1 God of my praise, be not silent, 2 For a wicked man's mouth and a mouth of deceit have they opened on me. 3 And with words of hate have they compassed me, And have fought [against] me causelessly. 4 In return for my love, they have been my adversaries, But I--I was [all] prayer. 5 And they have laid upon me evil in return for good, And hate in return for my love.
6 Set in office over him a wicked man, And may an adversary stand at his right hand! 7 When he is judged, let him go out guilty, And let his prayer be [counted] for sin! 8 Be his days few, His office may another take! 9 Be his children orphans, And his wife a widow! 10 And may his children wander up and down and beg, May they seek [bread] [far] from the ruins [of their house]! 11 May a creditor get into his nets all that he has, And may strangers plunder [the fruit of] his toil! 12 May there be no one to continue loving-kindness to him, And may there be no one that shows favour to his orphans! 13 May his posterity be cut off, In the next generation may their name be blotted out! 14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before Jehovah, And the sin of his mother not be blotted out! 15 May they be before Jehovah continually, And may He cut off their memory from the earth!
16 Because he remembered not to show loving-kindness, And persecuted the afflicted and poor man, And the heart-stricken, to do him to death. 17 And he loved cursing--and it came on him, And delighted not in blessing--and it remained far from him. 18 And he clothed himself [with] cursing like his garment, And it came like water into his inwards, And like oil into his bones. 19 May it be to him like a robe [with which] he covers himself, And for a girdle [which] he continually girds on! 20 Be this the wage of my adversaries from Jehovah, And of those who speak evil against my soul!
21 But Thou, Jehovah, Lord, deal with me for Thy name's sake, Because Thy loving-kindness is good, deliver me, 22 Because afflicted and poor am I, And my heart is pierced within me. 23 Like a shadow when it stretches out am I gone, I am shaken out, like the locust. 24 My knees give out through fasting, And my flesh falls away from fatness. 25 And I--I have become a reproach to them, They see me, they nod their head. 26 Help me, Jehovah, my God, Save me, according to Thy loving-kindness: 27 That they may know that this is Thy hand, Thou--Thou, Jehovah, hast done it. 28 They--they curse, but Thou--Thou dost bless; They arose, and were put to shame, And Thy servant rejoices. 29 My adversaries clothe themselves [with] disgrace, And cover themselves like a mantle with their shame. 30 I will praise Jehovah greatly with my mouth, And amidst many will I praise Him. 31 For He stands at the right hand of the poor, To save him from those that judge his soul.
This is the last and the most terrible of the imprecatory psalms. Its central portion (vv. 6-20) consists of a series of wishes, addressed to God, for the heaping of all miseries on the heads of one "adversary" and of all his kith and kin. These maledictions are enclosed in prayers, which make the most striking contrast to them; vv. 1-5 being the plaint of a loving soul, shrinkingly conscious of an atmosphere of hatred, and appealing gently to God; while vv. 21-31 expatiate in the presentation to Him of the suppliant's feebleness and cries for deliverance, but barely touch on the wished-for requital of enemies. The combination of devout meekness and trust with the fiery imprecations in the core of the psalm is startling to Christian consciousness, and calls for an effort of "historical imagination" to deal with it fairly. The attempts to attenuate the difficulty, either by making out that the wishes are not wishes, but prophecies of the fate of evil-doers, or that vv. 6-20 are the psalmist's quotation of his enemies' wishes about him, or that the whole is Messianic prediction of the fate of Judas or of the enemies of the Christ, are too obviously makeshifts. It is far better to recognise the discordance between the temper of the psalmist and that enjoined by Christ than to try to cover it over. Our Lord Himself has signalised the difference between His teaching and that addressed to "them of old time" on the very point of forgiveness of enemies, and we are but following His guidance when we recognise that the psalmist's mood is distinctly inferior to that which has now become the law for devout men.