성경 주석서

다윗이 사울에게 박해받을 때 이 시를 썼는지, 아니면 그의 아들 압살롬이 그에게 반역했을 때 썼는지, 혹은 그에게 닥친 다른 고난 때문에 썼는지는 불확실하다. 그가 기도한 특정 원수가 사울인지, 도엑인지, 아히도벨인지, 아니면 성경에 언급되지 않은 다른 인물인지는 알 수 없다. 그러나 이 시를 기록하면서 그가 그리스도와 그분의 고난, 그리고 박해자들을 염두에 두었다는 것은 확실하다. (시 109:8)의 저주가 유다에게 적용되기 때문이다. (행 1:20). 그의 원수들을 향한 여기 나머지 기도들은 격정의 표현이 아니라 예언의 영의 표현이었다. I. 그는 원수들의 악의와 비열한 배은망덕에 대해 하늘 법정에 고소하며, 의로우신 하나님께 호소한다 (시 109:1-5). II. 그는 원수들을 대적하여 기도하고, 그들을 파멸에 이르게 한다 (시 109:6-20). III. 그는 자신이 처한 비천한 상황에서 하나님께서 자신을 돕고 구원해 주시기를 기도한다 (시 109:21-29). IV. 그는 하나님께서 자신을 위해 나타나실 것이라는 즐거운 기대로 결론을 맺는다 (시 109:30,31). 이 시를 부르면서 우리는 그리스도와 그분의 교회의 모든 원수들이 확실히 파멸되고, 하나님을 신뢰하고 그분께 가까이 붙어있는 모든 이들이 확실히 구원될 것이라는 믿음의 예견으로 위로를 받아야 한다.

이 시편은 다윗의 것으로 되어 있으며, 표제의 정확성을 의심하게 할 내용은 시편 안에 없다. 킴히는 이것이 사울 시대에 다윗을 대적한 원수들을 가리킨다고 본다. 그로티우스와 크나프는 아히도벨을, 다테는 시므이를 가리킨다고 보며, 데베테는 다윗 시대보다 후대의 민족적 원수들을 가리킨다고 본다. 이 시편이 지어진 계기는 이제 확정할 수 없다. 다윗의 원수들이 그를 가장 맹렬하게 대적하던 그의 생애 가운데 가장 혹독한 시기 하나였던 것으로 보인다. 이 시편은 "저주" 시편 가운데 하나이며, 이 책의 어떤 시편 못지않게 친절하고 용서하는 영과 조화시키기 어렵다.

신약성경 사도행전 1:20은 이 시편의 일부를 배신자 유다에게 적용하지만, 그렇다고 이 시편이 본래 유다를 가리켰다고 결론 내릴 필요는 없다. 유다의 행실은 다윗의 원수의 행실과 같았으므로, 한 경우에 사용된 표현을 다른 경우에도 적절히 사용할 수 있었다.

이 시편은 세 부분으로 이루어진다.

I. 시편 기자의 원수들을 묘사한다(시편 109:1-5). 그들은

(a) 속이며 거짓말하고,

(b) 미움의 말을 사용하며,

(c) 까닭 없이 그와 싸우고,

(d) 선을 악으로, 사랑을 미움으로 갚는다.

이를 보면 여기서 가리키는 자들은 저자와 가까이 지냈고, 저자에게서 중요한 은혜를 받았으며, 그의 기도의 대상이었으나, 순전히 악의로 그를 박해한 사람들이었던 것으로 보인다.

II. 이처럼 자신에게 악을 행한 자들을 벌해 달라는 기도이다. 특별히 두드러진 역할을 했거나 다른 사람들을 선동한 한 사람을 가리키며, 마치 그 혼자 책임이 있는 것처럼 그에게 공의로운 형벌을 내려 달라고 간구한다(시편 109:6-20). 이 부분이 엄하고 겉보기에 가혹하고 복수심에 찬 저주로 이루어져 있기 때문에, 이 시편 해석의 주된 어려움은 바로 여기에 있다. 사람이 원수에게 내려지기를 바랄 수 있는 모든 것이 실제로 그에게 내려지기를 간구한다.

III. 고난받는 시편 기자 자신의 구원을 구하고 감사를 약속하는 기도이다(시편 109:21-31). 여기서 시편 기자는 자신의 비참하고 고통스러운 상태를 묘사하고 하나님께서 개입해 주시기를 기도한다. 하나님께서 자기 벗이 되어 주신다면 사람의 손에서 어떤 고난도 받겠으며, 하나님께서 "축복하신다면" 사람들이 계속 "저주해도" 기꺼이 감당하겠다는 마음을 표현한다. 이 모든 일의 결과로 그는 찬양, 곧 하나님의 선하심을 공개적으로 인정하는 일에서 기쁨을 찾겠다고 말한다.

