Psa 109:6-21 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 6. Let Satan stand at his right hand. ] As the word satan means an adversary simply, though sometimes it is used to express the evil spirit Satan , I think it best to preserve here its grammatical meaning: "Let an adversary stand at his right hand:" i.e., Let him be opposed and thwarted in all his purposes. All the Versions have devil, or some equivocal word. The ARABIC has [Arabic] eblees , the chief of the apostate spirits; but the name is probably corrupted from the GREEK διαβολος diabolos ; from which the LATIN diabolus . the ITALIAN diavolo , the SPANISH diablo, the FRENCH diable , the IRISH or CELTIC diabal , the DUTCH duivel , the GERMAN teufel , the ANGLO-SAXON deofal , and the ENGLISH devil , are all derived. The original, διαβολος, comes from διαβαλλειν to shoot or pierce through .

‏ Psalms 109:6-21

Verse 6. Let Satan stand at his right hand.] As the word satan means an adversary simply, though sometimes it is used to express the evil spirit Satan, I think it best to preserve here its grammatical meaning: "Let an adversary stand at his right hand:" i.e., Let him be opposed and thwarted in all his purposes.

All the Versions have devil, or some equivocal word. The ARABIC has [Arabic] eblees, the chief of the apostate spirits; but the name is probably corrupted from the GREEK διαβολος diabolos; from which the LATIN diabolus. the ITALIAN diavolo, the SPANISH diablo, the FRENCH diable, the IRISH or CELTIC diabal, the DUTCH duivel, the GERMAN teufel, the ANGLO-SAXON deofal, and the ENGLISH devil, are all derived. The original, διαβολος, comes from διαβαλλειν to shoot or pierce through.

Verse 7. Let him be condemned] yetse rasha. "Let him come out a wicked man;" that is let his wickedness be made manifest.

Let his prayer become sin.] Thus paraphrased by Calmet: "Let him be accused, convicted, and condemned, and let the defence which he brings for his justification only serve to deepen his guilt, and hasten his condemnation." I once more apprise the reader, that if these are not the words of David's enemies against himself, (see on Ps 109:20,) they are prophetic denunciations against a rebellious and apostate person or people, hardened in crime, and refusing to return to God.

Verse 8. Let another take his office.] The original is pekuddatho, which the margin translates charge, and which literally means superintendence, oversight, inspection from actual visitations. The translation in our common Version is too technical. His bishopric, following the Septuagint, επισκοπην, and Vulgate, episcopatum, and has given cause to some light people to be witty, who have said, "The first bishop we read of was bishop Judas." But it would be easy to convict this witticism of blasphemy, as the word is used in many parts of the sacred writings, from Genesis downward, to signify offices and officers, appointed either by God immediately, or in the course of his providence, for the accomplishment of the most important purposes. It is applied to the patriarch Joseph, Ge 39:4, vaiyaphkidehu, he made him bishop, alias overseer; therefore it might be as wisely said, and much more correctly, "The first bishop we read of was bishop Joseph;" and many such bishops there were of God's making long before Judas was born. After all, Judas was no traitor when he was appointed to what is called his bishopric, office, or charge in the apostolate. Such witticisms as these amount to no argument, and serve no cause that is worthy of defence.

Our common Version, however, was not the first to use the word: it stands in the Anglo-Saxon [A.S.], "and his episcopacy let take other." The old Psalter is nearly the same; I shall give the whole verse: Fa be made his days, and his bysshopryk another take. "For Mathai was sett in stede of Judas; and his days was fa that hynged himself."

Verse 9. Let his children be fatherless, &c.] It is said that Judas was a married man, against whom this verse, as well as the preceding is supposed to be spoken; and that it was to support them that he stole from the bag in which the property of the apostles was put, and of which he was the treasurer.

Verse 10. Let his children-beg] The father having lost his office, the children must necessarily be destitute; and this is the hardest lot to which any can become subject, after having been born to the expectation of an ample fortune.

Verse 11. Let the strangers spoil his labour.] Many of these execrations were literally fulfilled in the case of the miserable Jews, after the death of our Lord. They were not only expelled from their own country, after the destruction of Jerusalem, but they were prohibited from returning; and so taxed by the Roman government, that they were reduced to the lowest degree of poverty. Domitian expelled them from Rome; and they were obliged to take up their habitation without the gate Capena, in a wood contiguous to the city, for which they were obliged to pay a rent, and where the whole of their property was only a basket and a little hay. See JUVENAL, Sat. ver. 11:-

Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam:

Hic ubi nocturne Numa constituebat amicae,

Nunc sacri fontis nemus, et delubra locantur

Judaeis: quorum cophinus, foenumque supellex:

Omnis enim populo mercedem pendere jussa est

Arbor, et ejectis mendicat silva Camoenis.

