Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 109
The Hundred and Ninth Psalm.
TO the chief Musitian a Psalm of David.
Paraphrase. The hundred and ninth Psalm, (composed on occasion whither of Absoloms rebellion, and assuming the government, as the Syriack takes it, or of Davids flight from Saul, as Kimchi and Aben Ezra resolve) is a direfull prediction of Gods judgments that should fall upon his enemies, whither Absolon and his Councellor Achitophel, or Saul and Doeg: and by Act. i. 20. where v. 8. of this Psalm is said to be fulfilled in Iudas, it appears to have had a more eminent completion in those that opposed and consulted against, and crucified Christ, the Pharisees, and the Rulers of the Iews, who with Iudas, that betrayed him into their hands, and was their counseller and guide at the apprehension of him, Act. i. 16. met with sad and direfull ends. It was composed by David, and committed to the Praefect of his Musick.
1. Hold not thy peace,a. O God‖or, my praise foreign of my praise.
Thou, O God, art the only joy and comfort and refuge of my life, from thee all the good things flow that ever I received, to thee all the glory and praise is due: Be thou now pleased to interpose for my aid and relief.
2. For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitfull are opened against me, they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
For now I have special need of it, wicked men having most falsely and treacherously and cunningly infused into mens mindes most slanderous reports of me.
3. They compassed me about also with words of hatred,and fought against me without a cause.
Their slanders and false suggestions have been their special pestilent weapons against me; with them they have besieged, as it were, and girt me close, and then shot out these poisonous darts against me, sharpened the swords of their tongues, and with them most maliciously assaulted me.
4. For my love they are my adversaries: but I give my selfe to prayer.
5. And they have rewarded me evill for good, and hatred for my good will.
I never did any act of hostility or unkindnesse to them, but contrarywise obliged them with all acts of love and greatest charity; they had no other provocation but this from me; and for this they have most unhumanely returned all the effects of the bitterest malice. Yet hath not this moved me to act any revenge; but on the contrary, I have heartily prayed to God*foreign for them, Syr: Deum pro ipsis compecatus. Castel. for them, besought his pardon, and the averting his judgments from them, and his grace for their timely reformation. And all this hath produced no other effect from them but their most malignant hatred, and mischievous practices, in returne to my greatest charity.
6. Set thou a wicked manb. over him, and let‖the adversary satan stand at his right hand.
7. When he shall be judged, let him†or, goe at wicked. be condemned; and let his prayer becomec. sin.
8. Let his dayes bed. few, and let another take his office.
9. Let his children be fatherlesse, and his wife a widow.
10. Let his children be continually vagabonds and begge; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
This will certainly bring down upon the chief actors, and all the partners in this wickedness (whither Achitophel and Absolom and their followers, or Saul and Doeg, in the first literal sense, or Iudas and the Iewish Sanhedrim, and all that nation that opposed and crucified Christ, in the prophetick sense) most unavoidable sad executions, judgments, and vengeances, as on so many accursed Malefactors, whose lives and estates being forfeited to the law, their widow'd wives and orphane children shall become vagabonds over the face of the earth, covetous and griping and beggerly for ever.
11. Let the*usurer seise on extortionere. catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoile his labour.
12. Let there be none to extend mercy to him, neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
And as they corrade and indeavour to get together the wealth of others, so shall others when they have any thing to be seis'd on, plunder and rifle and pillage them, rob them of all these gainings, and no man take any compassion on them or their posterity in their sufferings, be they never so cruel.
13. Let‖his end be to destruction, and in the next generation hisf. posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembred 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.
As for the principal instruments in these wicked rebellions and treasons (against David and the son of David) they shall certainly come to untimely deaths (so did Achitophel 2 Sam. xvii. 23. and Absolom c. xviii. 14. and Saul 1 Sam. xxxi. 5. and Doeg Psal. Lii. 5. and so Iudas Matth. 27.) and their posterity shall not last beyond the next age. They shall be cursed by God, and all the punishments due to their fathers sins shall be so visited on this their wicked progeny, that they shall soon come to utter eradication and extirpation.