표제의 "인도자를 따라"라는 표현에 관해서는 시편 4편 표제의 주석을 보라.

시편 기자는 완고한 원수들을 향하여 말한다(시편 109:1–5). 그는 그들을 대적하여 기도하고 하나님의 심판을 선언한다(시편 109:6–15). 그 선언의 근거가 되는 이유가 제시된다(시편 109:16–20). 그는 하나님께서 자신을 긍휼히 여기시도록 여러 논거를 제시하면서 자신의 안전과 구원을 위해 기도한다(시편 109:21–31).

이 시편의 표제인 ‘지휘자를 위하여, 다윗의 시’는 이미 자주 나왔으며, 역본들은 이에 관해 새로운 것을 제시하지 않는다. 시리아어 역본은 이것이 ‘백성이 다윗도 모르게 압살롬을 왕으로 세웠을 때의 다윗의 시이며, 이 일 때문에 압살롬이 죽임을 당했다. 그러나 우리(그리스도인들)에게는 그리스도의 수난을 자세히 서술한다’고 말한다. 이것이 유다와 우리 주님의 원수들을 대적하는 예언을 담고 있음은 사도행전 1:20에서 분명하다. 아마 그 일차적 의미에서는—확실히 그러한 의미가 있다—아히도벨을 가리킬 수 있다. 이 시편의 저주는 죄인들을 향한 하나님의 진노를 단순히 예언적으로 선언한 것이므로 미래 시제로 번역해야 한다. 이렇게 이해하면 누구에게도 걸림돌이 될 수 없다. 하나님께서는 악을 행하는 자들에게 내리실 심판을 선언하실 권리가 있다. 그러나 어쩌면 전체 내용은 다윗의 원수들이 다윗 자신을 향해 퍼부은 저주일 수도 있다. 시편 109:20 주석을 보라. 다윗을 대적하여 악한 계책을 내놓았으나 좌절된 뒤 목을 매어 죽은 아히도벨은 배신자 유다의 하찮지 않은 예표였다. 아마 바로 이 때문에 성 베드로는 사도행전 1:20에서 이것을 유다에 관한 예언적 선언으로, 또는 적어도 그의 경우에 적용할 수 있는 본문으로 유다에게 적용했을 것이다.

INTRODUCTION TO Psalm 109

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. This psalm was written by David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, concerning Judas the betrayer of Christ, as is certain from Acts 1:16 hence it is used to be called by the ancients the Iscariotic psalm. Whether the occasion of it was the rebellion of Absalom, as some, or the persecution of Saul, as Kimchi; and whoever David might have in view particularly, whether Ahithophel, or Doeg the Edomite, as is most likely; yet it is evident that the Holy Ghost foresaw the sin of Judas, and prophesies of that, and of the ruin and misery that should come upon him; for the imprecations in this psalm are no other than predictions of future events, and so are not to be drawn into an example by men; nor do they breathe out anything contrary to the spirit of Christianity, but are proofs of it, since what is here predicted has been exactly accomplished. The title in the Syriac version is,

"a psalm of David when they created Absalom king without his knowledge, and for this cause he was slain; but to us it expounds the sufferings of the Christ of God;''

and indeed he is the person that is all along speaking in this psalm.

CIX.

The peculiar horror of the imprecations in this extraordinary psalm does not lie in the dreadful consequences they invoke. Shakespeare puts curses equally fierce and terrible into Timon’s mouth:

“Piety, and fear,

Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,

Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,

Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,

Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,

Decline to your confounding contraries,

And let confusion live!”

Nor is this horror due to the fact, assuming it to be a fact, that these imprecations are not general in their direction, like the misanthrope’s curses, but are levelled at a single individual, for the passions of revenge and hatred intensify by contraction of their range. The whole difficulty of the psalm lies in the fact that it was, as the inscription shows, actually, if not primarily, intended for use in the public service of the sanctuary.

But this very use at once divests the psalm of one of the greatest sources of difficulty, its personal character. Whatever its origin, whoever the original object of the imprecations, it is certain that they became public, ecclesiastical, national.

It is quite possible that from the first the writer spoke in the name of the persecuted nation against some oppressive heathen prince, such as Antiochus Epiphanes. Certainly, when sung by the congregation it expressed not an individual longing for revenge, but all the pent-up feeling—religious abhorrence, patriotic hatred, moral detestation—of the suffering community.

