Psalm 35

Psalms 35:1-3

David asks the Lord to be both advocate and warrior at once, plead my cause a legal plea and fight against them that fight against me a request for military aid, courtroom and battlefield fused in one breath. Take hold of shield and buckler pictures the Lord arming himself for a fight that is properly David's, the standard equipment of ancient infantry called up on the sufferer's behalf. Draw out also the spear turns defense into offense, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation asks for an inward word to answer the outward danger, God's own voice set against the enemies' threats.

Psalms 35:4-8

The prayer turns to imprecation: confounded, turned back, made as chaff before the wind, the standard fate the Psalter assigns the wicked throughout this book. The angel of the Lord appears twice in these verses as the one who chases and persecutes, the same figure elsewhere sent to protect and deliver, called on here to work against David's enemies rather than for them. Verses 7 and 8 ask that the pit and net prepared for David swallow up the men who set them, into that very destruction let him fall, the plotters' own scheme turned into their sentence. The older writers read the whole section as a plea handed to God rather than a private act of vengeance, judgment asked for rather than taken.

Psalms 35:9-10

My soul shall be joyful in the Lord answers the complaint of the previous verses with praise claimed in advance, joy sworn before any deliverance has actually arrived. All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee echoes the Song of Moses at the Red Sea, who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods (Exodus 15:11), the same wonder carried from the nation's exodus into one man's private rescue. The poor and the needy named in the same verse widen the complaint beyond David's own case to every sufferer the Lord answers in the same way.

Psalms 35:11-16

False witnesses did rise up opens a section of pure grievance, David charged with what he never did and rewarded evil for good. His own conduct is set against theirs at length: when they were sick he wore sackcloth and fasted and mourned as for a brother or a mother, care given to men who then gathered against him when his own trouble came, and I knew it not, tore me and ceased not. Hypocritical mockers in feasts closes the section on a public humiliation, ordinary table fellowship turned into a stage for gnashing teeth. Henry reads the fasting and sackcloth as proof David's grief for them was genuine, which is what makes their later mockery the deeper wrong.

Psalms 35:17-18

Lord, how long wilt thou look on renews the complaint's opening urgency, the same question the Psalter asks repeatedly when help delays. My darling from the lions is literally my only one in the Hebrew, the same word Psalm 22:20 uses for the single unrepeatable life at stake, both psalms setting the sufferer's whole self against a beast's mouth. The vow that follows, I will give thee thanks in the great congregation, ties any future deliverance to public praise rather than private relief, the pattern the Psalter keeps throughout its individual laments.

Psalms 35:19-21

Wink with the eye that hate me without a cause supplies wording the Gospel of John later applies without naming its source, they hated me without a cause, cited at the cross as written in their law (John 15:25). Commentators name both this verse and Psalm 69:4 as the psalm John has in view, since the same phrase stands in each without one displacing the other. They speak not peace against them that are quiet in the land describes hostility with no provocation on the victim's side, deceit aimed at people doing nothing to invite it. Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it in verse 21 is the enemies' own gloating cry, celebrated before any harm has actually been done.

Psalms 35:22-24

This thou hast seen, O Lord makes God himself David's witness against the false witnesses of verse 11, the same word seen answering the same charge. Keep not silence and be not far from me press the psalm's two complaints into one plea, God's apparent inaction and apparent distance. Stir up thyself and awake to my judgment asks for God to rouse himself as a judge takes up a case, and judge me according to thy righteousness grounds the appeal in God's own character rather than in David's claimed innocence alone.

Psalms 35:25-26

Let them not say, we have swallowed him up names the outcome David is praying against in the enemies' own imagined words, their triumph voiced before it happens so that it can be refused. Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together repeats the language of verse 4 almost exactly, the imprecation returning to its opening request as the prayer nears its close. Henry notes the request is still that God act, never that David himself take the matter into his own hand.

Psalms 35:27-28

Let them shout for joy turns the imprecation inside out: the same confusion asked against the enemies in verse 26 is now answered by shouting asked for David's friends. Let the Lord be magnified names the goal of the whole psalm, not David's vindication for its own sake but God's own greatness made visible in it. The closing verse settles into a vow rather than a further request, my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long, the actual ending point after twenty-six verses of unanswered trouble. Spurgeon reads the shift from cursing to blessing across these two verses as the imprecatory psalms' own pattern, prayer against harm resolving into praise for God's character rather than resting in the curse itself.