Whether
David penned this psalm when he was persecuted by Saul, or when his son
Absalom rebelled against him, or upon occasion of some other trouble that
was given him, is uncertain; and whether the particular enemy he prays
against was Saul, or Doeg, or Ahithophel, or some other not mentioned in the
story, we cannot determine; but it is certain that in penning it he had an
eye to Christ, his sufferings and his persecutors, for that imprecation
(ver. 8) is applied to Judas, Acts i. 20. The rest of the prayers here
against his enemies were the expressions, not of passion, but of the Spirit
of prophecy. I. He lodges a complaint in the court of heaven of the malice
and base ingratitude of his enemies and with it an appeal to the righteous
God, ver. 1-5. II. He prays against his enemies, and devotes them to
destruction, ver. 6-20. III. He prays for himself, that God would help and
succour him in his low condition, ver. 21-29. IV. He concludes with a joyful
expectation that God would appear for him, ver. 30, 31. In singing this
psalm we must comfort ourselves with the believing foresight of the certain
destruction of all the enemies of Christ and his church, and the certain
salvation of all those that trust in God and keep close to him.
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Appeal to God Against Enemies.
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To the chief Musician. A psalm of David.
1
Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise; 2 For the mouth of the
wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have
spoken against me with a lying tongue. 3 They compassed me about
also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.
4 For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto
prayer. 5 And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred
for my love.
It is the unspeakable
comfort of all good people that, whoever is against them, God is for them,
and to him they may apply as to one that is pleased to concern himself for
them. Thus David here.
I. He refers himself to
God's judgment (v. 1): "Hold not thy peace, but let my
sentence come forth from thy presence, Ps. xvii. 2. Delay not to give
judgment upon the appeal made to thee." God saw what his enemies did
against him, but seemed to connive at it, and to keep silence:
"Lord," says he, "do not always do so." The title he
gives to God is observable: "O God of my praise! the God in whom
I glory, and not in any wisdom or strength of my own, from whom I
have every thing that is my praise, or the God whom I have praised, and will
praise, and hope to be for ever praising." He had before called God the
God of his mercy (Ps. lix. 10), here he calls him the God of his
praise. Forasmuch as God is the God of our mercies we must make
him the God of our praises; if all is of him and from him, all must
be to him and for him.
II. He complains of his
enemies, showing that they were such as it was fit for the righteous God to
appear against. 1. They were very spiteful and malicious: They are wicked;
they delight in doing mischief (v. 2); their words are words of
hatred, v. 3. They had an implacable enmity to a good man because
of his goodness. "They open their mouths against me to swallow me up,
and fight against me to cut me off if they could." 2. They were
notorious liars; and lying comprehends two of the seven things which the
Lord hates. "They are deceitful in their protestations and
professions of kindness, while at the same time they speak against me behind
my back, with a lying tongue." They were equally false in their
flatteries and in their calumnies. 3. They were both public and restless in
their designs; "They compassed me about on all sides, so that,
which way soever I looked, I could see nothing but what made against
me." 4. They were unjust; their accusations of him, and sentence
against him, were all groundless: "They have fought against me
without a cause; I never gave them any provocation." Nay, which was
worst of all, 5. They were very ungrateful, and rewarded him evil for
good, v. 5. Many a kindness he had done them, and was upon all
occasions ready to do them, and yet he could not work upon them to abate
their malice against him, but, on the contrary, they were the more
exasperated because they could not provoke him to give them some occasion
against him (v. 4): For my love they are my adversaries. The
more he endeavoured to gratify them the more they hated him. We may wonder
that it is possible that any should be so wicked; and yet, since there have
been so many instances of it, we should not wonder if any be so wicked
against us.
