May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander as beggars, seeking sustenance far from their ruined homes. May the creditor seize all he owns, and strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May there be no one to extend kindness to him, and no one to favor his fatherless children. May his descendants be cut off; may their name be blotted out from the next generation. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and the sin of his mother never be blotted out. May their sins always remain before the LORD, that He may cut off their memory from the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Significance
Psalm 109:9-15's imprecation that the enemy's children be fatherless, his family line cut off, and "the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD" draws directly on the second commandment's warning in Exodus 20:5: "I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children" (פֹּקֵד עֲוֺן אָבֹת עַל־בָּנִים, poqed avon avot al-banim). The psalmist asks God to apply this Decalogue principle to a specific adversary, praying that the enemy's family name be "blotted out" (יִמָּח, yimmach) in the next generation. The shared vocabulary of iniquity (עָוֺן) and generational visitation shows the imprecatory psalm operating within the legal framework of Sinai covenant sanctions rather than arbitrary vengeance.
