Psalm 109:14

Psalm 109:14, in plain English

May God remember the sins of the accuser's father and mother and hold them against him—may family sin be visited upon him.

Why it's here

This is complicated. The psalmist isn't just asking for the accuser's judgment but for generational consequences. In ancient thinking, family sin could have ongoing effects. However, later Scripture (especially Ezekiel 18) would challenge the idea that children are automatically punished for parents' sins. The psalmist here is asking for the harshest possible judgment.

Who's speaking

David, extending the prayer to family sin

Where it sits in the story

The tension here is important—early Scripture sometimes mentions generational consequences, but later prophets clarify that God judges individuals for their own choices. This prayer represents an older understanding that God's people would later refine.

The scholarly reading

May the iniquity of the accuser's father be remembered before God, and his mother's sin never be forgiven.

Language and setting

The introduction of intergenerational sin here—''avon avotav yizaker' (the iniquity of his fathers be remembered)—represents a theologically complex position. While Deuteronomy 5:9-10 acknowledges that divine judgment can extend to subsequent generations, Ezekiel 18 and Jeremiah 31 explicitly reject wholesale intergenerational guilt. Some commentators (Kimhi, Gill) understand this not as establishing guilt in the parents but as invoking divine memory of a pattern of family wickedness—suggesting the current accuser follows a ancestral trajectory toward judgment. The exclusion of forgiveness for the mother's sin ('chet immo lo yimahel') specifically designates maternal sin as perpetually unforgiven.

Voice

The psalmist, now introducing family history into the curse.

Significance

The tension between individual and corporate responsibility in biblical judgment appears throughout—compare Achan's execution with his family (Joshua 7) against the principle of individual accountability (Ezekiel 18). This remains a hermeneutical tension that Christian theology addresses through various frameworks, from Augustine's understanding of corporate sin to modern covenantal theology.

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.

14May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

15May their sins always remain before the LORD, that He may cut off their memory from the earth.

16For he never thought to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and brokenhearted, even to their death.

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.