III. He resolves to keep
close to his duty and take the comfort of that: But I give myself unto
prayer (v. 4), I prayer (so it is in the original);
"I am for prayer, I am a man of prayer, I love prayer, and prize
prayer, and practise prayer, and make a business of prayer, and am in my
element when I am at prayer." A good man is made up of prayer, gives
himself to prayer, as the apostles, Acts vi. 4. When David's enemies
falsely accused him, and misrepresented him, he applied to God and by prayer
committed his cause to him. Though they were his adversaries for his love,
yet he continued to pray for them; if others are abusive and injurious to
us, yet let not us fail to do our duty to them, nor sin against the Lord
in ceasing to pray for them, 1 Sam. xii. 23. Though they hated and
persecuted him for his religion, yet he kept close to it; they laughed at
him for his devotion, but they could not laugh him out of it. "Let them
say what they will, I give myself unto prayer." Now herein David
was a type of Christ, who was compassed about with words of hatred
and lying words, whose enemies not only persecuted him without cause, but
for his love and his good works (John x. 32); and yet he gave
himself to prayer, to pray for them. Father, forgive them.
6
Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become
sin. 8 Let his days be few; and let another take his
office. 9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a
widow. 10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg:
let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil
his labour. 12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him:
neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. 13
Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let
their name be blotted out. 14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be
remembered with the LORD;
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. 15 Let them be
before the LORD
continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and
needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. 17 As he
loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so
let it be far from him. 18 As he clothed himself with cursing
like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and
like oil into his bones. 19 Let it be unto him as the garment which
covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
20 Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD,
and of them that speak evil against my soul.
David here fastens upon
some one particular person that was worse than the rest of his enemies, and
the ringleader of them, and in a devout and pious manner, not from a
principle of malice and revenge, but in a holy zeal for God and against sin
and with an eye to the enemies of Christ, particularly Judas who betrayed
him, whose sin was greater than Pilate's that condemned him (John xix. 11),
he imprecates and predicts his destruction, foresees and pronounces him
completely miserable, and such a one as our Saviour calls him, A son of
perdition. Calvin speaks of it as a detestable piece of sacrilege,
common in his time among Franciscan friars and other monks, that if any one
had malice against a neighbour he might hire some of them to curse him every
day, which he would do in the words of these verses; and particularly he
tells of a lady in France who, being at variance with her own and only son,
hired a parcel of friars to curse him in these words. Greater impiety can
scarcely be imagined than to vent a devilish passion in the language of
sacred writ, to kindle strife with coals snatched from God's altar, and to
call for fire from heaven with a tongue set on fire of hell.
I. The imprecations here
are very terrible--woe, and a thousand woes, to that man against whom God
says Amen to them; and they are all in full force against the
implacable enemies and persecutors of God's church and people, that will
not repent, to give him glory. It is here foretold concerning this bad
man,
1. That he should be cast
and sentenced as a criminal, with all the dreadful pomp of a trial,
conviction, and condemnation (v. 6, 7): Set thou a wicked man over
him, to be as cruel and oppressive to him as he has been to others; for
God often makes one wicked man a scourge to another, to spoil the spoilers
and to deal treacherously with those that have dealt treacherously. Set
the wicked one over him (so some), that is, Satan, as it follows; and
then it was fulfilled in Judas, into whom Satan entered, to hurry him into
sin first and then into despair. Set his own wicked heart over him, set his
own conscience against him; let that fly in his face. Let Satan stand on
his right hand, and be let loose against him to deceive him, as he did
Ahab to his destruction, and then to accuse him and resist him, and then he
is certainly cast, having no interest in that advocate who alone can say, The
Lord rebuke thee, Satan (Zech. iii. 1, 2); when he shall be judged at
men's bar let not his usual arts to evade justice do him any service, but
let his sin find him out and let him be condemned; nor shall he
escape before God's tribunal, but be condemned there when the day of
inquisition and recompence shall come. Let his prayer become sin, as
the clamours of a condemned malefactor not only find no acceptance, but are
looked upon as an affront to the court. The prayers of the wicked now become
sin, because soured with the leaven of hypocrisy and malice; and so they
will in the great day, because then it will be too late to cry, Lord,
Lord, open to us. Let every thing be turned against him and improved to
his disadvantage, even his prayers.
