Let them be desolate by reason of their shame that tell me, “Aha! Aha!”
Parallel Translations
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Let them be desolate by reason of their shame that tell me, “Aha! Aha!”
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Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.
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(40-16) Let them be appalled by reason of their shame that say unto me: 'Aha, aha.'
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to Psalms 40:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 35:21 Yes, they opened their mouth wide against me. They said, “Aha! Aha! Our eye has seen it!”
- Psalms 35:25 Don’t let them say in their heart, “Aha! That’s the way we want it!” Don’t let them say, “We have swallowed him up!”
- Psalms 69:24-25 Pour out your indignation on them. Let the fierceness of your anger overtake them. Let their habitation be desolate. Let no one dwell in their tents.
- Luke 19:43-44 For the days will come on you, when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side, and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”
- Psalms 70:3-4 Let them be turned because of their shame who say, “Aha! Aha!” Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation continually say, “Let God be exalted!”
- Psalms 73:19 How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors.
- Psalms 109:6-20 Set a wicked man over him. Let an adversary stand at his right hand. When he is judged, let him come out guilty. Let his prayer be turned into sin. Let his days be few. Let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be wandering beggars. Let them be sought from their ruins. Let the creditor seize all that he has. Let strangers plunder the fruit of his labor. Let there be no one to extend kindness to him, neither let there be anyone to have pity on his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off. In the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by Yahweh. Don’t let the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before Yahweh continually, that he may cut off their memory from the earth; because he didn’t remember to show kindness, but persecuted the poor and needy man, the broken in heart, to kill them. Yes, he loved cursing, and it came to him. He didn’t delight in blessing, and it was far from him. He clothed himself also with cursing as with his garment. It came into his inward parts like water, like oil into his bones. Let it be to him as the clothing with which he covers himself, for the belt that is always around him. This is the reward of my adversaries from Yahweh, of those who speak evil against my soul.
- Luke 21:23-24 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain When the Psalmist prays (verse 15) that his enemies…
When the Psalmist prays (verse 15) that his enemies may be destroyed for a reward of their shame, the meaning is this: As their sole desire has been to overwhelm me with shame, in order that, while thus dismayed and confounded, they might make me the object of their derision; so let a similar confusion fall upon their own heads. In the second clause of the verse he describes the nature of this confusion by relating the terms of their wicked triumphing, by which they poured contempt upon him while he was so oppressed with misery and affliction. We are here taught that, when our enemies shall have persecuted us to the uttermost, a recompense is also prepared for them; and that God will turn back, and cause to fall upon their own heads, all the evil which they had devised against us; and this doctrine ought to act as a restraint upon us, that we may behave ourselves compassionately and kindly towards our neighbors.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Let the same shame and confusion light upon them,…
Let the same shame and confusion light upon them, which they intended to have brought upon me.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 40:15 Let them be desolate for a reward…
Psa 40:15 Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.
Ver. 15. Let them be desolate for a reward] A poor reward; but such as sin payeth to her servants: "the wages of sin is death." Sin payeth all her servants in black money. See Psa 35:21. The word here rendered reward signifieth a heel. It is as if the prophet should say, Let one desolation tread upon the heels of another, till they be utterly undone.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Desolate, or amazed, or dismayed, or overthrown: of such…
Desolate, or amazed, or dismayed, or overthrown: of such imprecations I have spoken before.
Their shame, i.e. their sinful and shameful actions, as shame is put for a shameful idol, Hos 9:10, and as fear is oft put for the evil feared.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Let them be desolate for a reward of their…
Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame,.... Of their shameful wishes, words, and actions, as they were: their habitations in Jerusalem were desolate, and so was their house or temple there, and their whole land, and they themselves were stripped of everything, when Jerusalem was taken and destroyed; see Mat 23:38, Act 1:20;
that say unto me, Aha, aha; words expressive of joy, Psa 35:21, exulting at his miseries and sufferings on the cross, Mat 27:39; so the Targum,
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"we have rejoiced at his destruction, with joy at his affliction.''
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Shame - Their sinful and shameful actions.
Shame - Their sinful and shameful actions.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 15. That say unto me, Aha, aha.] האח…
Verse 15. That say unto me, Aha, aha.] האח האח heach, heach. See on Ps 35:21.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Let them be desolate - The word here employed…
Let them be desolate - The word here employed means to be astonished or amazed; then, to be laid waste, or made desolate. As used here, it refers to their purposes, and the wish or prayer is that they might be wholly unsuccessful, or that in respect to success they might be like a waste and desolate field where nothing grows.