16. Because that he remembred not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man,‖and broken in heart to slay him foreign that he might even slay the broken in heart.
And this a most just reward for their uncharitable and cruel dealing with him, whose distresses might justly have extorted their greatest kindnesse and assistance, but found nothing but bloody pursuits from them. (This seems especially to referr to David at Nob, and Ahimelech and the priests slain by Doeg.)
17. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be farr 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 oile into his bones.
19. Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
'Tis to be expected from the all-just retributions of heaven, that as they were willing to mete to others it should be meted back to them. They were for nothing but mischief and cruelty, & they are to expect no least mixture of compassion or mercy: They delighted in slandering and cursing, wishing and speaking ill of them that least deserved it; and the bitter water that causeth the curse, Num. v. 21. that maketh the thigh to rot and the belly to swell, shall enter, as water is wont into one that is overwhelmed with it, into his stomach, belly, bowels, and make them, as the bitter water did, to swell and burst (so it happened literally to Iudas Act. i. 28. and probably to Achitophel, see note on Mat. xxvii. a and in effect to the others also, in their untimely excision.) And as oile, which is more piercing than water, penetrates the very flesh, veins, nerves and bones; so shall this the most inward parts of them, seise upon their very spirits and souls, (so it did remarkably on those two, Achitophel and Iudas, and the same every such wicked man is to expect) and never be gotten out again, but within afflict, and without incompass them, and cleave to them for ever.
20. †This is, or shall be foreignLet this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evill against my soule.
Thus will God certainly punish them that either so rebelliously or so bloodily and cruelly set themselves against me (and so those hereafter that oppose and crucify the Messias.)
21. But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for thy names sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.
As for me, I have no other sollicitude than to repose my selfe in Gods hands: he is a God of most abundant goodness and mercy, and his honour is ingaged in vindicating my cause, in maintaining me, whom he hath set on the throne, against all opposers. He is also an omnipotent Lord, whose power can soon overrule and calme all these tempests. To him therefore I humbly address my selfe for his seasonable interposition and relief, referring the way and means to his all wise disposal.
22. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
23. I*walk or goe. foreign am gone like the shadow,‖about its declining foreign when it declineth; I amg. tossed up and down as the locust.
And of this his mercy I am very confident, being a most seasonable object of it at this time, brought to great want, to a sorrowfull deplorable condition, every day growing lower and lower, like the shadow about sun-set; driven from my home, and by the same danger that drove me thence, removed from place to place, like the silly impotent locusts, that are carried without any aime, designe or conduct, whithersoever the tempest drives them.
24. My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh†is emaciated from faileth ofh. fatness.
25. I am become also a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they shaked their heads.
We are now quite wearied out, ready to faint and fail, and accordingly are lookt on by our enemies with scorne and derision, making no question, but we shall soon fall into their hands, to be destroyed and devoured by them.
26. Help me, O Lord my God; O save me according to thy mercy:
27. That they may know that*this foreign it is thy hand, and that thou Lord hast done it.
To thee therefore, O God of all power, which hast obliged and insured thy particular mercy to me. I humbly addresse my selfe: be thou pleased seasonably to relieve and rescue me, that it may be visible to all, that this so opportune interposition of thine hath wrought the deliverance for us.
28. ‖They will curse foreignLet them curse, but bless thou:†they have risen up foreign when they arise,*and shall be put to shame foreign let them be ashamed, but let thy servant rejoyce.
Though they raile and defame and rise up against me, yet I shall be secure of thy benediction; and this shall be sure to give me the victory, when they are put to flight and dissipated.
29. Let my adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a mantle.
And this shall certainly be their portion, and consequently nothing but shame and con usion of face for all their malicious successelesse enterprises.
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 them thati. ‖oppose, pursuecondemn his soule.
