Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
Psalm 102:8-11
8. My enemies have reviled me daily; and those who are mad against me have sworn by me. 143 9. For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, [or, with my tears,] 10. On account of thy indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down. 11. My days are like a shadow which declineth; and I am dried up like the grass.
8. My enemies have reviled me daily The faithful, to excite the compassion of God towards them, tell him that they are not only objects of mockery to their enemies, but also that they swore by them. The indignity complained of is, that the ungodly so shamefully triumphed over God's chosen people, as even to borrow from their calamities a form of swearing and imprecation. This was to regard the fate of the Jews as a signal pattern in uttering the language of imprecation. When, therefore, at the present day the ungodly, in like manner, give themselves loose reins in pouring forth against us contumelious language, let us learn to fortify ourselves with this armor, by which such kind of temptation, however sharp, may be overcome. The Holy Spirit, in dictating to the faithful this form of prayer, meant to testify that God is moved by such revilings to succor his people; even as we find it stated in Isaiah 37:23,
"Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed, and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice? even against the Holy One of Israel;" and in the verse immediately preceding the prophet had said, "He hath despised thee, O daughter of Zion! against thee hath he shaken the head, O daughter of Jerusalem!" It is surely an inestimable comfort that the more insolent our enemies are against us, the more is God incited to gird himself to aid us. In the second clause the inspired writer expresses more strongly the cruelty of his enemies, when he speaks of their being mad against him As the verb,הללhalal, which we have rendered mad, generally signifies to
Horsley renders the concluding sentence, — "And the profligate make me their standard of execration." "Houbigant," says he, "rightly observes, that the verb,נשבעgoverning its objects by the prefix,בsignifies to swear by, not to swear against. For,נשבעוtherefore, he would substitute another word; which, however, bears not the sense he would impose upon it. Archbishop Secker attempts to explain the text as it stands, but, in my judgment, unsuccessfully, unlessנשבעmay signify to execrate one's self or another. I find no example of this use of the verb. But the [use] of the noun in Numbers 5:21, and Isaiah 65:15, may seem, in some degree, to countenance the Archbishop's interpretation. The other passages to which he refers are little to the purpose." Rosenmüller gives a similar interpretation. "They swear by me; they derive their arguments and examples from my calamities; when they mean to imprecate evil on themselves as the persons swearing, or on another as the object of their malediction, they use my name as a form of execration, as if they said, 'Let our fate be that of these miserable Jews, if we speak what is false.' — See Isaiah
65:15; Jeremiah 29:22."