2. That, being condemned,
he should be executed as a most notorious malefactor. (1.) That he should
lose his life, and the number of his months be cut off in the midst, by the
sword of justice: Let his days be few, or shortened, as a condemned
criminal has but a few days to live (v. 8); such bloody and deceitful
men shall not live out half their days. (2.) That consequently all his
places should be disposed of to others, and they should enjoy his
preferments and employments: Let another take his office. This Peter
applies to the filling up of Judas's place in the truly sacred college of
the apostles, by the choice of Matthias, Acts i. 20. Those that mismanage
their trusts will justly have their office taken from them and given to
those that will approve themselves faithful. (3.) That his family should be
beheaded and beggared, that his wife should be made a widow
and his children fatherless, by his untimely death, v. 9.
Wicked men, by their wicked courses, bring ruin upon their wives and
children, whom they ought to take care of and provide for. Yet his children,
if, when they lost their father, they had a competency to live upon, might
still subsist in comfort; but they shall be vagabonds and shall beg;
they shall not have a house of their own to live in, nor any certain
dwelling-place, nor know where to have a meal's-meat, but shall creep out
of their desolate places with fear and trembling, like beasts out of
their dens, to seek their bread (v. 10), because they are
conscious to themselves that all mankind have reason to hate them for their
father's sake. (4.) That his estate should be ruined, as the estates of
malefactors are confiscated (v. 11): Let the extortioner, the
officer, seize all that he has and let the stranger, who was nothing
akin to his estate, spoil his labour, either for his crimes or for
his debts, Job v. 4, 5. (5.) That his posterity should be miserable.
Fatherless children, though they have nothing of their own, yet sometimes
are well provided for by the kindness of those whom God inclines to pity
them; but this wicked man having never shown mercy there shall be none to
extend mercy to him, by favouring his fatherless children when he
is gone, v. 12. The children of wicked parents often fare the worse
for their parents' wickedness in this way that the bowels of men's
compassion are shut up from them, which yet ought not to be, for why should
children suffer for that which was not their fault, but their infelicity?
(6.) That his memory should be infamous, and buried in oblivion and disgrace
(v. 13): Let his posterity be cut off; let his end be to
destruction (so Dr. Hammond); and in the next generation let
their name be blotted out, or remembered with contempt and indignation,
and (v. 15) let an indelible mark of disgrace be left upon it. See
here what hurries some to shameful deaths, and brings the families and
estates of others to ruin, makes them and their despicable and odious, and
entails poverty, and shame, and misery, upon their posterity; it is sin,
that mischievous destructive thing. The learned Dr. Hammond applies this to
the final dispersion and desolation of the Jewish nation for their
crucifying Christ; their princes and people were cut off, their country was
laid waste, and their posterity were made fugitives and vagabonds.
II. The ground of these
imprecations bespeaks them very just, though they sound very severe. 1. To
justify the imprecations of vengeance upon the sinner's posterity, the sin
of his ancestors is here brought into the account (v. 14, 15), the
iniquity of his fathers and the sin of his mother. These God
often visits even upon the children's children, and is not unrighteous
therein: when wickedness has long run in the blood justly does the curse run
along with it. Thus all the innocent blood that had been shed upon the
earth, from that of righteous Abel, was required from that persecuting
generation, who, by putting Christ to death, filled up the measure of
their fathers, and left as long a train of vengeance to follow them as
the train of guilt was that went before them, which they themselves agreed
to by saying, His blood be upon us and on our children. 2. To justify
the imprecations of vengeance upon the sinner himself, his own sin is here
charged upon him, which called aloud for it. (1.) He had loved cruelty, and
therefore give him blood to drink (v. 16): He remembered not to
show mercy, remembered not those considerations which should have
induced him to show mercy, remembered not the objects of compassion that had
been presented to him, but persecuted the poor, whom he should have
protected and relieved, and slew the broken in heart, whom he should
have comforted and healed. Here is a barbarous man indeed, not it to live.
