Psalm 35:21

Psalm 35 is David’s plea for God to defend him against people who repay his kindness with hatred. It opens with David asking the LORD to plead his cause with those who strive with him and to fight against those who fight against him, taking up shield and buckler on his behalf (Psalm 35:1–3). He prays for shame and confusion on those who seek his life (Psalm 35:4). Without cause they hid a net for him in a pit, and he asks that ruin come upon them (Psalm 35:7–8). False witnesses rose against him and rewarded him evil for good, although he had fasted and mourned for them when they were sick (Psalm 35:11–16).

The psalm falls into three parts. Verses 1–10 ask the LORD to fight for David, verses 11–18 set out what his enemies have done, and verses 19–28 renew the appeal and close with a promise of praise. This last part gathers up the psalm’s themes once more: hatred without cause, gloating, the call for God to judge, and shame for the enemies. Here David speaks to God most directly, and here his prayer turns to joy.

The occasion of the psalm is left unnamed. Its words fit the years when Saul tried to kill David and hunted him (1 Samuel 19, 1 Samuel 23), and they fit the rebellion of his son Absalom (2 Samuel 15) just as well.

“Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me” (verse 19). The verb for rejoice, sâmach, is the ordinary word for being glad and showing it, and Scripture uses it for gloating as readily as for good joy. “Wrongfully” translates sheqer, a word for falsehood or a lie, which can also carry the sense “without cause”. David’s enemies are enemies by a lie. Their hostility rests on something false, and any joy they took in his fall would be joy over a wrong.

“Neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause.” The verb qârats means to pinch, and it is used of narrowing the eyes or pressing the lips together as a sign of malice. Among enemies the wink of the eye (ʻayin) is a silent signal of shared contempt, a look that says they are in a plot together and are enjoying their victim’s trouble. Proverbs counts the winking eye among the ways of the wicked (Proverbs 6:13, Proverbs 10:10). Scorn like this was meant to break a man’s spirit and strip him of his honour, so David asks God to guard his good name as well as his life.

They are the humble, peaceable people who want to live at rest with their neighbours and give nobody cause for a quarrel. “They devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land” (verse 20). The word râgêaʻ comes from a root meaning to rest or be at ease, and it describes someone restful and peaceable. They threaten nobody, which is what makes plotting against them so wicked. In the psalm they are David and people like him, and the verse fits anyone who sets out to harm the peaceable by deceit.

“For they speak not peace.” Peace, shalom, covers wholeness, welfare and safety, and harmony in the community and with God. David’s enemies wish their neighbours ill, and their words carry that ill will.

“But they devise deceitful matters.” The verb ḥāšaḇ means to plot or contrive, thought worked out ahead of time, and mirmâh is fraud, guile and treachery. These enemies plan their harm deliberately, by lies, traps and the twisting of events against people who suspect nothing. Proverbs names seven things the LORD hates, and the schemes of the wicked stand among them (Proverbs 6:16–19). Proverbs also promises that the upright will dwell in the land while the wicked are cut off (Proverbs 2:21–22). Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9), and Peter tells believers to seek peace and pursue it, because the Lord’s eyes are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers (1 Peter 3:10–12).

“Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me” (verse 21). The mouth is peh, and “opened wide” comes from râchab, to make wide or enlarge. A mouth opened wide belongs to an attack made loudly, in public and without shame, and it suggests a beast ready to devour. The enemies’ hoped-for boast in verse 25, “We have swallowed him up”, carries the same picture to its end.

Their cry is heʼâch, an exclamation of malicious glee, the sound of people who have got what they wanted, and they repeat it to relish their triumph. David prays in another psalm that those who say “Aha, aha” be ashamed and turned back (Psalm 40:14–15), and God pronounces judgment on those who said “Aha” over Israel’s ruin (Ezekiel 25:3).

“Our eye hath seen it” claims that they have watched his ruin, or caught him at his weakest, and seen their plans succeed. It is self-congratulation. David answers it at once in the next verse: “This thou hast seen, O LORD.” They watched, and so did God.