The continuance of its recitation in Christian churches opens up another question, and has, in a great measure, been the motive for the various apologetic explanations that have been started for the psalm. It is strange that even yet the old theory, which justifies the language of the imprecations as prophetically the language of Christ, should find advocates. The “quotation” theory is noticed in the Notes. On the quotation of the imprecations by St. Peter, see Notes, New Testament Commentary, Acts 1:20-21. The parallelism is synthetic.

Title.—“To the chief musician.” (See Note to title of Psalms 4)

i. The Psalmist appeals for help against a gang of merciless enemies, who are endeavouring to effect his ruin by false accusations or treacherous slanders. Their hostility is not merely causeless: it is a deliberate return of evil for good, of hate for love (Psalm 109:1-5).

ii. Singling out the leader of his persecutors the Psalmist invokes upon him and all that belong to him the retribution which his inhuman conduct deserves. May he be tried and found guilty! May he be degraded from his office and die a premature death! May his children be impoverished and his name speedily become extinct! May all the sins of his ancestors be remembered against him! Because he has deliberately been merciless to the poor and weak, and chosen not to benefit but to injure his neighbour, let him find no mercy or blessing at the hands of God (Psalm 109:6-20).

iii. Then, changing his tone, the Psalmist prays once more for help, pleading the pitiableness of his own plight (Psalm 109:21-25); and his prayer rises into a confident anticipation of ultimate deliverance, and consequent thanksgiving to Jehovah the champion of the poor and needy (Psalm 109:26-31).

Thus the Psalm consists of six stanzas, each of five verses, except the last, which contains six, and falls into three divisions.

Commentators who maintain the Davidic authorship, have supposed it to refer to Doeg, or Ahithophel, or Shimei. But there is nothing in the Psalm to indicate that its author was ever in a position of authority: rather he seems to belong to the class of the poor and oppressed, and to be the victim of a conspiracy of unscrupulous neighbours. Some features in the language point to a late date, and apparently there are allusions to the Book of Job, and to late Psalms, e.g. Psalms 102. Most probably it belongs to the post-exilic period.

It has been held by some that the Psalm is not personal but national; that the speaker is Israel, persecuted and oppressed by scornful and malignant enemies. Others have supposed that the Psalmist writes as the representative of the poor and oppressed classes, and that the enemy whom he denounces is no particular individual, but the typical persecutor of the poor. But alike in its denunciations and in its complaints and in its prayers the Psalm has a personal ring; it is a cry of suffering wrung out by actual circumstances. What those circumstances were we can only conjecture. Possibly the enemy whom he singles out had been the head of a conspiracy to ruin him and his family by false charges and perversion of justice. Such a situation may be indicated by the language of Psalm 109:2-3 (cp. Psalm 109:31), and it would give special point to the form of retribution which the Psalmist invokes in Psalm 109:6 ff. His enemies were evidently of his own countrymen, and the chief enemy was a man of some position (Psalm 109:8). Was he some noble whom the judge would be ready to gratify, or even the judge himself? Cp. Micah 7:3. The narrative in Nehemiah 5 shews that national suffering had not taught the wealthier and more powerful members of the community of the Return to exercise consideration towards their poorer brethren. Possibly, though less probably, the Psalmist’s enemies were men who had been attempting to ruin him by slander and calumny, such as almost proved fatal to Jesus the son of Sirach (Sir 51:1-10).

The Psalm has much in common with Psalms 35, 69. The complaints of the causelessness of the hostility of his enemies resemble those in Psalm 35:11 ff.: the imprecations recall those of Psalm 69:22 ff., but they are more terrible in their detail, and they startle and shock the Christian reader the more because they are levelled not at the guilty man himself alone, but at all his kith and kin.

The moral difficulty of the Imprecatory Psalms has been discussed generally in the Introduction, pp. lxxxviii ff. We shall not attempt to justify them. They are the very opposite of the spirit of the Gospel (Matthew 5:43 ff.). But we must endeavour to understand them. They are the expression of the spirit of a dispensation, in which retribution was a fundamental principle. It is the desire for retribution, above all for retribution for gratuitous malice, which finds such passionate expression here. “As he hath done, so shall it be done to him” was the sentence of the Law (Leviticus 24:19). “Let me see thy vengeance on them” is the prayer of the persecuted prophet (Jeremiah 11:20). “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house” was the maxim of the Wise men in Israel (Proverbs 17:13). ‘Let it be so in the case of my enemy’ is the sum and substance of the Psalmist’s prayer. ‘My enemies have rewarded me evil for good, and plotted to ruin me. Let the evil they have been devising recoil upon the head of the author of the plot. I am innocent; he is guilty: the fate which he would unjustly have assigned to me will justly be his.’ Again, the Psalmist is Jehovah’s servant (Psalm 109:28); his cause is Jehovah’s cause; if he perishes, Jehovah’s honour will suffer (Psalm 109:21); and his deliverance seems inevitably to involve the destruction of his implacable enemies. Let it be remembered too that we are dealing with poetry, and with the language of burning indignation kindled by cruel wrong. The ruin which the Psalmist imprecates upon the wicked man is doubtless that which he conceives the wicked man had designed to inflict on him.

