Bible Strands
Psalms 109:9
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist speaks to God in a curse against a hostile figure, positioned between pleas for the enemy's removal and his children's destitution.
The words — The Hebrew יְתוֹמִ֑ים (ye.to.Mim) literally translates to "fatherless ones," while אַלְמָנָֽה\׃ ('al.ma.Nah) means "a widow," both describing the structural collapse of the enemy's household.
The thread — This pattern of familial ruin recurs in Exodus 22:24, Jeremiah 18:21, and Lamentations 5:3 as a recognized marker of divine judgment or national collapse.
Why it lands — The text states that the enemy's family will lose their fathers and husbands, which requires the reader to confront the unsoftened reality of intergenerational consequences under God's sovereignty.
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 fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Cross-references
- Exodus 22:24 My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will become widows and your children will be fatherless.
- Jeremiah 18:21 Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
- Lamentations 5:3 We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.