The Prayer of the Wrongly Accused
May his descendants be cut off; may their name be blotted out from the next generation. Psalm 109:13 · Berean Standard Bible
May his family line be completely cut off—no descendants, no one to carry on his name into the future.
In the ancient world, having descendants was one of the deepest desires—they carried your name forward, remembered you, inherited what you built. To have your line 'cut off' meant complete extinction, being forgotten entirely. This was considered a terrible curse.
David, praying for the ending of the accuser's family line
God promised Abraham that his descendants would be countless, a blessing running through all of Scripture. Here, the psalmist asks that the opposite happen to his enemy—that the blessing of descendants be withheld. It's an inversion of one of God's greatest promises.
May the accuser's descendants be completely cut off, with his family name obliterated from future generations.
The verb 'karatu' (cut off) in the Hiphil form indicates severing, discontinuation—the termination of a line. This represents perhaps the deepest curse in Israelite consciousness: the elimination of posterity, the cutting off of the family name. The phrase 'shem-ach lo yimatzei' (his name shall not be found) extends even beyond death to the obliteration of memory itself. In the ancient Near Eastern worldview, to be forgotten was a second death more terrible than the first. This echoes the curse formulas of Egyptian execration texts and Hittite treaty violations.
The psalmist, invoking genealogical extinction.
The concern with posterity and name-preservation runs throughout Scripture (Ruth's kinsman-redeemer system, the genealogies of Genesis and Matthew). The fear of having one's name blotted out appears as the ultimate curse (Deuteronomy 9:14, Revelation 3:5), making this imprecation one of the most severe in the biblical tradition.
11May the creditor seize all he owns, and strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
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.
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.
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