So I was driving into work today here in Massachusetts. Ahead of me was a vehicle, a rather modern well maintained pick-up truck. On the right hand side of the bumper was the "McCain/Palin" sticker we all remember from 2008, faded but still easily identifiable. On the other side was was newer looking sticker on which was the message:
“Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8” Not being a biblical scholar, I had no clue what the passage the message was referring to said. However, for curiosity's sake, I made a mental note to look up the passage later on Bible Gateway, incidentally one of the few non-work related sites that seems to pass muster with employer's overly censoring firewall. As I continued my commute I started to ruminate a bit more. The owner of the vehicle bearing the two stickers could conceivably have been thought of as at the very least 'right leaning' and somewhat religious. With some more consideration I imagined that the owner had probably come to terms with Obama's election and was suggesting people of like mind 'pray' that God inspire Obama to righteous ,Godly and honorable leadership. Knowing what I do about the Psalms, how much the Catholics love them and how often I hear them quoted mostly in inspiration of some higher moral, I felt justified in smiling to myself and thinking, maybe there is some hope for us. Clearly, I'd given this person, and also the creators of this bit of bumper sticker rhetoric, too much credit.
At my lunch I looked up the passage referenced, this is what it says:
"Let his days be few; and let another take his office."
Cute. Were I to have read this alone I would simply have been let down from my previous view and then concluded that the owner of the vehicle was much more cynical and partisan than I 'd thought. Unlike most of the people who probably thought there was something somehow clever and 'Godly' about the application and context in which this quote is offered, I decided to read those lines before and after the one line referenced. Before you continue, remember this is being offered as a rumination on 'him', 'he'....one Barack Obama:
Psalm 109:1-20 (King James Version)
1 Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;
2 For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.
4 For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.
5 And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.
17 As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
20 Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul.
What touching and heart-warming sentiments for our duly elected President and best of all, by extension, for his mother, wife and two young daughters.
I am not a Democrat. I am NOT an Obama disciple. I am not at all that impressed with his 1st year in office but to apply this vicious little bronze-age misanthropic tirade to Mr. Obama is DESPICABLE and any one who calls himself an American or even human ought to rail against it. Those who would be proud to display this message ought to be ashamed of themselves. You don't care for Mr. Obama and his policies? Fine. That's your right of conscience. But we have a process for retiring leaders we don't like. Beseeching the almighty to destroy him AND his family is well....Un-American. The accepted process is outlined in the Constitution. Go to Wikipedia and look it up.
I don't for one second believe that more than a percent of those who would plague their bumpers with this drivel have EVER read this whole Psalm, even less so the Bible in whole or even in part. But perhaps they should do a just a wee bit of due diligence, lest they be thought of as nothing but 'bronze-age ethics' advocating neanderthals.
R.
“Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8” 
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