Psalm 109

Introduction

You’ll see from the title of today’s psalm that it’s for the director of music and it’s a psalm of David. And actually it’s a psalm of lament, which means David is calling on the Lord for help because of the trouble he’s in. He’s pouring out his heart to the Lord. But the psalm also contains a number of curses which David pronounced on his enemies. In fact, the whole of verses 6 to 20 contains one curse after another.

This is not the only psalm that contains this kind of cursing. And often we feel uncomfortable reading these things. And since God has given us the psalms to sing in public worship, we often feel uncomfortable singing these things. For instance, take a look at what David says about one of his enemies. Verse 8: ‘May his days be few’. And he continues in verse 9 and following:

May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labour.
May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
May their sins always remain before the Lord,
that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.’

We read these things, and we feel uncomfortable, because aren’t we meant to love our enemies and pray for them? And when we pray for them, aren’t we meant to pray for their forgiveness? But here’s the psalmist asking God not to forgive his enemies and to let him die. And how does this fit with what we read in the gospels where the Lord Jesus prayed for God to forgive those who crucified him? What is a Christian meant to do with a psalm like this one?

One thing to note is that David is not taking revenge himself. Instead of taking matters into his own hands, he’s leaving it with the Lord. ‘It is mine to avenge’, says the Lord in Deuteronomy 35. ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.’ And so, David is leaving it with the Lord. Yes, David wants the Lord to act on his behalf against his enemy, but he’s not going to do anything himself. He’s leaving it with the Lord.

And, of course, we see this in the life of David, who had the opportunity to kill Herod, his enemy. But he would not do it. Then, in 2 Samuel 16, when David was leaving Jerusalem (instead of fighting against his son, Absalom), this man Shimei came out and began to curse David. He even threw stones at David and his men. One of David’s men offered to go over to Shimei and to cut off his head, but David would not let him. He left Shimei alone. And so, David did not take revenge on his enemy. He left it to the Lord.

These sorts of psalms invite us to bring our cares and concerns and our complaints to the Lord in prayer. What we naturally do is we act ourselves. We say we’re not going to put up with this any more and we stand up and get ready to act or indeed to fight. We say to ourselves, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.’ Or, if we don’t like confrontations, then instead of going straight to our opponent and having it out with them, we complain about them to other people. We moan and mutter about them.

So, we either act ourselves or we complain about them to others. But the psalmist teaches us not to attack our opponent and not to complain about them to other people. The psalmist teaches us to take our complaint to the Lord and leave it with him.

But we should also note that when the psalmist curses his enemies, it’s because the enemy has done something against God’s king or against God’s people. In verse 2 David tells us what his enemies have done to him. They have opened their mouths against him and have spoken lies about him. They have surrounded him with words of hatred. They have attacked David without cause. And so, David is coming to the Lord about his enemies because they have attacked him. And he’s the Lord’s king. And to attack the Lord’s king or to attack the Lord’s people is to attack the Lord. And that means that these people are the enemies of God. They are not on God’s side. They are on the side of satan. And so, the background to what we read here is the opposition which exists in the world between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent; between those who belong to the Lord and those who belong to the devil; it’s the church and the world; the righteous and the wicked. David’s enemies are against him because he’s on the Lord’s side. And since he’s on the Lord’s side, and since God’s kingdom is under threat, David wants the Lord to act in order to defend his kingdom in the world against the attacks of the evil one.

And the third thing to say about this is that David is not asking the Lord to afflict innocent people, but guilty people. He’s not asking the Lord to attack innocent people who have done no wrong, but to punish wicked people who have done evil. They have done evil by attacking David without cause. Furthermore, according to verse 16, one of them never thought of doing a kindness to the poor. On the contrary, he has hounded to death the poor and the needy and the broken-hearted. This wicked man loves to pronounce a curse and he never blessed anyone. David is not asking the Lord to afflict an innocent man, but a guilty man.

And the final thing to say before we get into the text is that God only afflicts the unrepentant. His curses are for the hard-hearted who refuse to repent. The moment sinners turn from their sins in repentance and return to the Lord through Christ, God removes his curse from them and he forgives them for all that they have done wrong. And he’s able to forgive, because of Christ our Saviour who paid for our sins with his life and who shed his blood to cleanse us from all that is not right.

Having said that by way of introduction, let’s turn to the text.

Verses 1 to 5

In verses 1 to 5, David calls to the Lord because of his enemies who surround him.

He calls on God, describing him as the ‘God, whom I praise’. God deserves our praise, because he is the Most High God who is perfect in every way. And he deserves our praise at all times, even when people are attacking us or hurting us. And so, whether we’re going through good times or bad times, whether everything is going well for us or whether it’s going badly for us, God still deserves our praise because he is still God.

David calls on God and asks him not to remain silent. So, he’s asking the Lord to issue a decree or command against his enemies. And he tells us that his enemies are wicked and deceitful men who have opened the mouths against David. They have opened their mouth to speak wicked and deceitful words about David. They have spoken against him with lying tongues. Think of Absalom, David’s son, who turned the people against David by claiming that his father hadn’t appointed any judges to hear their cases or to settle their disputes. In other words, he was telling the people that David didn’t care about them. But it was a lie. And it worked. It says in 2 Samuel 15 that he stole the hearts of the people from David. He turned them against his father.