Mockery like this hurts because it attacks a person’s honour and standing as well as his feelings. In Israel honour counted for a great deal, and public shaming was meant to isolate a man and break his spirit. Believers meet the same pain today when mockery is aimed at their faith or their character, most of all when the charges are false.

Verse 22 is where the prayer turns. The verb râʼâh is the usual word for seeing, and here it means full awareness. The LORD has seen everything described so far, the hatred, the lies and the gloating, and because he has seen, David can ask him to act.

“Keep not silence.” The verb chârash means to be silent or to keep silent, and David asks God to speak, with a word of judgment against his enemies or a deed on David’s behalf. “O Lord, be not far from me.” The verb râchaq means to be far or to put far off. In danger, God’s nearness means help and protection, and his distance would leave David at his enemies’ mercy. As another psalm says, “God is our refuge and strength” (Psalm 46:1).

“Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord” (verse 23). The first verb, ʻûwr, means to wake or rouse oneself, and the second, qûwts, means to awake, used of starting up from sleep. Put together, they make one urgent call for God to act now and in the open.

“Judge me, O LORD my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me” (verse 24). The verb shâphaṭ means to judge, to decide or to govern, and here it is to pronounce sentence in David’s case. He wants God to settle the matter.

Verse 25 goes inside the enemies’ minds. “Let them not say in their hearts” asks God to thwart even their private gloating, the wish they nurse within. “Ah, so would we have it” uses heʼâch again, the cry of verse 21, and its Hebrew speaks of their soul, nephesh. The sense is “Aha, our heart’s desire!”, their wish come true.

“We have swallowed him up.” The verb bâlaʻ means to swallow, swallow up or destroy. The enemies want David gone, consumed as food is eaten. Another psalm blesses the LORD for keeping his people from becoming prey to their enemies’ teeth (Psalm 124:6), and Psalm 3 is another of David’s prayers of trust when enemies rose against him.

Peter uses the picture of devouring for the believer’s spiritual enemy: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The devil would swallow up faith, hope and joy through discouragement, doubt and temptation, and this verse gives us a prayer for God’s protection from him as well.

“Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt” (verse 26). The verb bûwsh means to be ashamed and also to be disappointed, the shame of people whose plans have failed. Its partner châphêr means to blush, to be ashamed or confounded. “Together”, yachad, means all of them alike, every one who joined in. Those who “rejoice at mine hurt” are glad, sâmêach, over his raʻ, his harm, adversity and affliction. Their joy feeds on his sorrow.

“Let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.” To be clothed, lâbash, is to put on a garment, and the enemies are to wear bôsheth, shame, and kᵉlimmâh, dishonour and disgrace, where everyone can see. They had worn their pride openly, and David asks that shame take its place. “Magnify themselves” is gâdal, to be or make large, used here of puffing oneself up in pride. “Pride goeth before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6), and Isaiah says that all who rise against the LORD will be ashamed (Isaiah 45:24). David trusts the God who is his shield (Psalm 7:10), and this verse takes up again the prayer for shame and confusion that he prayed in verse 4.

Verse 27 turns from enemies to friends. “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause” speaks of those who stand with David and want to see right done. “My righteous cause” uses tsedeq, the word for righteousness in verses 24 and 28, and it means that David’s case is right before God. In Israel shouting and gladness like this belonged to the public celebration of God’s deliverance.

“Yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified.” Magnified is gâdal, the same verb as verse 26. The enemies made themselves great against David, and his friends will keep saying that the LORD is great. To magnify God is to declare a greatness he already has, as David says in another psalm: “magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together” (Psalm 34:3). The LORD carries out righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed (Psalm 103:6), and his people praise him for it.

“Which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.” The verb châphêts means to be pleased with or to delight in, and the servant’s prosperity is his shâlôwm, his welfare. The LORD takes pleasure in the good of those who serve him, as he delights in the way of the man whose steps he orders (Psalm 37:23–24). The peace the enemies refused to speak in verse 20 is the very thing God delights to give his servant.

