Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 109:10

"Let his children be vagabonds, and beg; And let them seek [their bread] out of their desolate places." — Psalms 109:10 (ASV)

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg—Let them continually wander about with no home—no fixed habitation. Let them be compelled to ask for their daily food from charity. Here we enter on a part of the psalm that is more difficult to reconcile with a proper feeling than the portions that have been considered. It is, indeed, a frequent consequence of crime that the children of those who are punished are vagabonds and beggars, but this is not a necessary consequence; and there seems here, therefore, to be a mixture of personal feeling, or a feeling of revenge.

This runs through the remaining portion of the imprecatory part of the psalm.

I confess that it is difficult to explain this without admitting that the expressions are only a record of what actually occurred in the mind of a man, truly pious, but not perfect—a man who thus, to illustrate the workings of the mind even when the general character was holy, was allowed to record his own feelings, though wrong, just as he would record the conduct of another, or his own conduct (though wrong), as a simple matter of fact—a record of what was actually felt.

The record may be exactly correct; the sentiment recorded may have been wholly incapable of vindication. See the General Introduction, Section 6 (6).

Let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places—In places uninhabited by humans; in barren regions; in deserts: let them be compelled to live on the scanty food that they may pick up there—the roots or the wild fruits that will simply keep them alive. See the notes at Job 30:4.