1 Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;
2 For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.
4 For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.
5 And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.
17 As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
20 Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.
21 But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for thy name's sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.
22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.
25 I became also a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they shaked their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God: O save me according to thy mercy:
27 That they may know that this is thy hand; that thou, Lord, hast done it.
28 Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice.
29 Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.
30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.
31 For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.
<html><b>O God of my praise, be not silent</b> This was said regarding all Israel.</html>
<html><b>For the mouth of a wicked man</b> Ishmael.</html>
<html><b>Instead of my love</b> for You, they hinder me. <b>but I am at prayer</b> But I pray to You constantly. I found:</html>
<html><b>evil instead of good</b> I sacrifice seventy bulls every year for the seventy nations, and we request rain, yet they harm us. Shocher Tov (109:4).</html>
<html><b>When he is judged</b> before You, may he emerge from Your judgment guilty and wicked.</html>
<html><b>his office of dignity</b> Heb. פקדתו, his greatness, provostie or pruvote in Old French, like (Esther 2: 3): “And let the king appoint officers (פקידים).”</html>
<html><b>and [people] should ask and search from their ruins</b> 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].</html>
<html><b>May a creditor search out all he has</b> Heb. ינקש. A person who toils and searches, and longs passionately to do something is described by the expression מִתְנַקֵשׁ, i.e., shaken and going from place to place, like (Dan. 5:6): “and his knees knocked (נקשן) against each other.”</html>
<html><b>in another generation</b> that will come after his being cut off, his name and his fame will be blotted out so that not even a remembrance will remain of him in the mouth of the generation that is born in the world after his name will be destroyed, sa retremure in Old French, its extirpation.</html>
<html><b>the iniquity against his forefathers</b> The iniquity that he sinned against his forebears, to Abraham, whose life he shortened by five years, and to his father he caused blindness. <b>and the sin against his mother</b> that he destroyed her womb, and that he caused the day of her burial to be concealed from the people, lest they curse her for Esau emerged from her womb, as it is said (Gen. 35:8): “Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, died…the Plain of Weeping.” In Greek, another is called “allon,” for Jacob had another mourning along with that of Deborah, for his mother died and they concealed her death.</html>
<html><b>May they be</b> [May] these iniquities [be] before the Lord constantly. <b>and may He cut off their remembrance from the earth</b> [the remembrance] of Esau and his chieftains.</html>
<html><b>Because he did not remember to do kindness</b> to engage in the mourning of his father, as Jacob had made a pottage of lentils to console Isaac, for on that day Abraham had died. <b>a poor…man</b> Israel.</html>
<html><b>And he loved a curse</b> [Esau loved] the curse of the Holy One, blessed be He, Whose existence he denied.</html>
<html><b>And he donned a curse</b> He brought himself into a curse and was satisfied with breaking off the yoke of the sacrifice and the priestly blessing and the curse of the heathens.</html>
<html><b>May it be to him</b> [May] the curse [be to him] as an envelopment like a garment. [This] I found. <b>and as a girdle…constantly</b> Heb. ולמזח, a girdle, and so, (Job 12:21): “and loosens the belt (מזיח) of the strong.” He loosens the belt of the strong.</html>
<html><b>Like a shadow when it lengthens</b> at eventide. <b>I was stirred up</b> an expression of stirring and mixing and astonishment, like a locust, which wanders to and fro and is stirred up. [This] I found:</html>
<html><b>and enwrap themselves…like a cloak</b> which enwraps and envelops the entire body.</html>