Psalms 109:18

"He clothed himself also with cursing as with a garment,

And it came into his inward parts like water,

And like oil into his bones

Let it be unto him as the raiment wherewith he covered himself,

And the girdle wherewith he is girdled continually.

This is the reward of mine adversaries from Jehovah,

And of them that speak evil against my soul."

This is the conclusion of the terrible list of imprecations. The psalm now returns to the prayer of the psalmist for himself.

"These terrible maledictions need little comment. They may be left in all their awfulness and should not be extenuated nor degraded into a purely personal outburst of personal vindictiveness. They are far more noble than that. These terrible verses are a prophecy, but they are prayers too, prayers which can only be accounted for by remembering the spirit of the old dispensation."[15]

The feelings of this writer with reference to the imprecations here persist in the conviction that there may be far more in this chapter than we have been able to fathom. It should be remembered, that, upon the testimony of the Apostle Peter, we must receive these words as given by the Spirit of God through David, and that at least the passage referred to in Acts 1:16,20 was written concerning Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Son of God.

It is altogether possible that the awful maledictions of this chapter are intended as a warning to all enemies of the Son of God, and not merely Judas alone. The prevailing notion that the "gentle Jesus" is never really going to hurt anyone is by no means accurate. A little heeded statement of Christ himself is that of Luke 19:27, "But these mine enemies that would not that I should rule over them, bring hither, and slay before me." These enemies were the ones who "hated Christ" (Luke 19:14); and if all of the terrible maledictions of this chapter should be understood as the just and inevitable reward of all those who hate the Son of God and repudiate his benign government, then all of their offensiveness to sensitive Christian hearts is removed.