to put (used in a great variety of applications · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
evil
רָ֭עָהRa.'ah
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
good
טוֹבָ֑הto.Vah
H2896
good (as an adjective) in the widest sense · noun, common feminine singular absolute
hatred
וְ֝שִׂנְאָ֗הve.sin.'Ah
H8135
hate · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
love
אַהֲבָתִֽי'a.ha.va.Ti
H160
affection (in a good or a bad sense) · 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
Psalms 38:20 They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is.
Proverbs 17:13 Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.
Genesis 44:4 And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost ove…
2 Samuel 15:31 And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahit…
Psalms 35:7-12 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
Psalms 55:12-15 For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me;…
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…
Mark 14:44-45 And he that betrayed him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away safely.
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…
And they have rewarded me evil for good,.... For the good words and sound doctrine he delivered to them; for the good works and miracles he wrought among them, to the healing of them; see John 10:32.
And hatred for my love; he came to seek and save that which was lost, and yet they hated him, and would not have him to rule over them, Luke 19:10.
John Calvin on Psalms 109:1-5
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…
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…
The Church Fathers
And they set against me evils in return for goods. And set upon the cross, I kept praying for those who were crucifying me, while they were saying: "Aha, you who destroy the temple, and in three days build it up. Let him save himself. Let the Father who loves you come now and set you free." I rose again from the dead for their sakes, and they say: "His disciples came by night, and stole him away." And hatred in return for my love. Consider, O Christian, consider, O monk: if the Lord received his persecutor and betrayer with a kiss, and prays for those who were crucifying him, what ought we to do for our brothers?
"Set thou an ungodly man to be ruler over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand" [Psalm 109:5]. Though the complaint had been before concerning many, the Psalm is now speaking of one....Since therefore he is here speaking of the traitor Judas, who, according to the Scripture in the Acts of the Apostles, was to be punished with the penalty due to him, [Acts 1:20] what means, "set thou an ungodly man over him," save him whom in the next verse he mentions by name, when he says, "and let Satan stand at his right hand"? He therefore who refused to be subject unto Christ, deserved this, that he should have the devil set over him, that is, that he should be subject unto the devil....For this reason also it is said of those who, preferring the pleasures of this world to God, styled the people blessed who have such and such things, "their right hand is a right hand of iniquity.". ..
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
Evil For Good · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Ingratitude · .David’s companions to David — .David’s companions to David
Malice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
The psalmist’s acts of kindness and godliness (see 35:12-14) have only met with stubborn opposition and expressions of hatred.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 109:5
And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Evil for good is devil like. This is Satan's line of action, and his children upon earth follow it greedily; it is cruel, and wounds to the quick. The revenge which pays a man back in his own coin has a kind of natural justice in it; but what shall be said of that baseness which returns to goodness the very opposite of what it has a right to expect? Our Lord endured such base treatment all his days, and, alas, in his members, endures it still. Thus we see the harmless and innocent man upon his knees pouring out his lamentation: we are now to observe him rising fr…
