to revolve · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural + pronominal suffix
words
וְדִבְרֵ֣יve.div.Rei
H1697
a word · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct
hatred
שִׂנְאָ֣הsin.'Ah
H8135
hate · noun, common feminine singular absolute
fought
וַיִּֽלָּחֲמ֥וּנִיvai.yi.la.cha.Mu.ni
H3898
to feed on · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + pronominal suffix
cause
חִנָּֽםchi.Nam
H2600
gratis · adverb
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
Psalms 69:4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are might…
Psalms 35:7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
Psalms 35:20 For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.
Psalms 88:17 They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.
John 15:24-25 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my…
1 Samuel 19:4-5 And Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father, and said unto him, Let not the king sin against his servant, against David; because h…
1 Samuel 26:18 And he said, Wherefore doth my lord thus pursue after his servant? for what have I done? or what evil is in mine hand?
2 Samuel 15:12 And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counsellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sacrifices. And the consp…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 109:1-5
It is the unspeakable comfort of all good people that, whoever is against them, God is for them, and to him they may apply as to one that is pleased to concern himself for them. Thus David here.
I. He refers himself to God's judgment (Psa 109:1): "Hold not thy peace, but let my sentence come forth from thy presence, Psa 17:2. Delay not to give judgment upon the appeal made to thee." God saw what his enemies did against him, but seemed to connive at it, and to keep silence: "Lord," says he, "do not always do so." The title he gives to God is observable: "O God of my praise! the God in whom I glory, and not in any wisdom or strength of my own, from whom I have every thing that is my praise, or…
They compassed me about also with words of hatred,.... They surrounded him as he hung on the cross, and expressed their malice and hatred against him; then was he enclosed with these spiteful snarling dogs, and encompassed by them as with so many bees, who everyone left their sting in him, Psalm 22:16.
And fought against me without a cause: they were of an hostile spirit, enemies and enmity itself against him; fought against him both with words and blows, with their tongues and with their fists; sought his life, and at length took it away; he was attacked by the body of the Jewish nation, and by the whole posse of devils; and all this without any cause or just reason: he gave them no occasi…
Psalm 109:1-5
To the Chief Musician, a Psalm of David.
1. O God of my praise! be not silent; 2. Because the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit are opened upon me: they have spoken against me with the tongue of guile. 3. And they have encompassed me with the words of hatred, and have contended with me without cause. 4. On account of my love they have been opposed to me; but I gave myself to prayer. 5. They rendered to me evil for good, and hatred for love.
1 O God of my praise! be not silent In these words, which may be considered as an introduction to the psalm, David declares that he neither could find nor would desire any other than God to stand forward in vindication of the in…
The Church Fathers
And they have surrounded me with words of hatred. Not that they might believe, but that they might war against me. And they have warred against me without cause. "Without cause" is understood in two ways. That is, without reason: for I had not sinned, and I did not deserve that they should make war upon me. And what worthy cause was there that they should war against me? Because I had healed their sick? because I had raised their dead? because I had done other signs? See therefore that they warred against him without cause. And it is understood in another way as well: They wished to extinguish and blot out my name, and yet they were not able. When someone persecutes another, and gains nothing, and does not fulfill his desire, he persecutes without cause.
"In place," saith he, "of loving me, they detracted from me" (ver. 3). There are six different acts of this class, which may, when mentioned, very easily be borne in mind; (1) to return good for evil, (2) not to return evil for evil; (3) to return good for good, (4) to return evil for evil; (5) not to return good for good, (6) to return evil for good. The two first of these belong to the good, and the first of these two is the better; the two last belong to the wicked, and the latter of the two is the worse; the two middle to a sort of middle class of persons, but the first of these borders upon the good, the latter on the bad. We should remark these things in the holy Scriptures. Our Lord Himself returneth good for evil, who "justifieth the ungodly;" and who, when hanging upon the Cross, said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." ...
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Enemy · The wickedness of David’s — The wickedness of David’s
Malice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Slander · Often arises from hatred — Often arises from hatred
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).
A sign for help and complaints of ungrateful persecutors form the beginning of the Psalm. "God of my praise" is equivalent to God, who art my praise, Jer 17:14, cf. Deu 10:21. The God whom the Psalmist has hitherto had reason to praise will also now show Himself to him as worthy to be praised. Upon this faith he bases the prayer: be not silent (Psa 28:1; Psa 35:22)! A mouth such as belongs to the "wicked," a mouth out of which comes "deceit," have they opened against him; they have spoken with him a tongue (accusative, vid., on Psa 64:6), i.e., a language, of falsehood. דּברי of things and utterances as in Psa 35:20. It would be capricious to take the suffix of אהבתי in Psa 109:4 as genit. o…
Ps 109 The psalmist begins this lament with a general charge against his accusers: They do evil in return for good (109:1-5). At the end of the psalm, he turns to the Lord in prayer, asking for his protection (109:21-25) and vengeance (109:26-31).
109:1 The psalmist sees no evidence that God cares (see 28:1).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 109:3
They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.
They compassed me about also with words of hatred. Turn which way he would they hedged him in with falsehood, misrepresentation, accusation, and scorn. Whispers, sneers, insinuations, satires, and open charges filled his ear with a perpetual buzz, and all for no reason, but sheer hate. Each word was as full of venom as an egg is full of meat: they could not speak without showing their teeth. And fought against me without a cause. He had not provoked the quarrel or contributed to it, yet in a thousand ways they laboured to "corrode his comfort, and destroy his ease." All this tended to make the supplian…
