The Prayer of the Wrongly Accused
May the creditor seize all he owns, and strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. Psalm 109:11 · Berean Standard Bible
May creditors seize everything he owns and may strangers take all the profit from his hard work.
Economic ruin is part of the justice the psalmist seeks—loss of property, loss of the fruits of labor. Everything he built gets handed over to others. In an ancient economy where land and possessions meant survival, this is total loss.
David, describing financial devastation
God's law consistently protected debtors and warned against exploiting the poor. Here the psalmist asks that the tables be turned—the exploiter becomes the one who loses everything. It's an appeal to God's justice system as described in the Torah.
May creditors seize all the accuser's possessions and strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
The word 'nosheh' (creditor) appears in legal contexts throughout the Torah regarding debt relationships and redemption rights. The doubling of economic loss—seizure by creditors and plunder by strangers—suggests both legal and extralegal economic devastation. The phrase 'yigenzu maleahumalo' (strangers shall plunder his wealth) resonates with covenant curse language from Deuteronomy 28:33, where breach of covenant results in one's labor being consumed by foreigners. This indicates that the accuser has violated not merely interpersonal ethics but the covenantal order itself.
The psalmist, continuing the economic dimensions of retribution.
Economic spoliation appears throughout Scripture as divine judgment (2 Kings 8:6, Nehemiah 5:1-13), and the New Testament applies this principally through warning rather than invocation—believers are cautioned against the love of money which leads to such ruin (1 Timothy 6:10).
9May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
10May his children wander as beggars, seeking sustenance far from their ruined homes.
11May the creditor seize all he owns, and strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
12May there be no one to extend kindness to him, and no one to favor his fatherless children.
13May his descendants be cut off; may their name be blotted out from the next generation.
Read all of Psalm 109 — David's most severe imprecatory psalm. The curses are shocking — but they come from a man who has handed vengeance to God instead of taking it himself.
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