Of this I am so confident, that I have nothing to doe but to provide for my thanksgiving: and this will I performe in the most solemn and publick manner, and proclaim his abundant constant mercies to me, in taking my part most signally when I am at the lowest, espousing my cause, rescuing me from all the assaults of those that resolved and verily hoped to take away my life. And in the same manner will he certainly deal for all those, who in their greatest distresses shall faithfully adhere to him, and repose their full confidence in him.
Annotations on Psalm CIX.
V. 1. O God of my praise] That foreign foreignmy praise, is to be joyned with foreign God, is agreed on both by the Chaldee and Syriack. The only question is, whether it be to be joyned by apposition, and rendred, O God my praise; or as a genitive case, following another substantive, O God of my praise. Of either of these the word is equally capable, and the sense is either way the same, being but a compellation of God, as of him whom he is bound continually to praise and magnify, for espousing his cause and defending him. The Lxxii. have joyned it to the verb, and so read, foreign, and the Latine, Deus, laudem meam ne tacueris—But again those words are capable of a double sense; for, my praise may either be Gods praising of David, or it may be Davids praising of God. In the first sense 'twill be, O God, be not thou silent of my praise; whilst others reproach me, v. 2. be thou my advocate, plead my cause, proclaim and justify my innocence. In the latter 'tis, be not silent to my praising of thee, or silence not, refuse not, neglect not my praising of thee; and the Aethiopick have put prayer for praising, and then 'tis evidently, be not silent to, but answer my prayer. But the former is the most probable way of rendring, putting it by it selfe, hold not thy peace, in the notion wherein Gods holding his peace, keeping silence, is opposed to his interposing for the aid and defense of any. So Ps. xxviii. 1. in the very same words foreign foreignbe not silent from me (lest if thou be, I become like them that goe down into the pit) i. e. interpose thine aid and strength for me. So Ps. xxxv. 22. foreign be not silent, remove not thy selfe from me, O God: and Ps. L. 3. The Lord shall come, foreign and shall not be silent: and Lxxxiii. 1. in three phrases all to the same importance, foreign Let not stillness or silence be to thee, foreign be not silent, foreign and do not thou be quiet. And so here, O God my glory, foreign say the Chaldee; or foreign say the Syriack, O God of my glory, my singing, my rejoycing, to the very same sense: Thou who art the only author of all the good or joyfull news that I ever receive, of all the mercies, in whom I glory, rejoyce and take comfort, to whom all my praises are due, do thou interpose for my rescue and relief. The Jewish Arab reads, Withhold not, or refrein not from my oppressor; Refrein not to oppose thy selfe against him that oppresseth and injureth me.
V. 6. Set thou a wicked man over him] The Latine translator of the Syriack suggests here another rendring, Praecipe adversus eos iniquo, give the wicked man charge against them; and so the foreign foreignwould well enough bear, against, as well as over him. But the notion of foreign foreignin Hiphil will not accord, being in the Scripture used only in these two notions, either of disposing unto as a trust, or setting over as a praefect: and accordingly the Chaldee read foreign, set over him, and the Lxxii. foreign, constitute over him a wicked man; and so the Syriack foreign will as readily bear, set a wicked man over him. The only difficulty will be, what 'tis to set the wicked over him: and that will best be fetcht from the forementioned notion of foreign, explicated by the context: That signifies to set over as a Praefect, and the context determins that Praefect to be a Judge, being the description of a Judicature, in which the person here spoken of is to be condemned and cut off. And that will sure be done, if a wicked man be set on the tribunal, before which he is accused and arreigned. In accordance with this follows, foreign and let the adversary or foreign, he that maintains the accusation against him, foreign the accuser, say the Lxxii. stand at his right hand, according to the Jewish manner in judicature, where the accuser, he that managed the plea, was set at the right hand of the accused. And then it follows, foreign,foreign when he shall come to receive his sentence, foreign foreignlet him go out wicked; foreign, say the Lxxii. (and so the Chaldee and Syriack also) let him go out condemned, in the notion of going out as that is opposed to standing in judgment, Ps. i. and of wicked, as that is opposed to just in soro (justified or acquitted) for so that must signify condemned. Now it may next be demanded who this person is that is thus to be arreigned and condemned. And the story and first literal sense