That’s the kind of thing David faced and in the psalm he complains to the Lord because of these wicked and deceitful men who have spoken against him with lying tongues. He says in verse 3 that they have surrounded him with words of hatred and they have attacked him without cause. So, we can imagine them, gathering around David to attack him with their words, bringing complaints against him and accusations, criticising him even though he has done nothing to deserve it. He’s serving the Lord faithfully, but they are attacking him because of it.

And look now at verse 4 where David says to the Lord that in return for his friendship, they have accused him. Perhaps they’d been his friends at one time. But now they have turned on him. It happens easily, doesn’t it? As I’ve said before recently, sin turns differences into divisions. Two people differ on some matter. And instead of loving one another despite their differences, one or both of them turn their difference into a division. They are now divided. And so, David’s former friends accuse him. According to verse 5, his enemies repay him evil for good. That is to say, for the good he did to them, they now are doing evil to him. They have repaid his friendship towards them with hatred. He has been kind to them, but they are only attacking him.

At the end of verse 4, David says, ‘but I am a man of prayer’. More literally, he says: ‘But as for me — prayer.’ His former friends are accusing him falsely. They’re attacking him without cause. How will he respond? What will he do? Will he take up arms against his enemies? Will he attack them? Will he accuse them? No, he won’t do anything, except turn to God in prayer. He will bring it to the Lord and ask the Lord to deal with it.

And so, in these first five verses, David calls on the God he praises to issue a decree or command, because of his former friends who have become his enemies and who are now attacking him even though he has done nothing wrong.

Verses 6 to 20

And in verses 6 to 20 David begins to call down curses on his enemy. Up until this point, David has been referring to enemies in the plural. So, in verse 2 he referred to wicked and deceitful men. They have opened their mouths. They have spoken against him. They surround him. They attack him. They repay evil for his good and hatred for his friendship. David spoke about enemies in the plural. But in the following verses, he only speaks about one enemy. So, let him be found guilty and let his days be few and so on. We can think of this one enemy as the arch-enemy. This is the leader. While there were others, this one in particular was against David.

And in verse 6 David asks the Lord to appoint an evil man to oppose his enemy and an accuser to stand at his right hand. And when his enemy is tried, let him be found guilty. May his prayers, or his appeal, condemn him. So, we’re to imagine a court case and David wants his enemy to be tried before the judge. And he wants a wicked man to accuse his enemy. He wants an accuser to accuse his enemy. This may seem a little odd to us, because wouldn’t David want a good man or a righteous man to accuse his enemy? However, I think this is a case of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Since David’s enemy is accusing him falsely, then let the same fate happen to him. What his enemy did to David, let it happen to him. Let the punishment fit the crime. In the end, he wants his enemy to be found guilty. He wants him to be condemned and not acquitted.

And then David asks the Lord to make his enemy’s days few. In other words, let him die soon. And may another take his place of leadership. This means that David once trusted this man. David had given him a place of leadership. But now David wants this man to die and he wants someone else to take his place. When he asks in verse 9 for his children to become fatherless and his wife to become a widow, he’s asking for the man to die. His children will be fatherless the moment he dies. His wife will become a widow the moment he dies. So, let him die. And his children will likewise become beggars whenever he dies, because he won’t be there to support them.

David also asks for creditors to take away all that he has. The fruit of his labour should therefore go, not to his family, but to strangers. And David asks the Lord to ensure that no-one shows him any kindness by taking pity on his fatherless children. He also wants his descendants to be cut off and their names blotted out. If there’s no-one to carry on the family name, it’s as if he never existed. That’s what David wants for his enemy.

And David also wants God to remember and not to forgive the sins of his fathers and mother. May their sins remain before the Lord always. May the memory of David’s enemy be cut off from the earth.

Again, we feel uncomfortable reading these things and it seems to us that David is being harsh. But from verse 16 he shows us that his arch-enemy is an evil man. He never thought of doing a kindness to the poor. Instead he hounded them to death. He pursued the poor and the needy and the broken-hearted. Instead of showing kindness to the poor, and defending the cause of the defenceless, he attacked them. And he loved to pronounce curses and found no pleasure on pronouncing a blessing. He was always ready to complain and criticise and to condemn. And he never spoke well of anyone or praised them. Once again, David follows the principle of a tooth for a tooth and an eye of an eye. So, since his enemy loved to curse, may he be cursed. Since his enemy never blessed, may he not be blessed.

In verse 18, David says that his enemy wore cursing as a garment. So, it was always with him. But David wants it to enter his body so that it affects him. He wants his enemy to suffer. David wants cursing to wrap around his enemy’s body like a cloak. He wants cursing to be a belt which is tied around his enemy. He wants God to curse him for ever.

And so, may this be the Lord’s payment to his accusers who speak evil of David. May God curse him. May God afflict him because of the wicked things he has done.