“And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long” (verse 28). The tongue, lâshôwn, is the organ of speech, and it stands here for David’s spoken praise, said aloud and heard by others. His first subject is God’s tsedeq, the same word as verses 24 and 27, meaning both God’s just character and his acts that put things right for the wronged. His second is God’s tᵉhillâh, his praise, a word for laudation and the songs that give it.

“All the day long” is built on yôwm, day, and it means that David’s praise is to fill his days. He makes the vow before the answer comes, trusting God’s character ahead of his deliverance. The same promise runs through the Psalms. David vows to bless the LORD at all times (Psalm 34:1) and every day (Psalm 145:2), to let his mouth declare God’s righteousness (Psalm 71:15), and to sing of it (Psalm 145:7). God’s people are to declare his glory among the nations (Psalm 96:3), the LORD judges the world in righteousness (Psalm 9:8), and Isaiah says that the Lord GOD will make righteousness and praise spring up before the nations (Isaiah 61:11).

This vow belongs to every believer who waits on God, as well as to David under persecution, and Paul carries the same steady thanks into all of life: “In every thing give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). The psalm opened this last section with enemies hoping to rejoice, and it closes with the righteous rejoicing and David’s own tongue praising God.

Jesus applied this psalm’s words to himself. Speaking of the world’s hatred, he said that it fulfilled the word written in their law, that they hated him without a cause (John 15:25). He is the righteous sufferer whom David’s sufferings foreshadowed. He was despised and rejected (Isaiah 53:3). He was the quiet servant who would not cry aloud in the street (Isaiah 42:2–3), he “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22), and he had done no violence (Isaiah 53:9). Even so, the chief priests and Pharisees plotted his death (John 11:47–53), and false witnesses rose against him. At the cross the passers-by wagged their heads and the leaders taunted him, “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (Matthew 27:39–44). They were the mockers of this psalm, opening their mouths wide and sure that their eyes had seen his end.

Jesus answered his enemies differently from verse 26, praying for their forgiveness (Luke 23:34). He submitted to his Father’s will (Luke 22:42), and when he was reviled he committed himself to him that judges righteously (1 Peter 2:23), which is the prayer of verse 24 lived out. On the cross he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

God answered him. He raised Jesus up, loosing the pains of death because it could not hold him (Acts 2:24), declared him to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection (Romans 1:4), and set him at his own right hand, far above all rule and authority (Ephesians 1:20–21). Every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9–11), and all power in heaven and in earth is given to him (Matthew 28:18). At the cross he triumphed over the powers and put them to open shame (Colossians 2:15). Death, which took him, was itself swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54–55), and all who set themselves against God will stand before him at the last judgment (Revelation 20:11–15).

For those who trust him, his vindication settles their own cause. God’s elect stand free of every charge (Romans 8:33), God is just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:26), and believers have peace with God (Romans 5:1), made through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:20). The plea “be not far from me” is answered in the Comforter, the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised (John 14:26), and in God’s word, “I will never leave thee” (Hebrews 13:5). The praise David vowed for all the day long becomes the praise every creature gives to God and to the Lamb (Revelation 5:13).

These verses give words to people who are hated for nothing, mocked by those who enjoy their trouble, and plotted against while they want only to live in peace. They show that all of it is seen. The LORD saw every wink and heard every “Aha”, and David’s first comfort is “This thou hast seen, O LORD.”

They show a God who judges by his own righteousness, to whom a wronged believer may bring his case as to the highest court, calling him “my God and my Lord”. They hand vengeance over to him, which frees the one who prays from the work of repaying evil. And they show a God who takes pleasure in the welfare of his servant, so that the last word of the prayer belongs to joy and praise. Peter says that a believer who suffers as a Christian may glorify God for it, unashamed (1 Peter 4:16). David’s vow is open to everyone who waits on God: a tongue that speaks of his righteousness and of his praise all the day long.