(abstractly) work · noun, common feminine singular construct
adversaries
שֹׂ֭טְנַיSo.te.nai
H7853
to attack · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
speak
וְהַדֹּבְרִ֥יםve.ha.doe.Rim
H1696
perhaps properly · conjunction + definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
evil
רָ֝֗עRa'
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
soul
נַפְשִֽׁיnaf.Shi
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Timothy 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
1 Kings 2:44 The king said moreover to Shimei, Thou knowest all the wickedness which thine heart is privy to, that thou didst to David my father: therefo…
Psalms 94:23 And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.
2 Samuel 17:23 And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and pu…
2 Samuel 18:32 And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against…
Psalms 2:5-6 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
Psalms 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trus…
Psalms 21:8-12 Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 109:6-20
David here fastens upon some one particular person that was worse than the rest of his enemies, and the ringleader of them, and in a devout and pious manner, not from a principle of malice and revenge, but in a holy zeal for God and against sin and with an eye to the enemies of Christ, particularly Judas who betrayed him, whose sin was greater than Pilate's that condemned him (Joh 19:11), he imprecates and predicts his destruction, foresees and pronounces him completely miserable, and such a one as our Saviour calls him, A son of perdition. Calvin speaks of it as a detestable piece of sacrilege, common in his time among Franciscan friars and other monks, that if any one had malice against a…
Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord,.... Who were so many Satans, as the word used signifies; and Judas particularly is called a devil; and of the same malevolent and diabolical disposition were the Jews in general, John 6:70 and what is before imprecated upon them is the just recompence of reward for their hatred to Christ and ill usage of him.
And of them that speak evil against my soul; or "life" (f); in order to take it away, as did the false witnesses that rose up against him, and the Jews who charged him with sedition and blasphemy.
(f) "contra vitam meam", Gejerus.
John Calvin on Psalms 109:17-20
Psalm 109:17-20
17. As he loved cursing, so let it come upon him: [311] as he did not take delight in blessing, so let it be far from him. 18. And let him be clothed with cursing as with a garment, and let it come as water into his bowels, and as oil into his bones. [312] 19. Let it be to him as a mantle to cover him, and a girdle to gird himself with continually. 20. Let this be the work from Jehovah of those who are hostile to me, and of those who speak evil against my soul.
17 As he loved cursing David still continues to enumerate the sins of his adversaries, and is thus severe in his treatment of them, in order to render it more apparent, that he is strictly conforming to the judgment…
"But work Thou with me, O Lord God" (ver. 20). Some have thought "mercifully" should be understood, some have actually added it; but the best copies have the words thus: "But work Thou with me, O Lord God, for Thy Name's sake." Whence a higher sense should not be passed over, supposing the Son to have thus addressed the Father, "Deal Thou with Me," since the works of the Father and of the Son are the same. Where although we understand mercy,-for these words follow, "for sweet is Thy mercy,"-because he said not, "In me," or, "over me;" or anything of this sort: but, "work Thou with Me;" we rightly understand that the Father and Son together work mercifully towards the vessels of mercy. "Work with me," may also be understood to mean, help me. We use this expression in our daily language, when we are speaking of anything which is in our favour; "It works with us." For the Father aideth the Son, as far as the Deity aideth Man, on account of His having assumed the "form of a servant," to which Man, God, and to which "Form of a servant," the Lord too is Father. For in the "form of God," the Son needeth not aid, for He is equally all-powerful with the Father, on which account He also is the helper of men. ...And because when he had said, "Work Thou with me," he added, "for Thy Name's sake," he hath commended grace. For without previous deserving works, human nature was raised to such a height, that the whole in one, the Word and Flesh, that is, God and Man, was styled the Only-begotten Son of God. And this was done that that which had been lost might be sought by Him who had created it, through that which had not been lost; whence the following words, "For Thy mercy is sweet."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on Psalms 109:16-20
He whom he persecuted with a thirst for blood, was, apart from this, a great sufferer, bowed down and poor and נכאה לבב, of terrified, confounded heart. lxx κατανενυγμένον (Jerome, compunctum); but the stem-word is not נכא (נכה), root נך, but כּאה, Syriac bā'ā', cogn. כּהה, to cause to come near, to meet. The verb, and more especially in Niph., is proved to be Hebrew by Dan 11:30. Such an one who without anything else is of a terrified heart, inasmuch as he has been made to feel the wrath of God most keenly, this man has persecuted with a deadly hatred. He had experienced kindness (חסד) in a high degree, but he blotted out of his memory that which he had experienced, not for an instant im…
The psalmist appeals to the principle of retribution (see 94:23).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 109:20
Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.
This is the summing up of the entire imprecation, and fixes it upon the persons who had so maliciously assailed the inoffensive man of God. David was a man of gentle mould, and remarkably free from the spirit of revenge, and therefore we may here conceive him to be speaking as a judge or as a representative man, in whose person great principles needed to be vindicated and great injuries redressed. Thousands of God's people are perplexed with this psalm, and we fear we have contributed very little towards their enlightenment, and perhaps the notes we have gathered from others, since they di…