Verses 21 to 31

And having prayed against his enemy, David now prays for himself in verses 21 to 31.

So, he asks the Sovereign Lord to deal with him — that is, with David — for the sake of God’s name and to deliver him from his enemies out of the goodness of his love. That is, because of God’s steadfast love, or because of God’s covenant love, deliver him. So, he’s asking the Lord to help him for the sake of God’s own reputation as a God who loves his people with a steadfast love. If were to God abandon David to his enemy, then God’s reputation as a loving and faithful God will be destroyed. So, for the sake of your name, or for the sake of your reputation, demonstrate your love and faithfulness by rescuing me. And he needs God to rescue him because he can’t do it himself: he is poor and needy. By comparing himself to an evening shadow, he means that his life is coming to an end. By comparing himself to a locust, he means that he is weak and fragile and easily shaken. His knees are giving way because of fasting. Maybe this is a religious fast. But it could also mean that he’s fasting because his food has been taken from him. In any case, his body is thin and gaunt. He’s become an object of scorn to his accusers. When they see him, they shake their heads in derision.

And so, he cries out to the Lord his God in verse 26 to help him and to save him according to God’s steadfast love. And, according to verse 27, he wants God to help in such a way that it will be clear that God is the one who has done it. So, his enemies were accusing him; and no doubt some who heard them believed the accusations and they began to think that David was as bad as they were saying. And so, David wants the Lord to clear his name and to make sure everyone knows that he hadn’t done anything wrong and that God so loved him that he was prepared to rescue him. And so, even though David’s enemies may curse him, let God bless him. Let them be put to shame. Let them be clothed in disgrace and shame. But let David, God’s servant, rejoice.

And right at the end, David vows that he will give thanks to God in the public place of worship. He will give thanks to the Lord, because he stands at the side of the needy one to save him.

Conclusion

What David the King was suffering foreshadows the suffering of the Lord Jesus who is David’s greater son and our Saviour–King.

And so, when he was on the earth, wicked and deceitful men opened their mouths against him and they spoke against him with lying tongues, bringing false charges against him. They surrounded him with words of hatred and attacked him without cause, because he never did anything wrong and everything he said was true. And yet, they surrounded him to arrest him and to try him and to accuse him before Pilate. Though he went around doing good to all, they repaid his goodness with evil. Though he was one of their own, they despised and rejected him. And when he hung on the cross, he became an object of scorn to his accusers and they shook their heads at him in derision. And so, what David says about his enemies foreshadows the enemies who surrounded the Lord Jesus and who attacked him without cause.

And what about the arch-enemy in verses 6 to 15? In one sense, what David says about his arch-enemy points to the devil, who is the ring-leader of all opposition to the Lord Jesus. However, in Acts 1:20, the Apostle Peter applies verse 8 to Judas Iscariot. On the basis of verse 8 and on what it says about someone taking the arch-enemy’s place, the apostles decided to choose someone to replace Judas who had betrayed the Lord Jesus. And if Judas is the arch-enemy of verses 6 to 15, then we can say that what the Lord said about him came true, because his days became few and he died when he hung himself.

The psalm, though, not only speaks of Christ’s suffering, but it also speaks of his vindication. So, though the Lord Jesus could have come down from the cross by his own divine power, he wanted to be saved from the cross in such a way that it was clear that his Father had done it and his Father was vindicating him from all the charges against him.

And three days later, the Father did vindicate him by raising him from the dead. By raising him, God made clear that he did not deserve to die and that he was indeed God’s beloved Son who had done nothing wrong. And so, because of the Father’s love for him, God delivered him from the grave. Though his enemies cursed the Lord Jesus, the Father blessed him. Though they attacked him, God the Father enabled him to rejoice. And so, his accusers were clothed in shame and disgrace, because it became clear that they crucified God’s Holy One, but God raised him from the dead.

And the day is coming, when Christ will come again in glory and with power. And when he comes again, he will come, not as a Saviour to die for his people, but as the judge to condemn and punish his enemies for their wickedness. When he comes, he will pour out God’s wrath and curse on the unrepentant and he will punish them for all that they have done wrong. Whoever repents before he comes, and cries out to God for mercy, will receive forgiveness and peace with God. But for those who refuse to repent, there will only be God’s wrath and curse when he comes.

And we too would have been among those who suffer his wrath and curse if the Lord God Almighty did not graciously and freely choose us in Christ before the creation of the world; and if he did not send his Son to give up his life to pay for our sins; and if he did not come to us in his word and by his Spirit to enable us to repent and believe. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans, we were his enemies. We were his enemies, because by birth we are sinners who are sinfully inclined to disobey him. And, as Paul says in Ephesians, we were by nature objects of his wrath. We deserved his wrath and curse because by nature, or by birth, we are his enemies. And so, we would have been among those who suffer his wrath and curse. But God was merciful to us and he graciously and freely chose us and he sent his Son to die for us and he sent his Spirit to enable us to repent and believe. And so, because of his kindness to us in Christ Jesus, we now have peace with God and the hope of everlasting life.