Psalm 109—To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. 1 Do not keep silent, O God of my praise; 2 for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. 3 They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause. 4 In return for my love they are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer. 5 Thus they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
David longs for judgment of the so-called religious. “‘Do not keep silent,’ that is, ‘speak for my defense,’ O [Jesus] God of my praise’; whom I worship and adore. It implies that he was accustomed to praise Him, and desired still to praise Him. He sought that God would interpose now that he might have new occasion for praise.” (Albert Barnes) “For in the past”— during the days of my time on the earth— “the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.”
“In the NT Acts 1:20 a part of the psalm is applied to Judas the traitor, but without its being necessary to conclude that it had any original reference to him.” (Albert Barnes)
6 Set a wicked man over him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand. 7 When he is judged, let him be found guilty, 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 continually be vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also from their desolate places. 11 Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder his labor. 12 Let there be none to extend mercy to him, nor let there be any to favor 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 before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. 15 Let them be continually before Yahweh, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth; 16 because he did not remember 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 to him; as he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him.18 As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, so let it enter his body like water, and like oil into his bones. 19 Let it be to him like the garment which covers him, and for a belt with which he girds himself continually. 20 Let this be Yahweh’s [rather Yeshua’s] reward to my accusers, and to those who speak evil against my person.
“’Set a wicked man over him,’— the antichrist. It seems to me that this may be an imprecatory psalm against members of an apostate church with the doctrine of devils— perhaps end-time, mystery Babylon. “’And let an accuser’— Satan— ‘stand at his right hand’ in Judgment. (6) “The first thing that the psalmist asks is, that his foe might be subjected to the evil of having a man placed over him like himself: a man regardless of justice, truth, and right; a man who would respect character and propriety no more than he had himself done. It is, in fact, a prayer that he might be punished ‘in the line of his offences.’” (Albert Barnes) — AND “‘When he is judged, let him be found guilty,’ let him be condemned - רשע יצא yetse rasha . ‘Let him come out a wicked man;’ that is let his wickedness be made manifest.— ‘And let his prayer become sin.’ Thus paraphrased by Calmet: ‘Let him be accused, convicted, and condemned, and let the defense which he brings for his justification only serve to deepen his guilt, and hasten his condemnation.” (Adam Clarke)
“‘Let his days be few, and let another take his office.’ (8)In Acts 1:20, this is applied to Judas. "The translation in our common Version is too technical. ‘His bishopric,’ following the Septuagint, επισκοπην, and Vulgate, ‘episcopatum’ and has given cause to some light people to be witty, who have said, ‘The first bishop we read of was bishop Judas.’ But… [alas] it is applied to the patriarch Joseph, Genesis 39:4, ויפקדהו... , he made him bishop, alias overseer; therefore it might be as wisely said, and much more correctly, ‘The first bishop we read of was bishop Joseph;’ and many such bishops there were of God's making long before Judas was born… it stands in the Anglo-Saxon ‘and his episcopacy let take other.’” (Adam Clarke)
“‘Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.’ (9) Let the man die eternally. “‘Let his [spiritual] children continually be vagabonds,’ having no true foundation to sustain them— ‘and beg’ from the Remnant. “‘Let them seek their bread also from their desolate places.’ (10) Isaiah 49:19-21 speaks of “the land of Judea lying waste during the Babylonish captivity. Thus the church of God was in a waste, desolate, and barren state, till the coming of the Messiah, the introduction of the gospel, and the conversion of the Gentiles; ‘and the land of thy destruction’ — Or, ‘thy land of destruction.’ He still alludes to Judea, thus characterized, because it was devoted, and should be exposed to destruction, first by the Chaldeans, and again by the Romans, a lively emblem of the ruined state of their church; ‘shall even now be too narrow’ to contain the multitude of converts that shall be made. The middle wall of partition that separated the Jews from the Gentiles shall be broken down, and the pale of the church shall be enlarged.” (Jos. Benson)
Let the creditors seize all that they have. “And let strangers’— that is the Gentiles— ‘plunder their labor.’ (11) “Let there be none to extend mercy to him’— that pious scoundrel, ‘nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children’ in their unconverted state. “’Let his posterity be cut off,’ (13)…. , or cut down, as a tree to the very root; as the Jewish nation was by the axe of God's judgment, which, John says, was laid to the root of the tree, and the blow just going to be given, as it was in a few years after, Matthew 3:10 or, as the Targum, ‘let his end be for destruction;' and so the Syriac version, ‘let their end be for destruction’; their last end, which it is said shall be cut off, and issue in death, eternal death; when the end of a good man is peace and eternal life… And in the generation following let their name be blotted out:’ or, in another age; the next age, the third generation; meaning the name of the posterity of Judas, and the name of the people of the Jews, so as to be spoken of with honour and reputation; but, instead of that, they are for a taunt, a proverb, and a curse, in all places.” (John Gill) Let them prepared themselves for the sentence: “Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal [Judgment] fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
“‘Let them be continually before Yahweh, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth; because he did not remember to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.”— all emblematic of the true Christian. Also this man loves cursing, “so let it come to him; as he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, so let it enter his body like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be to him like the garment which covers him, and for a belt with which he girds himself continually. Let this be Yahweh’s reward to my accusers, and to those who speak evil against my person.” “It is fearful to contemplate these enumerated miseries!” (Henry Law)
21 But You, O God Yahweh, deal with me for Your name’s sake; because Your mercy is good, deliver me. 22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. 23 I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like a locust. 24 My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness. 25 I also have become a reproach to them; when they look at me, they shake their heads. 26 Help me, O Lord my God! Oh, save me according to Your mercy, 27 that they may know that this is Your hand— that You, Lord, have done it! 28 Let them curse, but You bless; when they arise, let them be ashamed, but let Your servant rejoice. 29 Let my accusers be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle. 30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; yes, I will praise Him among the multitude. 31 For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those who condemn him.