referring it to Achitophel or to Doeg principally, and in an inferior degree to all others, the parties whether in Sauls oppression, or in Absoloms rebellion, and the prophetick sense to Judas principally, and together with him to the Jews the crucifiers; 'tis yet manifest that none of these were arreigned before any humane tribunal. The resolution therefore must be, that the style is here poetick as well as prophetical, and signifies their ruine as certain, and as formidable, as the arreignment, condemnation and execution of a malefactor upon earth. The tribunal also before which they are sentenced, being first that of their own conscience, remarkable both in Achitophel and Judas, which died the same death (probably that of suffocation of melancholy, see note on Mat. xxvii. a.) inflicted on them by their own accusing conscience; and secondly, that of Gods just judicature, before which they are sure to be cast, and goe out condemned. And from thence it was, that these signal judgments fell both upon Saul and Doeg, and on Absolom and his followers, in the story, and on the bloody crucifiers in the New Testament.
V. 7. His prayer become sin] The meaning of this phrase may most probably be taken from the custome of the Jews, foreignwho at their death did out of course make this prayer, foreign let my death be an expiation for all my offences. This was likewise said by those that fell not by the hand of justice, but died natural deaths. Now he that dies in the midst of an ill attempt, and much more he that makes away himself, as Judas in a fit of suffocation probably did, by throwing himself down a praecipice, his death will be so farre from an expiation, that it will be sin, and a great accumulation of the other crimes. And this is an expression of a most sad deplorable condition, when (as it is P…ov. i. 28. then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer) their prayers for averting their judgment shall be of no more force then their sins would be. The Jewish Arab hath here a sense strangely different from others, And let his prayer for him be destruction to him; understanding it of the prayer of the oppressed, which he putteth up to God for good to his oppressor, but God turneth it for destruction to him.
V. 8. Daies be few] foreign foreignfew, or short, or little, doth here signify the cutting him off before the natural period of his life comes. To this all the following words to the end of v. 10. belong. For when he is thus cut off, his office is void, and so ready for another; his children have lost their father, and his wife an husband, v. 9. and his estate being forfeited to the Law as well as his life, his children and posterity are ejected out of their inheritance, and so must provide for themselves, either by wandering and begging from place to place (this is meant by foreign foreignby moving let them move, i. e. be in perpetual motion; foreign, say the Lxxii. let them be shaken, tost, and removed from place to place) or by seeking out some unhabited place where they may rest and plant. The former of these is here exprest by foreign foreignlet them ask or begg. And perhaps the latter may be the meaning of foreign let them seek (i. e. get their subsistence, maintenance) out of places which being desolate, in no other owners hands, are alone fit to entertain and receive them. But the Chaldee interprets it of their own dwellings, foreign when their desolation is come. The Lxxii. read foreign, let them be cast out of their ruinous dwellings, and seem to have read not foreign foreignlet them seek, but foreign let them be cast out, from foreign which signifies to eject. And so 'tis very applicable to the Jews, whose Temple, and Jerusalem was demolished, and they driven out from the very ruines, not permitted to rebuild or inhabite there. But the common Hebrew reading is to be preferred, being witnest to by the Chaldee, foreign and shall seek; and very agreeable to the context also, which speaks of their unsetled motions from place to place, their begging and not knowing where to dwell. For by this also is very lively described the condition of the Jewish posterity, ever since their ancestors fell under that signal vengeance for the crucifying of Christ. First, their desolations and vastations in their own Countrey; and being ejected thence, Secondly, their continual wandrings from place to place, scattered over the face of the earth; and Thirdly, their remarkable covetousnesse, keeping them allwayes poor and beggerly, be they never so rich, and continually labouring and moiling for gain, as the poorest are wont to do: and this continually the constant course attending this people, wheresoever they are scattered. The Jewish Arab reads, Make few his dayes, and turne over of his age to another. Abu Walid also renders the foreign his office, strangely, his treasure, or wealth. Kimchi interprets it that which is under his command, as his wealth, Wife, &c.
