a day (as the warm hours) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
few
מְעַטִּ֑יםme.'a.Tim
H4592
a little or few (often adverbial or compar.) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
another
אַחֵֽר'a.Cher
H312
properly · adjective, masculine singular absolute
take
יִקַּ֥חyi.Kach
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
office
פְּ֝קֻדָּת֗וֹpe.ku.da.To
H6486
visitation (in many senses · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
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 55:23 But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will…
Acts 1:16-26 Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, w…
Matthew 27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
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 his days be few,.... The days of men in common are but few at most: length of days, either beyond or according to the usual term of life, is reckoned a blessing; and to be cut off in the midst of a man's days a curse; when this is by the immediate hand of God, as a visible token of his displeasure; or by the hand of the civil magistrate, for some capital offence; or by a man's own hands, which was the case of Judas; whose days were but few, in comparison of the other apostles, who outlived him many years; especially the Apostle John, who lived sixty years after, at least. The Syriac version renders it, "let their days be few"; and so it reads the whole context in the plural number, both…
Psalm 109:6-11
6. Set [298] thou over him a wicked person; and let the adversary stand at his right hand. 7. When he is judged, let him depart guilty, and let his prayer be turned into sin. [299] 8. Let his days be few: [300] and let another receive his office. 9. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow: 10. And [301] let his children wander without any settled habitation, and let them be beggars, and let them seek food out of their waste places. [302] 11. Let the extortioner [303] seize [304] all that belongs to him, and let strangers spoil his labor.
6 Set thou over him a wicked person. [305] Hitherto he poured out his complaint against a vast number of persons; now he seems…
The Church Fathers
"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow" [Psalm 109:8]. After his death, both his children were fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Let his days be few. His days were made few, but his nights increased: for he was cut off in the middle of his days. The sun withdrew from him, and behold, darkness was multiplied for him. And let another receive his episcopate. This too is interpreted more plainly in the Acts of the Apostles. But it was not only spoken of Judas in that time, it is spoken even to this day. If Judas lost his apostleship, let priests and bishops guard themselves, lest they too lose their own priesthood. If an apostle fell, a monk can fall more easily. The power does not perish, though the man falls and perishes. Nevertheless the Lord gives out his denarii at interest: if that man does not double them, his money is taken away and given to him who has. The Lord's money cannot be idle.
And if we must make a statement regarding Judas that may overwhelm our opponents with shame, we would say that, in the book of Psalms, the whole of Psalm 108 [LXX] contains a prophecy about Judas, the beginning of which is this: "O God, whom I praise, do not remain silent; for the mouths of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful man are opened against me." And it is predicted in this psalm both that Judas separated himself from the number of the apostles on account of his sins and that another was selected in his place; and this is shown by the words "and let another man take his position." But now suppose that he had been betrayed by one of his disciples, who was possessed by a worse spirit than Judas and who had completely poured out, as it were, all the words that he had heard from Jesus, what would this contribute to an accusation against Jesus or the Christian religion? And how will this demonstrate its doctrine to be false? We have replied in the preceding chapter to the statements that follow this, showing that Jesus was not taken prisoner when attempting to flee but that he gave himself up voluntarily for the sake of us all. Therefore it follows, that even if he were bound, he was bound agreeably to his own will, thus teaching us the lesson that we should undertake similar things for the sake of religion in a spirit of willingness.
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).
The writer now turns to one among the many, and in the angry zealous fervour of despised love calls down God's judgment upon him. To call down a higher power, more particularly for punishment, upon any one is expressed by על (הפקיד) פּקד, Jer 15:3; Lev 26:16. The tormentor of innocence shall find a superior executor who will bring him before the tribunal (which is expressed in Latin by legis actio per manus injectionem). The judgment scene in Psa 109:6, Psa 109:7 shows that this is what is intended in Psa 109:6: At the right hand is the place of the accuser, who in this instance will not rest before the damnatus es has been pronounced. He is called שׂטן, which is not to be understood here af…
Family members of those guilty of capital crimes often died with the perpetrator (Num 16:1-33; Josh 7:1-25) or had their property confiscated (1 Kgs 21:13-16).
109:8 The wicked person apparently held a position of leadership. Peter referred to this psalm in regard to Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:20-26).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 109:8
Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Let his days be few. Who would desire a persecuting tyrant to live long? As well might we wish length of days to a mad dog. If he will do nothing but mischief the shortening of his life will be the lengthening of the world's tranquillity. "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days", —this is bare justice to them, and great mercy to the poor and needy. And let another take his office. Perhaps a better man may come, at any rate it is time a change were tried. So used were the Jews to look upon these verses as the doom of traitors, of cruel and deceitful mind, that Peter saw at once in the speedy death of Judas a fulfilmen…
