Psalm 109 Story behind the Psalm

Back to Psalm 109

Psalm Overview

• Grammar
• Semantics
• Story behind the Psalm
• Discourse
• Poetics

About the Story Behind Layer

The Story behind the Psalm shows how each part of the psalm fits together into a single coherent whole. Whereas most semantic analysis focuses on discrete parts of a text such as the meaning of a word or phrase, Story Behind the Psalm considers the meaning of larger units of discourse, including the entire psalm. (Click 'Expand' to the right for more information.)

The goal of this layer is to reconstruct and visualise a mental representation of the text as the earliest hearers/readers might have conceptualised it. We start by identifying the propositional content of each clause in the psalm, and then we identify relevant assumptions implied by each of the propositions. During this process, we also identify and analyse metaphorical language (“imagery”). Finally, we try to see how all of the propositions and assumptions fit together to form a coherent mental representation. The main tool we use for structuring the propositions and assumptions is a story triangle, which visualises the rise and fall of tension within a semantic unit. Although story triangles are traditionally used to analyse stories in the literary sense of the word, we use them at this layer to analyse “stories” in the cognitive sense of the word—i.e., a story as a sequence of propositions and assumptions that has tension.

Story Behind Visuals for Psalm 109

Summary Triangle

The story triangle below summarises the story of the whole psalm. We use the same colour scheme as in Participant Analysis. The star icon along the edge of the story-triangle indicates the point of the story in which the psalm itself (as a speech event) takes place. We also include a theme at the bottom of the story. The theme is the main message conveyed by the story-behind.

Background ideas

Following are the common-ground assumptionsCommon-ground assumptions include information shared by the speaker and hearers. In our analysis, we mainly use this category for Biblical/Ancient Near Eastern background. which are the most helpful for making sense of the psalm.

• A covenant is a relationship between two parties, solemnized by oaths and based on "loyalty" (חֶסֶד). When making a covenant, the two parties would invoke curses (קְלָלָוֹת) on themselves in the case of their failure to be loyal (see e.g., Deut 27-28).
• Oftentimes, these curses included the extinction of one's family line, which is the worst possible thing that can happen to someone.
• The making of a covenant and the invoking of covenant oaths/curses were often accompanied by rituals to solemnize the event and symbolize the nature of the curses (cf. Gen 15; Jer 32:18; COS 2.82). It appears that putting on clothes, drinking water or beer, and rubbing oil on oneself (see Ps 109:18) sometimes had a part in oath-taking ceremonies.
• People who are falsely accused of something, including the violation of a covenant, can take their case to a judge (cf. Deut 25:1).
• Because YHWH is "the judge of all of the earth" (Gen 18:25), those who are innocent yet falsely accused and/or falsely convicted can appeal to him for vindication (cf. Pss 5, 7, 17, 35, etc.).

Background situation

The background situation is the series of events leading up to the time in which the psalm is spoken. These are taken from the story triangle – whatever lies to the left of the star icon.

Expanded paraphrase

The expanded paraphrase seeks to capture the implicit information within the text and make it explicit for readers today. It is based on the CBC translation and uses italic text to provide the most salient background information, presuppositions, entailments, and inferences.

v. 1

For the director. By David. A psalm.

God whom I have always praised, I am appealing to you, as the judge of all the earth, for vindication. Hear my case and take action on my behalf. Please do not stay silent and inactive. I have not been silent but have always praised you, and if you rescue me, I will praise you once more.

v. 2

Here is why I need you to act: For people with whom I am in a covenant relationship are falsely accusing me of breaking the covenant, and they are seeking my death. They are falsely accusing me of failing to show loyalty and keep my covenant promises to love them and seek their well-being. They have opened their wicked and deceitful mouths against me. They are false witnesses who have spoken against me and who contend with me with lying tongues.

v. 3

And like a besieging army they have surrounded me with hateful words, and they have fought against me with their words for no reason. Contrary to their accusations, I have been a loyal covenant partner to them.

v. 4

I have loved them; I have sought their well-being. And it is In exchange for my love that they accuse me—though I am devoted to prayer, and I would always pray for their well-being. "When they were sick—I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest. I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother; as one who laments his mother, I bowed down in mourning" (Ps 35:13-14, ESV)—

v. 5

and yet they give me wrong in exchange for the good I have done to them, and they show me hate in exchange for my love.

v. 6

They are the ones who have broken the covenant! And so they deserve to experience the covenant curses they invoked on themselves when they entered into a covenant with me. YHWH, bring the curses to pass! May it happen to each and every one of them: Appoint a wicked person against him to accuse him of wrongdoing in the same way that he has accused me, and may the appointed wicked person, an accuser, stand at his right side, the place where an accuser stands in court when he is making his accusations!

v. 7

Then, when he and the accuser go to court to settle the matter, and he is judged, i.e., the case is decided by a judge, may he come away guilty, and when he appeals to you for vindication, may his prayer become a sinful act in your eyes, so that you refuse to listen to him.

v. 8

May he receive the death penalty so that his days become few! May he die, so that someone else takes his position of leadership!

v. 9

May he die, such that his children become fatherless, and his wife [becomes] and remains a widow with no one to marry her and care for the family!

v. 10

And, having no father and no one else to care for the family, and having nowhere to turn for help, may his children aimlessly wander from their ruins, the ruins of their father's property, and beg and plead for food from everyone that they happen to bump into.

