Psalm 35:11

Psalm 35 is David’s lament against enemies who attack him without cause, and it asks God to bring judgment on them. It opens with a plea for God to fight against those who fight against him, to “take hold of shield and buckler” and to “draw out also the spear” (Psalm 35:1–3). Before this passage David has already spoken of a net his enemies hid for him without cause (Psalm 35:7). The psalm has three parts, verses 1–10, 11–18 and 19–28, and each ends in praise. These verses are the middle part. They give the fullest account of what the enemies have done, from false witness and ingratitude to glee and mockery, and they end with a vow of public thanks. After them David speaks of those who hate him without a cause (Psalm 35:19) and asks God to “awake” to his cause (Psalm 35:23).

David’s enemies attack him first through the courts. “False witnesses” is in Hebrew ḥāmāç ʻêḏ, literally witnesses of violence. ʻêḏ is the ordinary word for a witness, or for evidence or testimony, and ḥāmāç means violence, wrong, injustice or cruelty. These men use testimony as a weapon, and their lies are meant to do harm. They “rise up”, qûwm, the common verb for standing up or arising, which here pictures accusers coming forward to face David in open hostility.

“They laid to my charge things that I knew not” uses shâʼal, the verb to ask, inquire or request. The accusers question him, as at a trial, about deeds of which he is wholly ignorant. yâdaʻ is the ordinary word to know, and with the negative it disowns any knowledge of the charges at all. David is claiming innocence of the deeds themselves, and the charges are pure invention.

“They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul.” “Rewarded” is shâlam, which in this form means to repay, recompense or requite. Repaying belongs to fair dealing, and so the word sharpens the wrong, because the return David’s kindness earned was harm. raʻ is evil in the widest sense, from calamity and harm to wickedness, and ṭôwb is good in the widest sense, including kindness and welfare. His enemies chose to turn the right return upside down. In a people who prized loyalty, hospitality and covenant faithfulness, to repay good with evil was a serious moral offence and an invitation to God’s judgment.

“Spoiling” is shᵉkôwl, from shâkôl, and it means bereavement, the loss of children. David uses it of his nephesh, his soul, which means his life and his whole self. The betrayal leaves him as bereft as a parent who has lost a child. The wound goes to the very core of his being.

Scripture knows this grief well. Another psalm of David names as his adversaries those who render evil for good (Psalm 38:20), and Psalm 109 complains of evil given for good and hatred for love (Psalm 109:4–5). David said the same of Nabal, who repaid his kindness with evil (1 Samuel 25:21). Psalm 73 wrestles at length with the suffering of the righteous while the wicked prosper (Psalm 73). The pain is real, and it is right to grieve over it. Scripture also tells us how to answer it. Paul says to recompense no man evil for evil (Romans 12:17) and to leave vengeance to God, and David himself, in this very psalm, takes his wrong to God.

“But as for me” sets David’s own conduct beside theirs, and the comparison is what makes their betrayal so bitter. When these people were sick, châlâh, a word for being weak or sick, David put on sackcloth (saq), the rough cloth, usually woven from goat hair, that people wore in mourning, distress and repentance. Jacob put it on when he mourned for Joseph (Genesis 37:34).

He also “humbled my soul with fasting”. The verb ʻânâh means to bow down, to abase or to afflict, and joined with nephesh it describes deliberate self-denial before God, the inner humbling that fasting (tsom) expressed. All Israel fasted in this way at Mizpah (1 Samuel 7:6). David did all this as he prayed for them. His sorrow and his prayers were spent on the very people who now accuse him.

“But in mine adversity they rejoiced.” The word for adversity, tsela, means a limping or stumbling, a fall, so the picture is of David stumbling in some weakness, whether an illness, a political setback or a personal crisis. When a king looked weak, rivals and disloyal men saw their chance. The people he had mourned for were glad at his fall. Proverbs warns against rejoicing when an enemy falls (Proverbs 24:17), and these men rejoiced over a friend.

“Gathered themselves together” comes twice in the verse. The repetition marks a gathering with a purpose, a plot against him. “And I knew it not” means their scheming went on behind his back, so that he was unaware of how far it reached or how many had joined it.

After describing his enemies, David turns to God himself. “Lord, how long wilt thou look on?” is the honest prayer of a man who knows God sees everything and longs for him to act on what he sees. Other psalms raise the same cry of “how long” (Psalm 13:1, Psalm 74:10). God lets his people bring even their impatience to him, and the asking is itself an act of faith, made to the only one who can help.

“Rescue my soul from their destructions” asks for his whole life to be saved. shôwʼ is a storm or tempest, and so devastation, the ruin that sweeps over a person, and his enemies want to bring it on his life, his name and his peace. God is the refuge and fortress of those who trust him (Psalm 91:2).