For a reward - The word used here - עקב ‛êqeb - means the end, the last of anything; then, the recompence, reward, wages, as being the end, the result, or issue of a certain course of conduct. That is, in this case, the desolation prayed for would be a proper recompence for their purpose, or for what they said. “Of their shame.” Of their shameful act or purpose; their act as deserving of ignominy.
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That say unto me, Aha, aha - That use language of reproach and contempt. This is a term of exultation over another; a word of rejoicing at the calamities that come on another; an act of joy over a fallen enemy: Eze 25:3; see Psa 35:21, note; Psa 35:25, note. As understood of the Messiah, this would refer to the taunts and reproaches of his enemies; the exultation which they manifested when they had him in their power - when they felt secure that their vexations in regard to him were at an end, or that they would be troubled with him no more. By putting him to death they supposed that they might feel safe from further molestation on his account. For this act, this note of exultation and joy, on the part of the Jewish rulers, and of the people as stimulated by those rulers, the desolation which came upon them (the utter ruin of their temple, their city, and their nation) was an appropriate reward. That desolation did not go beyond their desert, for their treatment of the Messiah - as the ruin of the sinner in the future world will not go beyond his desert for having rejected the same Messiah as his Saviour.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain for a reward--literally, "in consequence of."
for a reward--literally, "in consequence of."
Aha--(Compare Psa 35:21, Psa 35:25).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 15. Desolate—The word may be taken in the sense…
15. Desolate—The word may be taken in the sense of astonished, struck dumb with fear, Jer_18:16, or of laid waste, as Eze_35:12. The verb is in Kal future, and may be rendered, they shall be astonished. The words “desolate,” “ashamed,” “confounded,” “driven backward,” in this and the previous verses, must be applied to temporal visitations, in defeat of their wicked plots.
Aha—An exclamation at once of mockery and triumph. Psa_35:21; Eze_25:3; Eze_26:2
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 15. R.V., Let them be desolate (Lam_1:16) by reason…
15. R.V., Let them be desolate (Lam_1:16) by reason of their shame, the defeat of their malicious plans: or, less probably, let them be astonished (Lev_26:32) for a reward of their shame, at the shame which is their recompense. Psa_70:4 reads let them turn back, as in Psa_6:10. The difference of reading probably arose out of the confusion of sound or form between M and B (ישמו—ישבו).
Aha, aha] The exclamation of malicious pleasure at another’s misfortune. Cp. Psa_35:21; Psa_35:25.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Let them be desolate for a reward of their…
Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame; rather, by reason of their shame (Kay, Alexander, Revised Version). Let the shame and disgrace that attach to them (ver. 14) cause them to be desolate, or deserted of all. That say unto me, Aha, aha! (comp. Psa_35:21, Psa_35:25)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 15. Let them be desolate, or amazed; even…
Ver. 15. Let them be desolate, or amazed; even as Jesus was desolate in his agony, so let his enemies be in their despair when he defeats them. The desolation caused in the hearts of evil spirits and evil men by envy, malice, chagrin, disappointment, and despair, shall be a fit recompense for their cruelty to the Lord when he was in their hands. For a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha. Did the foul fiend insult over our Lord? Behold how shame is now his reward! Do wicked men today pour shame upon the name of the Redeemer? Their desolation shall avenge him of his adversaries! Jesus is the gentle Lamb to all who seek mercy through his blood; but let despisers beware, for he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and "who shall rouse him up?" The Jewish rulers exulted and scornfully said, "Aha, aha; "but when the streets of Jerusalem ran like rivers deep with gore, "and the temple was utterly consumed, "then their house was left unto them desolate, and the blood of the last of the prophets, according to their own desire, came upon themselves and upon their children. O ungodly reader, if such a person glance over this page, beware of persecuting Christ and his people, for God will surely avenge his own elect. Your "ahas" will cost you dear. It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.
Ver. 15. Aha, aha. An exclamation which occurs three times in the Psalms; and in each case there seems to be reference to the mockery at the Passion. See Ps 35:21 70:3, which appear to belong to the same time as the present Psalm. Christopher Wordsworth.
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None.
Psalms 40:16*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.