A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM CIX.
_David, complaining of his slanderous enemies, under the person of Judas devoteth them.—He sheweth their sin.—Complaining of his own misery, he prayeth for help.—He promiseth thankfulness._ To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise; For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause. For my love they are my adversaries: but I _give myself unto_ prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; _and_ let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek _their bread_ also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath: and let the strangers spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; _and_ in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be unto him as the garment _which_ covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. _Let_ this _be_ the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul. But do thou for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy _is_ good, deliver thou me. For I _am_ poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust. My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness. I became also a reproach unto them: _when_ they looked upon me they shaked their heads.
Help me, O LORD my God: O save me according to thy mercy: That they may know that this _is_ thy hand; _that_ thou, LORD, hast done it. Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice. Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle. I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude. For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save _him_ from those that condemn his soul. Certain hypocrites of monks are accustomed to use this Psalm, (generally known by the name of ‘The God of praise,’) as a sort of incantation: and they say that, to a certainty, against what person soever they babble and sing out the terrible words of this Psalm; that man is at once death-struck, and never lives a year afterwards. This Psalm, however, is most certainly full of the complaints, tears, and groans of the godly against these very hypocrites themselves. It may be very properly considered as used in the person of Christ, deeply complaining against his betrayers the Jews, and against the cruelty of the Jews, which was not satisfied, even after the shedding of his innocent blood.
Like unto Judas Iscariot, and unto all the Jews, are pharisaical saints and hypocrites, of all nations and ages; of whom Christ doth not say in vain, that they are guilty of all the blood that has been shed from Abel downwards. For so great and bitter is the terribleness and fury of their virulent and Satanic hatred, that they cannot rest satisfied with the shedding of the blood of Abel and all the saints from the beginning of the world, but must hang Christ himself on the cross; and that is not all, they must (as the Psalmist saith, ver. 22.) wag their heads at him, and insult and mock his sufferings; “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross.” Concerning these wretches, David says, (ver. 2.) “They have opened their blaspheming mouth against me:” for the raving fury of such hypocrites is incredible. And again he says, “For my love they are my adversaries, but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.” And again, “They fight against me without a cause.”
These are the true and real colours of these hypocrites who pretend to be in the truth. We have here pourtrayed not only the Cainish countenances of these Iscariots, but their pharisaic and virulent hearts themselves; which are now become organs and instruments of the devil. And we have also here depicted their thoughts, their furious purposes of injuring and harming, by which the minds of such are incessantly actuated. For these embittered wretches knowingly and purposely, and against the light of their own consciences, fight against and deny the known truth; and, as Stephen says, cease not to resist the Holy Ghost. And although they are convinced by natural reason, by the Scriptures, and by their natural understanding, they still reject and fight against God and Christ, and harden themselves in the denial of the truth. And finally, “They delight not in blessing;” but refuse and cast from them God and his Christ. In addition to all this, they “render evil for good.” The ingratitude of these hypocrites and of the world surely is enough, in not returning any thing for all that good which is offered to them by God himself, and by the saints in his name: but they rest not here; they render, for all this good, hatred and cursing, and a purpose to injure and to destroy: which is manifestly not human, but Satanic cruelty.
But we, the people of God, are hereby admonished throughout all times and ages of the church that, whenever God is pleased to reveal his word, and Christ is preached, so surely will the church have her Judases: that is, so surely will she have her enemies and her hypocrites; who, though they boast of the name of being the church of God, will prove themselves “vipers.” To set forth, therefore, the terrible judgments that shall fall on those, who thus, with cruelty and without mercy, rage against the people of God, the Psalmist shows (ver. 16.) that God will, to recompense their iniquity, direct his fury also against them, who thus mercilessly oppress “his poor,” and will pour out all his wrath upon them: and that, as these hypocrites so confidently despised God and his saints; and as, though covered with the shed blood, and bathed with the tears of so many saints, they still laughed at their calamities, as if they really sought cursing and not blessing; so, that cursing shall flow in upon them like a river. And again (saith David) they have cast away the word of God from them, and have rejected and despised the offered salvation, therefore all consolation and salvation shall depart from them, and no more be brought near unto them, neither now nor to all eternity. On the other hand, as they loved cursing, they shall be clothed with it as with a girdle; it shall enter like water into their bowels, and like oil into their bones: and they shall bear about with them, like Cain, everlasting fears and terrors, and shall be tormented unceasingly with the stings of their wickedness and sin; and they shall moreover be exiles, deserted outcasts, vagabonds, and held in contempt of all, as the Jews now are, exhibiting an awful fulfilment of the judgments herein denounced.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.