V. 11. Catch] The Hebrew here reads foreign foreignfrom foreign which in Piel signifies concussit, exegit, and applied here to the grating creditor and usurer toward the debtors goods, is best rendred to exact, or seise on; so the Chaldee, foreign shall levy, exact, take away, gather, as the publican doth the taxes, or as the foreign Luk. xii. 58. doth foreign exact, Luk. iii. 13. and xix. 23. or as the foreign tormentor, Matth. xviii. 34. (directly answerable to the Chaldee foreign exactor) to whom the debtor there being delivered, is racked to the utmost, till he pay the last farthing. The Lxxii. here read foreign, the Latine scrutetur, let him search; either paraphrastically to express it, for so he that seises on anothers goods, searches, and takes all that he can finde; or else because of the affinity of foreign exact with foreign enquire or search. The Interlinear, that reads illaqueet, let him insnare or catch, seems to have lookt on foreign to insnare, in which sense the Chaldee took it Psal. xxxviii. 13. rendring foreign foreignby foreign and they made snares. And thus the Jewish Arab, Let the enemy ensnare all his wealth, as a creditor or usurer, (Abu Walid, let the creditor consume or destroy all his wealth) let strangers spoile or make prey of his gaine. And so 'tis ordinary for words of that affinity to have the same signification. To the sense of levying, or seising on, the latter part of this verse agrees well, foreign foreignlet the strangers spoile, snatch away, prey upon his labours (from foreign to snatch or prey upon) the stranger being no other than foreign the usurer in the beginning of the verse, who being none of his family, to whom by inheritance his goods may come, is fitly called a stranger, especially when no Jew being permitted to lend on usury to a Jew, the usurer that lent a Jew must needs be a stranger, i. e. no Jew.
V. 13. Posterity] foreign foreignis here best rendred, his end, or novissimum, as the Interlinear hath it, the last of him. So the Chaldee read foreign his end, and the Syriack, being the same with the Hebrew, put only in the plural, foreign is rendred sinis eorum, their end. So the learned Castellio, exitus eorum, their end. The Lxxii. read foreign his children, from another supposed notion of foreign for children, because they come after a man. But the context inclines to the former notion, the next words affirming that foreign foreignin another, i. e. in the next generation, in the age of those that live after him (the Lxxii. again reads foreign one generation, as from foreign one, not foreign another) his name shall be blotted out, i. e. all those that bear his name, his children: and so the verse comprehends his own and his childrens destruction, which is much more reasonable, than his childrens destruction, and his childrens blotting out, which is no more than the former.
V. 23. Tossed up and down like the Locusts] From foreign to move to and fro, to drive or agitate, is foreign foreignhere I am tost or driven; foreign saith the Chaldee, I am carried, removed; the Syriack foreign I am shaken, or driven, or cast out, in accordance with the Lxxii. who read foreign, I am shaken out. The full notition of it here will be guest by the adjoyning resemblance foreign foreignas the Locust. That creature hath its name from foreign multiplying, because they fly in great multitudes (see Jud. vi. 5. Psal. cv. 34. Prov. xxx. 27.) and being weak and feeble creatures, they are driven by the wind, whole sholes of them together. So Exod. x. 13. the East wind brought the army of Locusts into Aegypt, and so v. 19. a mighty strong West wind took away the Locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea. And to this the similitude here seems to referre. David was in his flight from Absolom, he and all that were with him; and this flight from this rebellion is poetically described by being driven as the Locusts are driven by the wind or tempest. Another possible way there is of understanding the resemblance. The Locust is but a large sort of Grashopper, which hath no set abiding place or nest, but leaps to and fro, roves about the field: so we have the running to and fro of Locusts Isa. xxxiii. 4. And this uncertain unsetled condition of those creatures may be proper also to express David's condition in his flight, when he had not where to lay his head, but wandred from place to place uncertainly. But the former, that is founded in the bands of Locusts, is fitter to express David and the company with him, his weak fugitive army (the Lxxii. reads foreign in the plural, and the Hebrew word in the singular may import a plurality of them) than that which is founded in the manner of the single Locust, or Grashopper; and so that of being tossed to and fro by a tempest, is the most probable importance of the verb foreign.
