:18

The image is of a curse behaving like a substance: soaking through the body like drunk water, and like oil rubbed into the skin, which was thought to penetrate right down to the bones.

109:19

A "girdle" was a wide belt or sash tied around the waist over a robe. You wore it every day, all day.

109:21

"For the sake of your name" means for the sake of God's own reputation and standing, a name stood for the whole character a person was known by. "Faithful love" translates Hebrew *hesed*, the loyal, committed kindness owed within a binding relationship.

109:22

"Poor and needy" in the Psalms is not only about money; it describes someone with no power, no protector and no standing to defend himself.

109:23

Two images of vanishing: the long shadow at the end of the day, which stretches out and then is gone at sunset, and a locust flicked off a garment or blown away by the wind.

109:24

Going without food was a recognized public act of mourning and of pressing an appeal before God, not an accident of poverty.

109:25

Shaking the head at someone was a gesture of scorn and mockery in this culture, the equivalent of a jeer, not the modern head-shake meaning "no" or "what a shame."

109:27

"Thy hand" means your power at work. Saying God's hand did it means God himself did it.

109:29

Clothing stands for what a person is publicly seen to be. To be "dressed in disgrace" is to have shame become the thing everyone sees when they look at you.

109:30

Thanks for rescue was expected to be paid publicly, in front of the assembled worshipers, so that the witnesses who saw the trouble also heard the outcome.

109:31

This deliberately reverses verse 6. The right-hand position, occupied there by the prosecutor, is here taken by God, the same spot at a trial could be held by a defender or supporting witness.