Psalms 109:22

"I am poor and needy," and I am better only when in sorrow of heart I detest myself and seek your mercy, until what is faulty in me is repaired and made whole and finally I come to that state of peace that the eye of the proud cannot see. Yet in what others say about us and in what they know of our deeds there is grave danger of temptation. For our love of praise leads us to court the good opinion of others and hoard it for our personal glorification. And even when I reproach myself for it, the love of praise tempts me. There is temptation in the very process of self-reproach, for often, by priding himself in his contempt for vainglory, a person is guilty of even emptier pride; and for this reason his contempt of vainglory is an empty boast, because he cannot really hold it in contempt as long as he prides himself on doing so.

Deliver me, for I am needy and poor. The Lord calls himself poor, that he might console the poor. With men he was made poor, that no one of the poor might despair of salvation. And my heart is troubled within me. See what he says: And my heart is troubled within me. This is the same thing which he says elsewhere: "I was troubled, and did not speak." That I am troubled, belongs to a man: but to overcome the trouble and the anger, this belongs to great virtue.

"I go hence like a shadow that declines" [Psalm 109:22]. By this he signified death itself. For as night comes of the shadow's declining, so death comes of mortal flesh. "And am driven away as the locusts." This I think would be more suitably understood of His members, that is, of His faithful disciples. That he might make it much plainer, he preferred writing "locusts" in the plural number: although many may be understood where the singular number is used, as in that passage, "He spoke, and the locust came;" but it would have been more obscure. His disciples, then, were driven away, that is, were put to flight by persecutors, either the multitude of whom He wished to be signified by the word locusts, or their passing from one place to another.

): My heart is wounded within me, not only broken with outward troubles, which sometimes prostrate and sink the spirits, but wounded with a sense of guilt; and a wounded spirit who can bear? who can heal?

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For I am poor and needy. When he does plead anything about himself he urges not his riches or his merits, but his poverty and his necessities: this is gospel supplication, such as only the Spirit of God can indite upon the heart. This lowliness does not comport with the supposed vengeful spirit of the preceding verses: there must therefore be some interpretation of them which would make them suitable in the lips of a lowly minded man of God. And my heart is wounded within me.