V. 24. Faileth of fatness] From foreign foreignto deny, to ly, there is also a metaphorical use of it for any kinde of change or frustration or destitution. And being here applied to the flesh, it signifies a change of that (foreign say the Lxxii. was changed) attenuation, emaciation, decay from the state that before he was in, or wherein healthy men are wont to be. It is here exprest by foreign foreignfrom oile or from fatness. The word foreign signifies both fat and oile, and the LXXII. render it in the second notion foreign, changed for oile; either by the confused use of prepositions ordinarily observed among them, and then for oile may be instead of from oile, or else for oile, i. e. for the loss of oile, viz. that radical moisture which resembleth oile. The plainest rendring will be, my flesh is emaciated from fatness, that which was before full and corpulent, is now fallen away, grown lean, extremely attenuated. And this very consonant to the beginning of the verse, his knees being weak through fasting: the feeble knees being proverbially taken notice of in Scripture, as the parts which in any weakness are most sensible of the weight that lies upon them, and in any great lassitude or other infirmity are the first that are wont to faile.
V. 31. That condemn his soule] Some difficulty there is here whether foreign his soule, foreignbe to be joyned with foreign to save, and so rendred to save his soule, or life, or else with foreign as our English reads, from those that condemn his soule. But this is soon salved by leaving it indifferent to either, or both of them; it being certain, that he that delivers from the condemners of soule or life, doth thereby deliver the soule or life, the deliverance being of necessity proportioned to the assault. The greater question will be, what is the adaequate notion of foreign foreignin this place. The word foreign is ordinarily used for judging or condemning; but it signifies also to implead, accuse, or bring to judgment, to lay any crime to ones charge; for thus foreign foreignoft signifies a controversy or question, a crime or fault, as well as punishment or judgment, or sentence in judicature. The Chaldee here expresses it by foreign from foreign, which is indifferent to these two, judging, and comending in judgment; from whence the Greek foreign is ordinarily used among the Hellenists for suing or impleading, 1 Cor. vi. 1. (see note on Rom. iii. b.) And to this notion of foreign in this place the sense directs: For David speaking of himself and those that espoused his cause, under the notion of the poor, and consequently of his adversaries under the notion of foreign, 'tis most agreeable that the word should be here taken in that notion of opposing or pursuing. Thus they are formerly exprest v. 20. by foreign foreignmy i. e. Davids adversaries, plaintiffes, accusers (so that word properly signifies, foreign an ad…ersary foreign in judgment, i. e. an accuser) and by foreign foreignthose that speak evill against his soule. And this verse is thus farr parallel with that, in describing the persons, viz. those that designe and wage evill (for so speaking is oft taken for doing) against his life; and then that exactly agrees with this notion of foreign opposers of his soule, those that contend, sight against his soule. For though it was in warre, and not in judicature, that they thus contended with him, yet one of these is poetically exprest by the other, their hostile opposition by words which are onelyonly sorensick. Thus the Jewish Arab reads, and will help him from those that implead him, or contend with him for his soule. And in this scheme this whole verse runs. He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, i. e. to defend and plead for him: as the accuser stood at the right hand (see v. 6. note b.) so shall he stand, as his advocate, to maintain him against his injurious charge, and that is to save him from those that oppose or implead his soule, that assault him and call his life in question. The Lxxii. here most fully express the sense by foreign from those that pursue my soule.