Psalm 109:17 As he loved cursing, so let it come to him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he loved cursing, so let it come to him. We have a popular sentence which illustrates. When a man suffers what he planned to make others suffer, he is said to be "hoist with his own petard;" and human nature, in every age, is specially pleased with cases of retributive justice, such as that of Haman, who was hanged on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai. "The psalmist felt that he was praying in accordance with the Divine will, when he prayed that the ungodly might fall into their own nets together, while he ever escaped them. So again with his prayer that the mischief of their own lips might fall upon the heads of them that compassed him about. For it was a matter at once of faith and of experience with the psalmist, that the evil-deviser and evil-doer, travailing with mischief, conceiving sorrow, and bringing forth ungodliness, who had graven and digged up a pit, was apt to fall himself into the destruction he made for other. 'For his travail shall come upon his own head, and his wickedness shall fall on his own pate.'" I. A MAN'S PUNISHMENT DOES OFTEN COME IS THIS WAY. See the punishment of those who arranged the den of lions for Daniel. "Owen Feltham delights to recall, from the stores of ancient and mediaeval story, how Bagoas, a Persian nobleman, having poisoned Artaxerxes and Artamenes, was detected by Darius, and forced to drink poison himself; how Diomedes, for the beasts he had fed on human flesh, was by Hercules made food; and how Pope Alexander VI., having designed the poisoning of his friend Cardinal Adrian, by his cup-bearer's mistake of the bottle, took the draught himself, and so died by the same engine which he himself had appointed to kill another." Many other illustrations may be found. II. STRONG IMPRESSIONS OF A MAN'S SIN ARE MADE BY THIS FORM OF PUNISHMENT. There is something striking and arresting in it; it takes public attention. There is often the element of humor in such judgments. But a sin which would otherwise have been passed over, is shown up in all its baseness when the wrongdoer suffers his own designed wrong. He feels the wrong; and others see it. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.WEB: Yes, he loved cursing, and it came to him. He didn't delight in blessing, and it was far from him. |
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