But there is another side to the Psalmist’s character. He is capable of the tenderest love and deepest devotion. He would rather love than hate, rather bless than curse. In this respect the Psalm presents a striking contrast to the Fourth Psalm of Solomon, “Against the men-pleasers,” which has been quoted as a parallel. That Psalm is a Pharisaic attack upon the Sadducees, and breathes a spirit of rancorous and bitter religious hatred. Comp. Psalm 109:16-25 in Ryle and James’ translation.

“Let dishonour be his portion, O Lord, in thy sight;

Let his going out be with groaning, and his coming in with a curse;

Let his life, O Lord, be spent in pain, in poverty and want:

Let his sleep be in anguish and his awaking in perplexities.

Let sleep be withdrawn from his eyelids in the night-season;

Let him miscarry with dishonour in every work of his hands;

Let him enter his house empty-handed;

And let his house lack everything wherewith he can satisfy his desire.

Let his old age be childless and solitary until the time of his being taken away.

Let the flesh of the men-pleasers be torn in pieces by the beasts of the field,

And the bones of transgressors lie dishonoured in the sight of the sun.

Let ravens peck out the eyes of the men that work hypocrisy,

Because they have made desolate with dishonour many men’s houses, and scattered them in their lust;

And remembered not God, nor feared God in all these things;

And provoked God to anger and vexed him;

That he should cut them off from the earth, because with craftiness they beguiled the souls of the innocent.”

It has been maintained by some commentators that in this Psalm, as in Psalms 69, the imprecations are not the imprecations of the Psalmist upon his enemies, but those of his enemies upon him, which he quotes. We are to supply saying at the end of Psalm 109:5, and to explain Psalm 109:20 to mean, ‘This is mine adversaries’ award unto me; this is the sentence that they would procure against me from Jehovah.’ This view has been advocated by Dr Taylor (Gospel in the Law, pp. 244 ff.), and more recently by Dr Sharpe (Student’s Handbook to the Psalms, pp. 218 ff.). At first sight it is attractive. It accounts for the sudden change of tone and for the transition from the plural to the singular in Psalm 109:6 ff. It removes the moral difficulty. But it must be acknowledged that it is a somewhat strained and artificial interpretation. The sudden changes of feeling, and the abrupt transition from the plural to the singular, marking out one of the band of enemies as their leader and representative, find a complete parallel in Psalms 55. If the moral difficulty were removed in this particular case, it would still remain in other Psalms; and in fact the denunciations are not more terrible than those of Jeremiah against his persecutors (see Jeremiah 11:18 ff; Jeremiah 15:15 ff; Jeremiah 17:18; Jeremiah 18:19 ff; Jeremiah 20:11 ff.); while the combination of fierce emotion with elegiac tenderness finds a complete analogy in the character of that martyr-prophet.

시편 109:1-31. 저자는 악랄한 원수들을 탄식하며, 그들에게 하나님의 의로운 형벌이 임하기를 저주로 구한다. 그리고 자신을 위한 하나님의 개입을 기도한 뒤, 자신의 확신과 찬양의 약속을 덧붙인다. 이 시는 저주의 수와 엄격함 때문에 두드러진다. 그 분명한 예표적 성격(시편 109:8 비교)은 앞서 제시된 설명, 곧 다윗이 자기 원수들이나 그리스도의 원수들에 관해 말한 언어로서 회개하는 자가 아니라 회개하지 않고 완고한 선한 사람들과 하나님 및 그분의 대의를 대적하는 자들을 가리키며, 그들의 피할 수 없는 운명이 영감 받은 권위로 표시된다는 설명을 정당화한다. 1. God of my praise--찬양의 대상이신 하나님이라는 뜻으로, 하나님을 확실한 도우심으로 인정한다. Be not silent--시편 17:13; 28:1과 비교하라.

잠잠하지 마소서 - 마치 하나님께서 그에게 행해진 악을 무관심하게 바라보신 것처럼, 나를 변호하여 말씀해 달라는 뜻이다. 시편 83:1 주석을 보라.

나의 찬양의 하나님이여 - 내가 찬양하고 경배하며 높이는 하나님이라는 뜻이다. 이는 그가 하나님을 늘 찬양했으며 계속 찬양하기를 원했음을 함축한다. 그는 이제 하나님께서 개입하셔서 자신에게 찬양할 새로운 이유를 주시기를 구했다.