v. 11

Now that the man is dead, he is unable to earn money and pay his debts. And since he is abandoned by his friends and relatives, there is no one to pay his debts for him. So, May a lender, the lender to whom the father owed money, seize everything belonging to him, and may strangers, people outside of his family to whom he owed debt, plunder the fruits of his labor!

v. 12

May he have no one to maintain loyalty to him after his death by caring for his family, and may his fatherless children have no one to show them mercy and provide for them financially!

v. 13

May his posterity be doomed to certain destruction! May their family name be wiped out in the next generation!

v. 14

Do not show mercy to the man's family for the sake of his ancestors! Rather, May his ancestors' iniquities be brought to YHWH's remembrance—for YHWH "will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation" (Exod 34:7, ESV)— and may his mother's sin not be wiped away!

v. 15

May they, i.e., their sins, always be before YHWH, so that he remembers their sins and executes justice, meaning no sin goes unpunished and wickedness perishes: so that he destroys their memory from the earth! May each of my accusers, who has not prized covenant loyalty but wantonly broken covenants, experience the curses of those covenants: death and extinction of their family line!

v. 16

This curse of extinction (vv. 6-15), the covenant curse that each of them invoked upon themselves when making the covenant, is completely warranted, Because he, i.e., each of my accusers, was not mindful to keep the covenant and show loyalty to me. He has neglected his covenant obligations, and instead of showing covenant loyalty and treating me as a friend, he did the opposite: he persecuted me, someone afflicted and poor and disheartened to finish him off.

v. 17

And he has unjustly called down curses on me. Apparently, he loves cursing, and so it is only fitting that the covenant curses will come upon him, and he does not bless me as he ought to. Apparently, he takes no pleasure in blessing, and so it is only fitting that the covenant blessings will stay far from him.

v. 18

Making a covenant involves swearing oaths, and the swearing of oaths is usually accompanied by rituals to solemnize the event and symbolize the nature of the curses. When we made our covenant, we each put on clothes, drank water, and rubbed oil into our skin to symbolize the latent presence and potential destruction of the covenant curses on our bodies and on our children. And so he voluntarily put on a curse like his garment, and it went inside him like water when he drank the water and into his body like oil when he rubbed it into his skin.

v. 19

Now that he has broken the covenant, activate the covenant curse that is latent within him! May it be for him like clothes [that] he wears, that go with him wherever he goes and follow his every movement, and [may it become] a belt [that] he always puts on!

v. 20

This curse is not something that I arbitrarily wish upon my accusers. Rather, this is what my accusers, those who speak evil against me, have earned from YHWH. As a matter of justice, YHWH must pay them the wage for which they have worked.

v. 21

But you, YHWH, Lord, do not be silent! Instead, take action for me and rescue me from the threat of my accusers. Do this for the sake of your name! For you and I are also in a covenant relationship, and if you do not show loyalty to me, your reputation will be damaged. Because your covenant loyalty is good and reliable, unlike the 'loyalty' of my accusers, rescue me!

v. 22

I need you to rescue me, For I am afflicted and poor, and my heart is in anguish inside me. I am afraid and distressed to my very core.

v. 23

My death is imminent. Like a shadow when it is stretched out in the evening when the sun is setting, I have faded and I am about to disappear entirely into the night. Just as people harvest locusts by shaking them out of trees in the cold morning hours when they are unable to fly away, so I have been shaken off like a locust and, unable to escape, I am about to be devoured.

v. 24

I have been praying to you, YHWH, for help. And, as I pray, I have been fasting. My knees have faltered from fasting, and my body has become gaunt, without any fat.

v. 25

And I have become an object of scorn to them, i.e., to my accusers, who see my suffering and conclude that I am helpless, as good as dead, and that you will not rescue me. When they see me, they shake their heads and mock me, saying things like "He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (Ps 22:9, ESV).

v. 26

Help me, YHWH, my God! Save me according to your covenant loyalty,

v. 27

and make my salvation so clear and obvious so that they know that this, my rescue, is your doing; [that] you, YHWH, have done it. Make it clear to everyone, especially my accusers, that I am in the right and they are in the wrong. Vindicate me, YHWH!

v. 28

Let them curse all they want! But it won't have any effect. Though they curse me and ask you to bring the curses onto me, you will bless me and rescue me from them. When it becomes clear to everyone that I am in the right and that my accusers are in the wrong, then Those who have risen up against me to accuse me will come to public shame, but I, your servant, will rejoice.

v. 29

My accusers will be clothed in dishonor and wear their shame like a robe so that their shame is visible to everyone as a marker of their social status.

v. 30

Whereas their mouths were filled with falsehood and deceit, my mouth will be filled with your praise! I will fully acknowledge YHWH with my mouth, and I will praise him in the midst of many people. I will tell everyone about what he has done for me!

v. 31

For he always stands at a poor person's right, at the side of the innocent sufferer, to save him from those who try to condemn him to death.

Story Triangles

Assumptions Table

Bibliography

Kitz, Anne Marie. 2007. “Effective Simile and Effective Act: Psalm 109, Numbers 5, and KUB 26.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 69 (3): 440–56.

Kitz, Anne Marie. 2014. Cursed Are You!: The Phenomenology of Cursing in Cuneiform and Hebrew Texts. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.

KUB 26 = Albrecht, Götze, ed. Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi. Vol. Heft XXVI. Historisch-politische Texte. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1933.