Psalm 108 – Deus, laudem meam

David in the person of Christ, prayeth against his persecutors; more especially the traitor Judas: foretelling and approving his just punishment for his obstinacy in sin and final impenitence.

1 Unto the end, a psalm for David.

2 O God, be not thou silent in my praise: for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful man is opened against me.

3 They have spoken against me with deceitful tongues; and they have compassed me about with words of hatred; and have fought against me without cause.

4 Instead of making me a return of love, they detracted me: but I gave myself to prayer.

5 And they repaid me evil for good: and hatred for my love.

6 Set thou the sinner over him: and may the devil stand at his right hand.

7 When he is judged, may he go out condemned; and may his prayer be turned to sin.

8 May his days be few: and his bishopric let another take.

9 May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

10 Let his children be carried about vagabonds, and beg; and let them be cast out of their dwellings.

11 May the usurer search all his substance: and let strangers plunder his labours.

12 May there be none to help him: nor none to pity his fatherless offspring.

13 May his posterity be cut off; in one generation may his name be blotted out.

14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered in the sight of the Lord: and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

15 May they be before the Lord continually, and let the memory of them perish from the earth:

16 because he remembered not to shew mercy,

17 But persecuted the poor man and the beggar; and the broken in heart, to put him to death.

18 And he loved cursing, and it shall come unto him: and he would not have blessing, and it shall be far from him. And he put on cursing, like a garment: and it went in like water into his entrails, and like oil in his bones.

19 May it be unto him like a garment which covereth him; and like a girdle with which he is girded continually.

20 This is the work of them who detract me before the Lord; and who speak evils against my soul.

21 But thou, O Lord, do with me for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is sweet. Do thou deliver me,

22 for I am poor and needy, and my heart is troubled within me.

23 I am taken away like the shadow when it declineth: and I am shaken off as locusts.

24 My knees are weakened through fasting: and my flesh is changed for oil.

25 And I am become a reproach to them: they saw me and they shaked their heads,

26 Help me, O Lord my God; save me according to thy mercy.

27 And let them know that this is thy hand: and that thou, O Lord, hast done it.

28 They will curse and thou will bless: let them that rise up against me be confounded: but thy servant shall rejoice.

29 Let them that detract me be clothed with shame: and let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak.

30 I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth: and in the midst of many I will praise him.

31 Because he hath stood at the right hand of the poor, to save my soul from persecutors.

Commentary

[6] “Set thou the sinner over him”: Give to the devil, that arch-sinner, power over him: let him enter into him, and possess him. The imprecations, contained in the thirty verses of this psalm, are opposed to the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed our Lord; and are to be taken as prophetic denunciations of the evils that should befall the traitor and his accomplices the Jews; and not properly as curses.

[24] “For oil”: Propter oleum. The meaning is, my flesh is changed, being perfectly emaciated and dried up, as having lost all its oil or fatness.