“My darling from the lions” says the same thing again in sharper pictures. yâchîyd means only, sole or united, and it is the word for an only child, as when God speaks to Abraham of Isaac as “thine only son” (Genesis 22:2). Here it stands for David’s own life, his one and precious nephesh, the only one he has. kᵉphîyr is a young lion, strong and fierce, and in Israel, where wild beasts were a real danger to shepherds and travellers, the picture of enemies as young lions closing in on their prey was a vivid one. Psalm 22 makes the same plea for rescue from the lion’s mouth (Psalm 22:20–21).

“I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people.” David is still waiting for rescue, and already he promises how he will answer it. In Israel a person in trouble would often vow an act of worship to God and pay it in public once God had answered, as another psalm does in the presence of all his people (Psalm 116:12–14). Making the vow before the deliverance comes shows David’s trust in who God is and in his faithfulness to his people.

“Give thee thanks” is yâdâh, to praise, give thanks or confess, the open acknowledgment of who God is and what he has done. Strong’s ties the word to the hand, and to worship with hands held out. “Praise” is hâlal, a word that first means to shine, then to boast or celebrate, and it is the root of “Hallelujah”, “Praise Yah”. The “great congregation” is qâhâl, an assembly called together, a congregation, and also a company or crowd. “Much people”, ʻam rab, says the same again. The two halves of the verse say one thing twice, as Hebrew poetry often does, and between them they give the praise its fullness: grateful confession and joyful celebration, before as many people as will hear.

Thanks given in public tells God’s people what he has done and strengthens their faith. The psalms call his people to declare his glory among the nations (Psalm 96:3) and invite others to come and hear what God has done (Psalm 66:16). Psalm 22 makes the same vow to declare God’s name in the congregation (Psalm 22:22). The letter to the Hebrews calls believers to offer the sacrifice of praise to God (Hebrews 13:15) and to keep up “the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25). Each part of Psalm 35 ends in praise, and this vow closes the part most full of complaint.

What David suffered here, Jesus suffered in full. At his trial false witnesses came forward against him (Matthew 26:59–60). The charges were things he truly “knew not”, because he was without sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, who “opened not his mouth” before his accusers (Isaiah 53:7). God vindicated him, declaring him the Son of God with power by the resurrection (Romans 1:4), and exalted the one who humbled himself in obedience to death on the cross (Philippians 2:8–11).

Jesus healed, taught and showed compassion to all, and was repaid with rejection, false accusation and the cross. He was hated without a cause (John 15:25). In Gethsemane his soul was “exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38–39), and his sweat fell like great drops of blood (Luke 22:44). He was the servant despised and rejected of men, who suffered for the good of others (Isaiah 53:3–5). The worst evil ever paid for good became the means of our redemption, because Christ suffered and died for his enemies, and in that death God showed the greatness of his love for sinners (Romans 5:8–10).

David mourned for sick men as for a friend or brother. Jesus “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7), and came to minister to others (Mark 10:45). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He wept over Jerusalem, a city that would reject him (Luke 19:41–44). He was betrayed by one of his own disciples (John 13:21) and denied by another (Luke 22:54–62).

The religious leaders gathered together and plotted his death (Matthew 26:3–4). Jesus had exposed the scribes and Pharisees as outwardly pious and inwardly full of hypocrisy (Matthew 23:27–28). On the cross the passers-by and the chief priests mocked him and dared him to save himself (Mark 15:29–32, Matthew 27:39–44). Elsewhere in the Gospels gnashing of teeth belongs to those under judgment (Matthew 13:42), and here the same rage is turned on the one who came to save.

From the cross Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), the deepest form of the question “how long wilt thou look on?” He is God’s only begotten Son (John 3:16), the true beloved one, and God raised him up and loosed the pains of death (Acts 2:24). Those who belong to him are rescued too, from the devil who prowls like a roaring lion seeking to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

David asked God to take up his cause against his enemies. Jesus prayed for his, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), and when he suffered he committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2:23). He still intercedes for his people (Hebrews 7:25). The letter to the Hebrews applies Psalm 22:22 to him, so that the risen Christ proclaims God’s name to his brethren and sings his praise in the midst of the congregation (Hebrews 2:12). David’s vow to praise God among much people ends in a great multitude that no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb and giving salvation to God and to the Lamb (Revelation 7:9–10).

David says of his enemies’ plotting, “I knew it not”, and his whole prayer rests on the God who knew all of it. The LORD sees the false witness, the ingratitude, the glee and the mocking, and he judges the peoples in righteousness (Psalm 7:8–9). Lamentations prays in the same faith: “O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause” (Lamentations 3:59).

These verses give us words for one of the hardest wounds a person can bear, the betrayal of someone we have loved and prayed for. They let us tell God exactly what was done, set our own conduct honestly before him, ask him how long, and promise him thanks before the rescue comes. They show us a God who welcomes that kind of prayer. In Christ we see that God has entered this very suffering himself, and that the innocent one who was falsely accused now stands vindicated and leads his people in praise.