He stopped a little at the conduit gate,

Where Numa modelled once the Roman state;

In nightly councils with his nymph retired:

Though now the sacred shades and founts are hired

By banished Jews, who their whole wealth can lay

In a small basket, on a wisp of hay.

Yet such our avarice is, that every tree

Pays for his head; nor sleep itself is free;

Nor place nor persons now are sacred held,

From their own grove the Muses are expelled.

DRYDEN.

The same poet refers again to this wretched state of the Jews, Sat. vi., ver. 541; and shows to what vile extremities they were reduced in order to get a morsel of bread:-

Cum dedit ille locum, cophino foenoque relicto,

Arcanam Judaea tremens mendicat in aurem,

Interpres legum Solymarum, et magna sacerdos

Arboris, ac summi fida internuncia coeli.

Implet et illa manum, sed parcius, aere minuto.

Qualia cunque voles Judaei somnia vendunt.

Here a Jewess is represented as coming from the wood mentioned above, to gain a few oboli by fortune-telling; and, trembling lest she should be discovered, she leaves her basket and hay, and whispers lowly in the ear of some female, from whom she hopes employment in her line. She is here called by the poet the interpretess of the laws of Solymae, or Jerusalem, and the priestess of a tree, because obliged, with the rest of her nation, to lodge in a wood; so that she and her countrymen might be said to seek their bread out of desolate places, the stranger having spoiled their labour. Perhaps the whole of the Psalm relates to their infidelities, rebellions, and the miseries inflicted on them from the crucifixion of our Lord till the present time. I should prefer this sense, if what is said on Ps 109:20 be not considered a better mode of interpretation.

Verse 13. Let his posterity be cut off] It is a fact that the distinction among the Jewish tribes in entirely lost. Not a Jew in the world knows from what tribe he is sprung; and as to the royal family, it remains nowhere but in the person of Jesus the Messiah. He alone is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Except as it exists in him, the name is blotted out.

Verse 16. Persecuted the poor and needy man] In the case of Jesus Christ all the dictates of justice and mercy were destroyed, and they persecuted this poor man unto death. They acted from a diabolical malice. On common principles, their opposition to Christ cannot be accounted for.

Verse 17. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him] The Jews said, when crucifying our Lord, His blood be upon us and our children! Never was an imprecation more dreadfully fulfilled.

Verse 18. Let it come into his bowels like water] Houbigant thinks this is an allusion to the waters of jealousy; and he is probably right,-the bitter waters that produce the curse. See Nu 5:18.

Verse 19. And for a girdle] Let the curse cleave to him throughout life: as the girdle binds all the clothes to the body, let the curse of God bind all mischiefs and maladies to his body and soul.

The Hindoos, Budhists, and others often wear a gold or silver chain about their waist. One of those chains, once the ornament of a Moudeliar in the island of Ceylon, lies now before me: it is silver, and curiously wrought.

Verse 20. Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.] Following the mode of interpretation already adopted, this may mean: All these maledictions shall be fulfilled on my enemies; they shall have them for their reward. So all the opposition made by the Jews against our Lord, and the obloquies and execrations wherewith they have loaded him and his religion, have fallen upon themselves; and they are awful examples of the wrath of God abiding on them that believe not.

But is not this verse a key to all that preceded it? The original, fairly interpreted, will lead us to a somewhat different meaning: zoth peullath soteney meeth Yehovah, vehaddoberim ra al naphshi. "This is the work of my adversaries before the Lord, and of those who speak evil against my soul," or life. That is, all that is said from the sixth to the twentieth verse consists of the evil words and imprecations of my enemies against my soul, laboring to set the Lord, by imprecations, against me, that their curses may take effect. This, which is a reasonable interpretation, frees the whole Psalm from every difficulty. Surely, the curses contained in it are more like those which proceed from the mouth of the wicked, than from one inspired by the Spirit of the living God. Taking the words in this sense, which I am persuaded is the best, and which the original will well bear and several of the Versions countenance, then our translation may stand just as it is, only let the reader remember that at the sixth verse David begins to tell how his enemies cursed HIM, while he prayed for THEM.

Verse 21. But do thou for me] While they use horrible imprecations against me, and load me with their curses, act thou for me, and deliver me from their maledictions. While they curse, do thou bless. This verse is a farther proof of the correctness of the interpretation given above.