Bible Strands
Psalms 109:10
May his children wander as beggars, seeking sustenance far from their ruined homes.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The psalmist speaks to God, pronouncing a curse on an enemy’s household amid a sequence of judicial imprecations. The moment occurs within a structured prayer for divine retribution against a specific adversary.
The words — The Hebrew יָנ֣וּעוּ (ya.Nu.'u) and וְ/שִׁאֵ֑לוּ (ve./shi.'E.lu) carry the literal sense of “may they wander” and “they will beg.” These verbs frame the children’s displacement and destitution.
The thread — This motif of cursed displacement echoes Genesis 4:12, where the ground refuses to yield and the accused becomes a fugitive and wanderer. It also stands in direct contrast to the promise in Psalms 37:25 that the righteous are never abandoned or forced to beg for bread.
Why it lands — The verse demands the reader recognize the concrete reality of inherited ruin and the necessity of divine justice against systemic oppression. It calls for a sober assessment of how covenant curses manifest in tangible economic and familial collapse.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Cross-references
- Genesis 4:12 When you till the ground, it will no longer yield its produce to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”
- Psalms 37:25 I once was young and now am old, yet never have I seen the righteous abandoned or their children begging for bread.
- 2 Kings 5:27 Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman will cling to you and your descendants forever!” And as Gehazi left his presence, he was leprous—as white as snow.
- Psalms 59:15 They scavenge for food, and growl if they are not satisfied.
- Isaiah 16:2 Like fluttering birds pushed out of the nest, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon:
- 2 Samuel 3:29 May it whirl over the head of Joab and over the entire house of his father, and may the house of Joab never be without one having a discharge or skin disease, or one who leans on a staff or falls by the sword or lacks food.”
- Job 24:8 Drenched by mountain rains, they huddle against the rocks for want of shelter.
- Job 30:3 Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.