Verse 11
Let the strangers spoil his labor - Many of these execrations were literally fulfilled in the case of the miserable Jews, after the death of our Lord. They were not only expelled from their own country, after the destruction of Jerusalem, but they were prohibited from returning; and so taxed by the Roman government, that they were reduced to the lowest degree of poverty. Domitian expelled them from Rome; and they were obliged to take up their habitation without the gate Capena, in a wood contiguous to the city, for which they were obliged to pay a rent, and where the whole of their property was only a basket and a little hay. See Juvenal, Sat. ver. 11: -
Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam:
Hic ubi nocturne Numa constituebat amicae,
Nunc sacri fontis nemus, et delubra locantur
Judaes: quorum cophinus, foenumque supellex:
Omnis enim populo mercedem pendere jussa est
Arbor, et ejectis mendicat silva Camoenis.
He stopped a little at the conduit gate,
Where Numa modelled once the Roman state;
In nightly councils with his nymph retired:
Though now the sacred shades and founts are hired
By banished Jews, who their whole wealth can lay
In a small basket, on a wisp of hay.
Yet such our avarice is, that every tree
Pays for his head; nor sleep itself is free;
Nor place nor persons now are sacred held,
From their own grove the Muses are expelled.
Dryden.
The same poet refers again to this wretched state of the Jews, Sat. vi., ver. 541; and shows to what vile extremities they were reduced in order to get a morsel of bread: -
Cum dedit ille locum, cophino foenoque relicto,
Arcanam Judaea tremens mendicat in aurem,
Interpres legum Solymarum, et magna sacerdos
Arboris, ac summi fida internuncia coeli.
Implet et illa manum, sed parcius, aere minuto.
Qualia cunque voles Judaei somnia vendunt.
Here a Jewess is represented as coming from the wood mentioned above, to gain a few oboli by fortune-telling; and, trembling lest she should be discovered, she leaves her basket and hay, and whispers lowly in the ear of some female, from whom she hopes employment in her line. She is here called by the poet the interpretess of the laws of Solymae, or Jerusalem, and the priestess of a tree, because obliged, with the rest of her nation, to lodge in a wood; so that she and her countrymen might be said to seek their bread out of desolate places, the stranger having spoiled their labor. Perhaps the whole of the Psalm relates to their infidelities, rebellions, and the miseries inflicted on them from the crucifixion of our Lord till the present time. I should prefer this sense, if what is said on [Psa 109:20] be not considered a better mode of interpretation.
Verse 13
Let his posterity be cut off - It is a fact that the distinction among the Jewish tribes in entirely lost. Not a Jew in the world knows from what tribe he is sprung; and as to the royal family, it remains nowhere but in the person of Jesus the Messiah. He alone is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Except as it exists in him, the name is blotted out.
Verse 16
Persecuted the poor and needy man - In the case of Jesus Christ all the dictates of justice and mercy were destroyed, and they persecuted this poor man unto death. They acted from a diabolical malice. On common principles, their opposition to Christ cannot be accounted for.
Verse 17
As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him - The Jews said, when crucifying our Lord, His blood be upon us and our children! Never was an imprecation more dreadfully fulfilled.
Verse 18
Let it come into his bowels like water - Houbigant thinks this is an allusion to the waters of jealousy; and he is probably right, - the bitter waters that produce the curse. See [Num 5:18].
Verse 19
And for a girdle - Let the curse cleave to him throughout life: as the girdle binds all the clothes to the body, let the curse of God bind all mischiefs and maladies to his body and soul.
The Hindoos, Budhists, and others often wear a gold or silver chain about their waist. One of those chains, once the ornament of a Moudeliar in the island of Ceylon, lies now before me: it is silver, and curiously wrought.
Verse 20
Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil apainst my soul - Following the mode of interpretation already adopted, this may mean: All these maledictions shall be fulfilled on my enemies; they shall have them for their reward. So all the opposition made by the Jews against our Lord, and the obloquies and execrations wherewith they have loaded him and his religion, have fallen upon themselves; and they are awful examples of the wrath of God abiding on them that believe not.
But is not this verse a key to all that preceded it? The original, fairly interpreted, will lead us to a somewhat different meaning: זאת פעלת שטני מאת יהוה והדברים רע על נפשי zoth peullath soteney meeth Yehovah, vehaddoberim ra al naphshi. "This is the work of my adversaries before the Lord, and of those who speak evil against my soul," or life. That is, all that is said from the sixth to the twentieth verse consists of the evil words and imprecations of my enemies against my soul, laboring to set the Lord, by imprecations, against me, that their curses may take effect. This, which is a reasonable interpretation, frees the whole Psalm from every difficulty. Surely, the curses contained in it are more like those which proceed from the mouth of the wicked, than from one inspired by tne Spirit of the living God. Taking the words in this sense, which I am persuaded is the best, and which the original will well bear and several of the Versions countenance, then our translation may stand just as it is, only let the reader remember that at the sixth verse David begins to tell how his enemies cursed Him, while he prayed for Them.
Verse 21
But do thou for me - While they use horrible imprecations against me, and load me with their curses, act thou for me, and deliver me from their maledictions. While they curse, do thou bless. This verse is a farther proof of the correctness of the interpretation given above.
Verse 22
I am poor and needy - I am allicted and impoverished; and my heart is wounded - my very life is sinking through distress.