Psalm 109

The scene is a courtroom. In an Israelite trial the accuser stood at the right hand of the accused, and the word used for that role simply means the one who opposes or accuses. A man had no defense lawyer; if witnesses lied about him in a coordinated way, the court could put him to death on their word.

The curses in the middle are not private temper. Formal curses were legal instruments in that world. Treaties between kings ended with long lists of them — the Assyrian vassal treaties of Esarhaddon spell out ruin for the family, the fields, and the name of anyone who breaks faith — and the Law of Moses attached similar lists to covenant-breaking. Asking that another man take the offender's post was a real judicial penalty, the removal of a corrupt official.

Readers have long divided over whose voice speaks that long curse. Many take it as the psalmist's own prayer, handing judgment to God rather than picking up a sword himself; others read it as the psalmist quoting what his accusers were saying about him, since the section returns to their words at the end. The psalm is honest either way about how much malice hurts.

The closing images are of poverty. A man shaking with hunger, whose knees give way from fasting, wearing shame like a coat, while onlookers wag their heads at him as he passes.