Psalm 109:9

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Children . . . wife.—It is one of the sadly peculiar features of this series of curses that the resentment of the imprecator cannot satisfy itself on the person of his foe, but fastens also on his innocent descendants. To invoke a speedy death does not content him; he must feast his anger with the thought of the fatherless children and desolate widow.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 109:9-10. Let his children be — Hebrew, יהיו בניוjihju banaiv, his children shall be fatherless — Namely, while they are but children, and so are unable to provide for themselves; and his wife a widow — Made a widow by his death, and continuing a widow. Let his children be vagabonds — Hebrew, ונוע ינועו בניו, in wandering, his children shall wander, that is, they shall certainly wander, and beg — Not knowing where to obtain the least sustenance. Let them seek, &c., out of their desolate places — Into which they have fled for fear and shame, as not daring to show their faces among men. “If, by the wretched death of Judas,” says the last-mentioned divine, “his wife became a widow, and his children orphans, vagabonds, and beggars, their fate was but a prelude to that of thousands and tens of thousands of the same nation, whose husbands and fathers came afterward to a miserable end at the destruction of Jerusalem. Their children and children’s children have since been continually vagabonds upon the earth, in the state of Cain, when he had murdered his righteous brother, not cut off, but marvellously preserved for punishment and wo.” Thus also Dr. Hammond on these verses: “By this is described, in a very lively manner, the condition of the Jewish posterity, ever since their ancestors fell under that signal vengeance for the crucifying of Christ. 1st, Their desolations and devastations in their own country, and being rejected thence. 2d, Their continual wanderings from place to place, scattered over the face of the earth: and, 3d, Their remarkable covetousness, keeping them always poor and beggarly, be they never so rich, and continually labouring and moiling for gain, as the poorest are wont to do; and this is continually the constant course attending this people, wheresoever they are scattered.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

109:6-20 The Lord Jesus may speak here as a Judge, denouncing sentence on some of his enemies, to warn others. When men reject the salvation of Christ, even their prayers are numbered among their sins. See what hurries some to shameful deaths, and brings the families and estates of others to ruin; makes them and theirs despicable and hateful, and brings poverty, shame, and misery upon their posterity: it is sin, that mischievous, destructive thing. And what will be the effect of the sentence, Go, ye cursed, upon the bodies and souls of the wicked! How it will affect the senses of the body, and the powers of the soul, with pain, anguish, horror, and despair! Think on these things, sinners, tremble and repent.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Let his children be fatherless - Hebrew, "his sons." This is what "always" occurs when a criminal who is a father is executed. It is one of the consequences of crime; and if the officer of justice does his duty, of course, the sons of such a man "must" be made fatherless. The prayer is, simply, that justice may be done, and all this is but an enumeration of what must follow from the proper execution of the laws.

And his wife a widow - This implies no malice against the wife, but may be consistent with the most tender compassion for her sufferings. It is simply one of the consequences which must follow from the punishment of a bad man. The enumeration of these things shows the enormity of the crime - just as the consequences which follow from the execution of a murderer are an illustration of the divine sense of the evil of the offence.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9, 10. Let his family share the punishment, his children be as wandering beggars to prowl in their desolate homes, a greedy and relentless creditor grasp his substance, his labor, or the fruit of it, enure to strangers and not his heirs, and his unprotected, fatherless children fall in want, so that his posterity shall utterly fail.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Fatherless; whilst they are but children, and so unable to provide for themselves.

A widow; either made a widow by his death; or constantly a widow; all persons abhorring her who was related to so vile a miscreant.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. This sometimes is the case of good men, who leave widows and fatherless children, whom the Lord shows mercy to; being the Father of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widow, Psalm 68:5, but sometimes it is threatened and comes as a judgment, when the Lord shows no mercy and favour to them, Exodus 22:24. And this is the case here, which very probably was literally fulfilled in Judas, who might have a wife and children; since it looks as if the other apostles had, and certain it is that one of them had a wife, even Peter, in the times of Christ; see 1 Corinthians 9:5. And this was verified in the people of the Jews; whom the Lord divorced from himself, and wrote a "loammi" upon them, and left them as orphans and fatherless, Hosea 1:9. This will never be the case of Christ's people, or the Christian church, John 14:18, though it will be of the antichristian one, Revelation 18:7.

