Psalms 109

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

This has been called, by way of eminence, the “Imprecatory Psalm,” and on that account has been a stumbling block to not a few. It has been supposed to conflict with the spirit of the New Testament, and of all true piety. On the other hand, it appears in the sacred canon in lyrical form, for public use in worship, and is assigned to the chief musician for performance. It must, therefore, contain truth, and harmonize in spirit with an acceptable worship of God. Like all inspired Scripture, its tendency, even though of a warning tone, must be edifying. We must accept the psalm in this character or reject it altogether, as we must all other psalms containing similar expressions.

The error which has misled so many comes from supposing the psalmist to be actuated by personal feelings of revenge upon his enemies. But this contradicts both the psalm itself, the ethics of the Old and New Testaments, and the known character of David. In the psalm, (Psalms 109:1; Psalms 109:30,) David professes “praise” to God for the answers which he expects to these petitions. In Psalms 109:4 he gives himself wholly to prayer, expecting help from God only. In Psalms 109:26-27, he professes to have laid the matter so completely before God, submitting it to his will and method of redress, that when it should be accomplished even his enemies should know that “the Lord had done it.” In Psalms 109:31 he wishes the moral result to be a public conviction that God shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from them that would condemn his soul.” These sentiments cannot harmonize with feelings of private revenge, but belong to the loftiest conceptions of the character of God, and of what is due to public law, human rights, and moral government. From Psalms 109:6 to the end the psalm is typically predictive. The quotations of the apostle and of Christ, (Matthew 26:24; Acts 1:20,) decide this point. As the probable occasion of the psalm is found in 1 Samuel 22:18, the execrated person is, historically, Doeg; prophetically, Judas Iscariot. The plurality of enemies refers to the conspirators against David and against Christ, from which one is selected as the representative of all. “The persecution of David was a sin, also, against the Christ in him; and because Christ is in David, the outbursts of the Old Testament wrathful spirit take the prophetic form; so that this psalm, like Psalms 22, 69, is a typically prophetic psalm, inasmuch as the utterance of the type concerning himself is carried by the spirit of prophecy beyond himself.” Delitzsch. According to this view, in so far as the psalm applies to Christ and his persecutors, especially the betrayer, David speaks in the person of Christ. This is just reasoning, and applies to Psalm lxix, and all other typically predictive psalms as well.