Fathers

Psalms 109

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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.

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 109:7

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"Let his days be few" [Psalm 109:7]. 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. And as if it were asked, What then shall become of that most sacred number twelve, within which our Lord willed, not without a meaning, to limit His twelve first Apostles? He at once adds, "and let another take his office." As much as to say, let both himself be punished according to his desert, and let his number be filled up.

Exposition on Psalm 109 ↗

Jerome

When he is judged, let him come forth condemned. Let him come not into judgment, but into condemnation. For where there is judgment, there is doubt: but where there is condemnation, the sentence is already plain. And let his prayer be turned into sin. The repentance of Judas was made a worse sin. How was the repentance of Judas made a worse sin? He went and perished by hanging; and he who became the betrayer of the Lord, this same man came to be his own slayer. …

Homily 35, on Psalm 108 ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

But still, what is more serious, another asks for the death of an enemy, and the one whom he cannot pursue with a sword, he pursues with prayer. And the one who is cursed still lives, yet the one who curses is already held guilty of his death. But God commands that an enemy be loved, and yet God is asked to kill an enemy. Whoever therefore prays in this way fights against the Creator in his very prayers. …

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 27 ↗