Psalms 109:14

Fathers. — The sweet of vengeance lies in its completeness. The curse must strike backwards as well as forwards, and the root as well as the branch be destroyed. Undoubtedly the Mosaic Law, which proclaimed that the “iniquity of the fathers should be visited on the children,” suggested the form of the imprecation.

Sin of his mother. — Is the necessity of the parallel. ism sufficient to account for this mention of the mother, or is some definite circumstance in the poet’s thought? The theory which makes this portion of the psalm (Psalms 109:6), a quotation of curses really uttered by Shimei against David, finds an allusion to the Moabitish descent on the mother’s side. (Comp. the Rabbinical explanation of Psalms 51:5.)