Geneva Study Bible

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9, 10. The curse of his misdeeds falls even upon his wife and children. This is the climax of awfulness in the imprecation. But a man’s family was regarded as part of himself; his punishment was not complete unless they were included in it; and for full retribution they must share his ruin, for doubtless, this man’s schemes, if successful, would have involved the ruin of the Psalmist’s family. See Introd. p. xcii.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Necessary consequences of his own condemnation to death. Psalm 109:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The writer now turns to one among the many, and in the angry zealous fervour of despised love calls down God's judgment upon him. To call down a higher power, more particularly for punishment, upon any one is expressed by על (הפקיד) פּקד, Jeremiah 15:3; Leviticus 26:16. The tormentor of innocence shall find a superior executor who will bring him before the tribunal (which is expressed in Latin by legis actio per manus injectionem). The judgment scene in Psalm 109:6, Psalm 109:7 shows that this is what is intended in Psalm 109:6: At the right hand is the place of the accuser, who in this instance will not rest before the damnatus es has been pronounced. He is called שׂטן, which is not to be understood here after 1 Samuel 29:4; 2 Samuel 19:22, but after Zechariah 3:1; 1 Chronicles 21:1, if not directly of Satan, still of a superhuman (cf. Numbers 22:22) being which opposes him, by appearing before God as his κατήγωρ; for according to Psalm 109:7 the שׂטן is to be thought of as accuser, and according to Psalm 109:7 God as Judge. רשׁע has the sense of reus, and יצא refers to the publication of the sentence. Psalm 109:7 wishes that his prayer, viz., that by which he would wish to avert the divine sentence of condemnation, may become לחטאה, not: a missing of the mark, i.e., ineffectual (Thenius), but, according to the usual signification of the word: a sin, viz., because it proceeds from despair, not from true penitence. In Psalm 109:8 the incorrigible one is wished an untimely death (מעטּים as in one other instance, only, Ecclesiastes 5:1) and the loss of his office. The lxx renders: τὴν ἐπισκοπὴν αὐτοῦ λάβοι ἕτερος. פּקדּה really signifies the office of overseer, oversight, office, and the one individual must have held a prominent position among the enemies of the psalmist. Having died off from this position before his time, he shall leave behind him a family deeply reduced in circumstances, whose former dwelling - place-he was therefore wealthy - becomes "ruins." His children wander up and down far from these ruins (מן as e.g., in Judges 5:11; Job 28:4) and beg (דּרשׁ, like προσαιτεῖν ἐπαιτεῖν, Sir. 40:28 equals לחם בּקּשׁ, Psalm 37:25). Instead of ודרשׁוּ the reading ודרשׁוּ is also found. A Poel is now and then formed from the strong verbs also,

(Note: In connection with the strong verb it frequently represents the Piel which does not occur, as with דּרשׁ, לשׁן, שׁפט, or even represents the Piel which, as in the case of שׁרשׁ, is already made use of in another signification (Piel, to root out; Poel, to take root).)

in the inflexion of which the Cholem is sometimes shortened to Kametz chatuph; vid., the forms of לשׁן, to slander, in Psalm 101:5, תּאר, to sketch, mark out in outline, Isaiah 44:13, cf. also Job 20:26 (תּאכלהוּ) and Isaiah 62:9 (according to the reading מאספיו). To read the Kametz in these instances as ā, and to regard these forms as resolved Piels, is, in connection with the absence of the Metheg, contrary to the meaning of the pointing; on purpose to guard against this way of reading it, correct codices have ודרשׁוּ (cf. Psalm 69:19), which Baer has adopted.