Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
The verse belongs to an imprecatory psalm whose curses were said to stand in conflict with the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, raising the question whether David was inspired through the whole psalm or added some words on his own. Its severe judgments are predictive, foretelling God's retributive wrath upon evildoers. They portray the tribulation that will come upon the enemies of His church.
They do not express personal revenge or urge cruelty. They are a plea for and a pronouncement of divine justice, not David asking punishment for himself. They describe what comes upon people whose lives are evil and who sought to bring such harm on others, in which those who plot wickedness against the innocent receive the consequences of their own actions. The verse pronounces that the wicked person's posterity will be cut off and the family name blotted out and erased in the generation following. This is a judgment of utter, complete and lasting destruction.
The verse belongs to an imprecatory psalm whose curses were said to stand in conflict with the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, raising the question whether David was inspired through the whole psalm or added some words on his own. Its severe judgments are predictive, foretelling God's retributive wrath upon evildoers. They portray the tribulation that will come upon the enemies of His church.
They do not express personal revenge or urge cruelty. They are a plea for and a pronouncement of divine justice, not David asking punishment for himself. They describe what comes upon people whose lives are evil and who sought to bring such harm on others, in which those who plot wickedness against the innocent receive the consequences of their own actions. The verse pronounces that the wicked person's posterity will be cut off and the family name blotted out and erased in the generation following. This is a judgment of utter, complete and lasting destruction.