(2.) He had loved cursing, and therefore let the curse come upon his head, v.
17-19. Those that were out of the reach of his cruelty he let fly at with
his curses, which were impotent and ridiculous; but they shall return upon
him. He delighted not in blessing; he took no pleasure in wishing
well to others, nor in seeing others do well; he would give nobody a good
word or a good wish, much less would he do any body a good turn; and so
let all good be far from him. He clothed himself with cursing; he
was proud of it as an ornament that he could frighten all about him with the
curses he was liberal of; he confided in it as armour, which would secure
him from the insults of those he feared. And let him have enough of it. Was
he fond of cursing? Let God's curse come into his bowels like
water and swell him as with a dropsy, and let it soak like oil
into his bones. The word of the curse is quick and powerful, and
divides between the joints and the marrow; it works powerfully and
effectually; it fastens on the soul; it is a piercing thing, and there is no
antidote against it. Let it compass him on every side as a garment, v.
19. Let God's cursing him be his shame, as his cursing his neighbour was his
pride; let it cleave to him as a girdle, and let him never be able to
get clear of it. Let it be to him like the waters of jealousy, which caused
the belly to swell and the thigh to rot. This points at the
utter ruin of Judas, and the spiritual judgments which fell on the Jews for
crucifying Christ. The psalmist concludes his imprecations with a terrible Amen,
which signifies not only, "I wish it may be so," but "I know
it shall be so." Let this be the reward of my adversaries from the
Lord, v. 20. And this will be the reward of all the adversaries
of the Lord Jesus; his enemies that will not have him to reign over them
shall be brought forth and slain before him. And he will one day
recompense tribulation to those that trouble his people.
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Humble Petitions; Triumphing in God.
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21
But do thou for me, O GOD
the Lord, for thy name's sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver
thou me. 22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is
wounded within me. 23 I am gone like the shadow when it
declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust. 24 My knees
are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness. 25 I
became also a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they
shaked their heads. 26 Help me, O LORD
my God: O save me according to thy mercy: 27 That they may know
that this is thy hand; that thou, LORD,
hast done it. 28 Let them curse, but bless thou: when they
arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice. 29 Let
mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with
their own confusion, as with a mantle. 30 I will greatly praise
the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will
praise him among the multitude. 31 For he shall stand at the
right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.
David, having denounced
God's wrath against his enemies, here takes God's comforts to himself, but
in a very humble manner, and without boasting.
I. He pours out his
complaint before God concerning the low condition he was in, which,
probably, gave advantage to his enemies to insult over him: "I am
poor and needy, and therefore a proper object of pity, and one that
needs and craves thy help." 1. He was troubled in mind (v. 22): My
heart is wounded within me, not only broken with outward troubles, which
sometimes prostrate and sink the spirits, but wounded with a sense of guilt;
and a wounded spirit who can bear? who can heal? 2. He apprehended
himself drawing near to his end: I am gone like the shadow when it
declines, as good as gone already. Man's life, at best, is like a
shadow; sometimes it is like the evening shadow, the presage of night
approaching, like the shadow when it declines. 3. He was unsettled, tossed
up and down like the locust, his mind fluctuating and unsteady, still
putting him upon new counsels, his outward condition far from any fixation,
but still upon the remove, hunted like a partridge on the mountains. 4. His
body was wasted, and almost worn away (v. 24): My knees are weak
through fasting, either forced fasting (for want of food when he was
persecuted, or for want of appetite when he was sick) or voluntary fasting,
when he chastened his soul either for sin or affliction, his own or other's,
Ps. xxxv. 13; lxix. 10. "My flesh fails of fatness; that is, it
has lost the fatness it had, so that I have become a skeleton, nothing but
skin and bones." But it is better to have this leanness in the body,
while the soul prospers and is in health, than, like Israel, to have
leanness sent into the soul, while the body is feasted. 5. He was ridiculed
and reproached by his enemies (v. 25); his devotions and his
afflictions they made the matter of their laughter, and, upon both those
accounts, God's people have been exceedingly filled with the scorning of
those that were at ease. In all this David was a type of Christ, who in his
humiliation was thus wounded, thus weakened, thus reproached; he was also a
type of the church, which is often afflicted, tossed with tempests, and
not comforted.
