Psalms 109:10

Psa 109:10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek [their bread] also out of their desolate places.

Ver. 10. Let his children be continually vagabonds] Let them wandering wander, as Gen 4:12 Cain’s curse. Let them rogue about, - et timida voce rogare cibos. This is many times a token of God’s wrath.

Out of their desolate places] Or, for that their places are desolate, and will afford them no help.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. (Psa 109:10) And wander—wander—let his sons and beg, and seek (their food) from (among) their ruins. The emphatic repetition of the first verb is expressed in the English Bible, by a paraphrase, let his children be continually vagabonds. The last clause is extremely graphic, representing them as creeping forth in search of food from amidst the ruins of their habitations.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 10. Let his children - beg] The father having lost his office, the children must necessarily be destitute; and this is the hardest lot to which any can become subject, after having been born to the expectation of an ample fortune.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(10) Be continually vagabonds.—“Wander and wander about” would better reproduce the original.

Desolate places.—Rather, ruins. They are imagined creeping out of the ruins of their homes to beg. But there was a different reading, followed by the LXX. and Vulg., “let them be driven out of their homes.” This reading involves but a slight literal change. Comp.,

“Worse evil yet I pray for on my spouse;

Let him still live, through strange towns roam in want,

Exiled, suspected, cowering, with no home.”

SENECA: Med., i. 19.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. let them seek &c.] And seek (their bread) far from their ruined home. Let the wicked man’s home become a ruin, and his children have to get their living away from it. The LXX however points to the reading, and let them be driven out of their ruined home.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let the extortioner catch all that he hath,.... Or, "lay a snare for all" (c); as the Romans did, by bringing in their army, invading the land of Judea, and besieging the city of Jerusalem; who are "the extortioner or exacter that demanded tribute of them"; which they refused to pay, and therefore they seized on all they had for it. The Syriac and Arabic versions render it, "the creditor"; who sometimes for a debt would take wife and children, and all that a man had; see Kg2 4:1. It might be literally true of Judas; who dying in debt, his wife and children, and all he had, might be laid hold on for payment.

And let the stranger spoil his labour; plunder his house of all his goods and substance he had been labouring for: which was true of the Romans, who were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; who came into the land, and spoiled their houses, fields, and vineyards, they had been labouring in; they took away their place and nation, and all they had, Joh 11:48.

(c) "illaqueet", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Piscator, Gejerus; "iretiat", Vatablus, Michaelis.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg - Let them continually wander about with no home - no fixed habitation. Let them be compelled to ask their daily food at the hand of charity. Here we enter on a part of the psalm which is more difficult to be reconciled with a proper feeling than the portions which have been considered. It is, indeed, a frequent consequence of crime that the children of those who are punished “are” vagabonds and beggars, but this is not a necessary consequence; and there “seems” here, therefore, to be a mixture of personal feeling, or a feeling of revenge. This runs through the remaining portion of the imprecatory part of the psalm. I confess that it is difficult to explain this without admitting that the expressions are a record only of what actually occurred in the mind of a man, truly pious, but not perfect - a man who thus, to illustrate the workings of the mind even when the general character was holy, was allowed to record his own feelings, though wrong, just as he would record the conduct of another, or his own conduct, though wrong, as a simple matter of fact - a record of what actually was felt. The “record” may be exactly correct; the sentiment recorded may have been wholly incapable of vindication. See the General Introduction, Section 6 (6).

Let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places - In places uninhabited by man; in barren regions; in deserts: let them be compelled to live on the scanty food which they may pick up there - the roots, or the wild fruits, which will simply keep them alive. See the notes at Job 30:4.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vagabonds; having no certain place of abode; which is a grievous curse in itself, Gen 4:12,14; Isa 16:2.

And beg: this increaseth their misery.

Desolate places; into which they are fled for fear and shame, as not daring to show their faces amongst men.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 10. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg. May they have neither house nor home, settlement nor substance; and while they thus wander and beg may it ever be on their memory that their father's house lies in ruins,

let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. It has often been so: a race of tyrants has become a generation of beggars. Misused power and abused wealth have earned the family name universal detestation, and secured to the family character an entail of baseness. Justice herself would award no such doom except upon the supposition that the sin descended with the blood; but supreme providence which in the end is pure justice has written many a page of history in which the imprecation of this verse has been literally verified.

