Hold not thy peace. Mine enemies speak, be thou pleased to speak too. Break thy solemn silence, and silence those who slander me. It is the cry of a man whose confidence in God is deep, and whose communion with him is very close and bold.

For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me. Wicked men must needs say wicked things, and these we have reason to dread; but in addition they utter false and deceitful things, and these are worst of all.

They compassed me about also with words of hatred. Turn which way he would they hedged him in with falsehood, misrepresentation, accusation, and scorn. Whispers, sneers, insinuations, satires, and open charges filled his ear with a perpetual buzz, and all for no reason, but sheer hate.

For my love they are my adversaries. They hate me because I love them. One of our poets says of the Lord Jesus—"Found guilty of excess of love." Surely it was his only fault.

And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Evil for good is devil like. This is Satan's line of action, and his children upon earth follow it greedily; it is cruel, and wounds to the quick.

Set thou a wicked man over him. What worse punishment could a man have? The proud man cannot endure the proud, nor the oppressor brook the rule of another like himself.

When he shall be judged, let him be condemned. He judged and condemned others in the vilest manner, he suffered not the innocent to escape; and it would be a great shame if in his time of trial, being really guilty, he should be allowed to go free.

Let his days be few. Who would desire a persecuting tyrant to live long? As well might we wish length of days to a mad dog. If he will do nothing but mischief the shortening of his life will be the lengthening of the world's tranquillity.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. This would inevitably be the case when the man died, but the psalmist uses the words in an emphatic sense, he would have his widow "a widow indeed", and his children so friendless as to be orphaned in the bitterest sense.

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg. May they have neither house nor home, settlement nor substance; and while they thus wander and beg may it ever be on their memory that their father's house lies in ruins,—let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

Let the extortioner catch all that he hath. A doom indeed. Those who have once fallen into the hands of the usurer can tell you what this means: it were better to be a fly in the web of a spider.

Let there be none to extend mercy unto him. He had no mercy, but on the contrary, he crushed down all who appealed to him. Loath to smite him with his own weapon, stern justice can do no otherwise, she lifts her scales and sees that this, too, must be in the sentence.

Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Both from existence and from memory let them pass away till none shall know that such a vile brood ever existed.

This verse is, perhaps, the most terrible of all, but yet as a matter of fact children do procure punishment upon their parents' sins, and are often themselves the means of such punishment. A bad son brings to mind his father's bad points of character; people say, "Ah, he is like the old man.

Again, he wishes that his father's sins may follow up the transgressor and assist to fill the measure of his own iniquities, so that for the whole accumulated load the family may be smitten with utter extinction.

Because that he remembered not to shew mercy. Because he had no memory to show mercy the Judge of all will have a strong memory of his sins. So little mercy had he ever shown that he had forgotten how to do it, he was without common humanity, devoid of compassion, and therefore only worthy to be…

As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him. Deep down in every man's soul the justice of the lex talionis is established. Retaliation, not for private revenge, but as a measure of public justice, is demanded by the psalmist and deserved by the crime.

He was so openly in the habit of wishing ill to others that he seemed to wear robes of cursing, therefore let it be as his raiment girded and belted about him, yea, let it enter as water into his bowels, and search the very marrow of his bones like a penetrating oil.

This is the summing up of the entire imprecation, and fixes it upon the persons who had so maliciously assailed the inoffensive man of God. David was a man of gentle mould, and remarkably free from the spirit of revenge, and therefore we may here conceive him to be speaking as a judge or as a…

But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for thy name's sake. How eagerly he turns from his enemies to his God! He sets the great THOU in opposition to all his adversaries, and you see at once that his heart is at rest.

For I am poor and needy. When he does plead anything about himself he urges not his riches or his merits, but his poverty and his necessities: this is gospel supplication, such as only the Spirit of God can indite upon the heart.

I am gone like the shadow when it declineth. I am a mere shadow, a shadow at the vanishing point, when it stretches far, but is almost lost in the universal gloom of evening which settles over all, and so obliterates the shadows cast by the setting sun.

My knees are weak through fasting; either religious fasting, to which he resorted in the dire extremity of his grief, or else through loss of appetite occasioned by distress of mind.

I became also a reproach unto them. They made him the theme of ridicule, the butt of their ribald jests: his emaciation by fasting made him a tempting subject for their caricatures and lampoons. When they looked upon me they shaked their heads.

Help me, O LORD my God. Laying hold of Jehovah by the appropriating word my, he implores his aid both to help him to bear his heavy load and to enable him to rise superior to it.

That they may know that this is thy hand. Dolts as they are, let the mercy shown to me be so conspicuous that they shall be forced to see the Lord's agency in it.