II. He prays for mercy for
himself. In general (v. 21): "Do thou for me, O God the Lord!
appear for me, act for me." If God be for us, he will do for us, will
do more abundantly for us than we are able either to ask or think. He
does not prescribe to God what he should do for him, but refers himself to
his wisdom: "Lord, do for me what seems good in thy eyes. Do that which
thou knowest will be for me, really for me, in the issue for me, though for
the present it may seem to make against me." More particularly, he
prays (v. 26): "Help me, O Lord my God! O save me! Help
me under my trouble, save me out of my trouble; save me from sin, help me to
do my duty." He prays (v. 28), Though they curse, bless thou.
Here (1.) He despises the causeless curses of his enemies: Let them
curse. He said of Shimei, So let him curse. They can but show
their malice; they can do him no more mischief than the bird by wandering
or the swallow by flying, Prov. xxvi. 2. He values the blessing of
God as sufficient to counterbalance their curses: Bless thou, and
then it is no matter though they curse. If God bless us, we need not
care who curses us; for how can they curse those whom God has not cursed,
nay, whom he has blessed? Num. xxiii. 8. Men's curses are impotent; God's
blessings are omnipotent; and those whom we unjustly curse may in faith
expect and pray for God's blessing, his special blessing. When the Pharisees
cast out the poor man for his confessing Christ, Christ found him,
John ix. 35. When men without cause say all the ill they can of us, and wish
all the ills they can to us, we may with comfort lift up our heart to God in
this petition: Let them curse, but bless thou. He prays (v.
28), Let thy servant rejoice. Those that know how to value God's
blessing, let them but be sure of it, and they will be glad of it.
III. He prays that his
enemies might be ashamed (v. 28), clothed with shame (v.
29), that they might cover themselves with their own confusion, that
they might be left to themselves, to do that which would expose them and manifest
their folly before all men, or rather that they might be disappointed in
their designs and enterprises against David, and thereby might be filled
with shame, as the adversaries of the Jews were, Neh. vi. 16. Nay, in
this he prays that they might be brought to repentance, which is the chief
thing we should beg of God for our enemies. Sinners indeed bring shame upon
themselves, but they are true penitents that take shame to themselves and cover
themselves with their own confusion.
IV. He pleads God's glory,
the honour of his name:--Do for me, for thy name's sake (v.
21), especially the honour of his goodness, by which he has proclaimed his
name: "Deliver me, because thy mercy is good; it is what thou
thyself dost delight in, and it is what I do depend upon. Save me, not
according to my merit, for I have none to pretend to, but according to
thy mercy; let that be the fountain, the reason, the measure, of my
salvation."
Lastly, He concludes the psalm with
joy, the joy of faith, joy in assurance that his present conflicts would end
in triumphs. 1. He promises God that he will praise him (v. 30):
"I will greatly praise the Lord, not only with my heart, but with
my mouth; I will praise him, not in secret only, but among the
multitude." 2. He promises himself that he shall have cause to
praise God (v. 31): He shall stand at the right hand of the poor,
nigh to him, a present help; he shall stand at his right hand as his patron
and advocate to plead his cause against his accusers and to bring him off, to
save him from those that condemn his soul and would execute their
sentence if they could. God was David's protector in his sufferings, and was
present also with the Lord Jesus in his, stood at his right hand, so
that he was not moved (Ps. xvi. 8), saved his soul from those that
pretended to be the judges of it, and received it into his own hands. Let
all those that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of
their souls to him.
Contents
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