We confess that as we read some of these verses we have need of all our faith and reverence to accept them as the voice of inspiration; but the exercise is good for the soul, for it educates our sense of ignorance, and tests our teachability. Yes, Divine Spirit, we can and do believe that even these dread words from which we shrink have a meaning consistent with the attributes of the Judge of all the earth, though his name is LOVE. How this may be we shall know hereafter.

Ver. 10. Let his children be continually vagabonds. The word used in the sentence pronounced upon Cain, Ge 4:12. Compare Ps 59:11, 15. William Kay.

Ver. 10. Let them seek, etc. Horsley renders this clause, Let them be driven out from the very ruins of their dwellings, and remarks that the image is that of "vagabonds seeking a miserable shelter among the ruins of decayed or demolished buildings, and not suffered to remain even in such places undisturbed."

Ver. 10-13. Many penurious fathers are so scraping for their children, that they ravish the poor children of God; but the hand of the Lord shall be against their young lions. Na 2:13. They join house to house, and field to field, but their children shall be "vagabonds and beg", "seeking their bread out of their desolate places." How many a covetous mole is now digging a house in the earth for his posterity, and never dreams of this sequel, that God should make those children beggars, for whose sake their fathers had made so many beggars! This is a quittance which the sire will not believe, but as sure as God is just the son shall feel. Now if he had but leave to come out of hell for an hour, and see this, how should he curse his folly! Sure, if possible, it would double the pain of his infernal torture. Be moderate, then, ye that so insatiately devour, as if you had an infinite capacity: you overload your stomachs, it is fit they should be disburdened in shameful spewing. How quickly doth a worldly minded man grow a defrauder, from a defrauder to a usurer, from a usurer to an oppressor, from an oppressor to an extortioner! If his eyes do but tell his heart of a booty, his heart will charge his hand, and he must have it, Mic 2:2. They do but see it, like it, and take it. Observe their due payment. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath: they got all by extortion, they shall lose all by extortion. They spoiled their neighbours, strangers shall spoil them. How often hath the poor widow and orphan cried, wept, groaned to them for mercy, and found none! They have taught God how to deal with themselves; let there be none to extend mercy to them. They have advanced houses for a memorial, and dedicated lands to their own names, Ps 49:11; all to get them a name; and even in this they shall be crossed: In the next generation their name shall be quite put out. Thomas Adams.

Psalms 109:11*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. Continually vagabonds—Hebrew, wandering, his sons shall wander: without a fixed habitation, homeless: the condition to which David had been already reduced by the treachery and falsehood of his enemy. The same word expresses David’s exilement (Psa_56:8) and Cain’s punishment, (Gen_4:12; Gen_4:14,) where, “for fugitive and vagabond,”

the Septuagint have στενων και τρεμων, groaning and trembling. The parallel passage is Psa_59:11; Psa_59:15, where also the same word occurs. The consequences of crime and impiety often reappear in the offspring of the wicked, according to the declarations of Exo_20:5; Exo_34:7, and of this the psalmist now forewarns them. “Every consequence of sin is a punishment, and every punishment is from the living God. And is not man permitted to desire that God should do what he really does, provided he desires it in that sense in which God does it?”—Tholuck.

Out of their desolate places— “Out of” should here read from, that is, far from. The fall of the wicked father brings ruin and desolation upon the household, and from, far from, the ruins of a home from which they are shaken out, they wander up and down, and ask and search for bread. See Psa_37:25.A description of human poverty and wretchedness which has not a parallel.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg. If it be just that the sins of the fathers be visited upon the children, the psalmist may be regarded as justified in this wish. Still, it is not one that a Christian will readily echo. Let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Professor Cheyne corrects Wvrd into WvdGO, and translates, "Let them be driven from their desolate houses."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Desolate places - Into which they are fled for fear and shame.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

and [people] should ask and search from their ruins Everyone will ask about them, what happened to So-and-so and So-and-so, because of the rumor of ruin that emerged about them.

And “search” (וְדָרְשוּ) means from others, because it is vowelized with a short “kamatz,” and וְשִׁאֵלוּ also means from others, that others should ask about them. This can also be interpreted as וְשִׁאֵלוּ, of the intensive conjugation, meaning that they will go around by the doors [to beg for alms].

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.