Let them curse, but bless thou, or, they will curse and thou wilt bless. Their cursing will then be of such little consequence that it will not matter a straw. One blessing from the Lord will take the poison out of ten thousand curses of men. When they arise, let them be ashamed.

Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame. It is a prophecy as well as a wish, and may be read both in the indicative and the imperative. Where sin is the underclothing, shame will soon be the outer vesture. He who would clothe good men with contempt shall himself be clothed with dishonour.

I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth. Enthusiastically, abundantly, and loudly will he extol the righteous Lord, who redeemed him from all evil; and that not only in his own chamber or among his own family, but in the most public manner. Yea, I will praise him among the multitude.

For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor. God will not be absent when his people are on their trial; he will hold a brief for them and stand in court as their advocate, prepared to plead on their behalf. How different is this from the doom of the ungodly who has Satan at his right hand .

Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise. All commendation or manifestation of our innocence is to be sought from God when we are assailed with calumnies on all sides.

For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me. Speak, says Arnobius, to thine own conscience, O man of God, thou who art following Christ; and when the mouth of the wicked and deceitful man is opened concerning thee, rejoice and be secure; because while the mouth…

Although an individual may be absent, so that he cannot corporeally be encompassed and fought with; nevertheless, so great is the force and malice of an envenomed tongue, that an absent man may be none the less dangerously surrounded and warred against.

(first clause). None prove worse enemies than those that have received the greatest kindnesses, when once they turn unkind. As the sharpest vinegar is made of the purest wine, and pleasant meats turn to the bitterest humours in the stomach; so the highest love bestowed upon friends, being ill…

Set thou a wicked man over him, etc. Here commences that terrible series of maledictions, unparalleled in Holy Writ, as directed against an individual sinner, albeit it is little more than a special reduplication of the national woes denounced in Le 26:1-46 and De 28:1-68.—Neale and Littledale.

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…

Let his days be few. By "his days", he meant the days of his apostleship, which were few; since before the passion of our Lord, they were ended by his crime and death.

Let his children be fatherless. Helpless and shiftless. A sore vexation to many on their death beds, and just enough upon graceless persecutors. But happy are they who, when they lie dying, can say as Luther did, "Domine Deus gratias ago tibi quod velueris me esse pauperem, et mendicum, & c.

Let his children be continually vagabonds. The word used in the sentence pronounced upon Cain, Ge 4:12. Compare Ps 59:11,15.—William Kay. Let them seek, etc.

Let the extortioner catch all that he hath. Note: he is most miserable who falls into the hands of usurers; for they will flay him alive and drain his blood.

Let there be none to extend mercy to him. He does not say, None who shall shew, but none who shall "extend" kindness to him. The extending of kindness is, when after a friend's death it is shown to his children, and true friendship is of this sort, that the kindness which friends shewed to each…

Let them be before the Lord continually. The fearful punishment of sinners is, to be always under the eye of an angry God: then the soul of the sinner is dismayed at its own deformity.—Le Blanc. Let them be before the Lord continually.

Because. Why, what is the crime? Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, etc. See what a long vial full of the plagues of God is poured out upon the unmerciful man!—Thomas Watson. But persecuted the poor.

Cursing is both good and bad. For we read in the Scriptures that holy men have often cursed. Indeed none can offer the Lord's Prayer rightly without cursing.

The three figures in this verse are climatic: he has clothed himself in cursing, he has drunk it in like water , it has penetrated to the marrow of his bones, like the oily preparations which are rubbed in and penetrate to the bones.—Franz Delitzsch.

For thy name's sake. My enemies would soon become my friends and my protectors, if I would but renounce my allegiance to thee; my refusal to disobey thee constitutes all my crime in their eyes.

For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. Note here, how beautifully he unites these arguments. He had said, Because Thy mercy is good; and he adds, "Because I am poor and needy." He could not have added anything more appropriate: for this is the nature of goodness and mercy, even…

I am gone like the shadow when it declineth.—Bishop Horsley renders, "I am just gone, like the shadow stretched to its utmost length"; and remarks:—"The state of the shadows of terrestrial objects at sunset, lengthening every instant, and growing faint as they lengthen; and in the instant that they…

Let them curse, but bless thou. Fear not thou, who art a saint, their imprecations; this is but like false fire in the pan of an uncharged gun, it gives a crack, but hurts not; God's blessings will cover thee from their curse.—William Gurnall. (first clause).

I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth. In the celebration of God's praises, there can be no question that these must issue from the heart ere they can be uttered by the lips; at the same time, it would be an indication of great coldness, and of want of fervour, did not the tongue unite with…

He shall stand at the right hated of the poor. This expression implies, first, that he appears there as a friend. How cheering, how comforting it is to have a friend to stand by us when we are in trouble! Such a friend is Jesus.