Psalm 35

The word "contend" is interesting. The rendering in the KJV reads: "Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me." The Adam Clarke Commentary says: "Plead my cause, O Lord] Literally, Contend, Lord, with them that contend with me. The word is often used in a forensic or law sense." The Hebrew word is riyb, which Strongs defines as: "to toss, i.e. grapple; mostly figuratively, to wrangle, i.e. hold a controversy; (by implication) to defend." David's enemies are out to get his life, and David asks God to counterattack them. The expressions used are, in fact, appropriate in legal proceedings. In New Testament terms, we would say that David asks God to be his Paraklete, which is the name Christ uses for the Holy Spirit.³ Satan accuses us and the Holy Spirit defends us. This determines the character of the battle with the shield and buckler, the spear and javelin. They are the weapons of God's victory, which far surpass any nuclear arsenal in effectiveness.

There is a shadow of fear in the words: "Say to my soul, 'I am your salvation.' " Evidently, David needs this kind of assurance. He lives in a world in which words like "justice and righteousness" are used as a cover-up for injustice, corruption, and tyranny. A shield and buckler are weapons of defense, but spears and javelins are used in an attack. David expects God to protect him, both juridically way and practically.

The concept of being put to shame occurs frequently in the Book of Psalms. The feeling of shame entered man's life when he broke the bond with God. Adam and Eve felt ashamed before God and before each other, after they committed their sin.⁴ Shame defies definition. It is related to a loss of honor and dignity. In the context of this psalm, the notion of being put to shame is very suggestive. If a person tries to kill someone else, but fails in his efforts, a feeling of shame does not seem to be a fitting reaction. Shame presupposes a moral awareness that there are certain ethical norms, and that those were not adhered to. A depreciation of self-worth, which is what shame basically amounts to, may be the first step on the road to conversion. If David prays that his adversaries may be put to shame, he implies that he entertains hope for them. Shame will reach its climax for the human race when Jesus returns, and, in John's words: "every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him."⁵ Shame will also be the predominant factor in man's suffering in hell.

The picture of the angel of the Lord pursuing the wicked and chasing them as the wind chases chaff reminds us of the scene in Revelation, where the population of the earth tries to hide from the wrath of the Lamb.⁶ If we take the shield, buckler, javelin, and spear to be spiritual weapons, we will have to take this image of the angel of the Lord chasing David's enemies in a spiritual sense also. The angel of the Lord is the Old Testament revelation of Christ. Seeing Jesus awakens in David's adversaries the voice of their conscience, which accuses them. Being chased like chaff and stumbling on dark and slippery paths are images of awareness of one's evil self. It is not true, of course, that those people were men who bore fruit for God, and who walked in the light, and that by means of David's prayer they became empty hulls of chaff, and ended up in darkness. Their circumstances did not change. If anything, they became aware of their own condition. In a sense, becoming conscious of one's sin is one of the worst experiences a person can have. David's prayer for his enemies sounds like a study in revenge, but in reality it is quite different from what a superficial glance would make us believe it to be. Vs. 8: "May ruin overtake them by surprise-- may the net they hid entangle them, may they fall into the pit, to their ruin," sounds particularly hateful. But if a man is condemned, it is more merciful when he is overtaken by sudden death, than to have to endure a prolonged period of anguish.

With the words "without cause" in vs. 7, David professes his innocence. David had done nothing to provoke this kind of hatred. The incident, which is not mentioned may be Saul's sudden and unprovoked attack upon David.

David's trust in God bursts open in the shout of joy in verses 9 and 10: "Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD and delight in his salvation. My whole being will exclaim, 'Who is like you, O LORD? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.' " A child of God should always base his life on this assumption of victory, even if it is not yet visible in time and space. At the moment he wrote this, David was still being persecuted, but this fact does not touch him any longer emotionally. The fact that God has taken over for him, and contends with those who contend with David, and fights against those who fight against him, is enough to make him inwardly joyful and jubilant. The first deliverance God grants is the deliverance from fear. Being freed of fear is a spiritual process. Victory over death is preceded by victory over the fear of death. This is the message the writer to the Hebrews conveys when he says: "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death-- that is, the devil-- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."⁷ The resurrection of Jesus Christ has this immediate effect upon us, which frees us from slavery. Our own resurrection will follow later.

There may be a touch of humor in the phrase: "My whole being will exclaim…" The Hebrew says literally: "All my bones will exclaim…," which is the rendering most of the older version give. It may be an idiomatic expression of what we would call in modern slang "my gut feelings." Paul uses a more elevated language when he writes to the Romans: "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."⁸

Satan is stronger than we are, and many people may be stronger than we are; but what is that in comparison with God's omnipotence? What matters is that we do not maintain our independence before God, but surrender to Him without any reservation.

At that time David knew nothing about the way in which God would deliver man; that is not by being stronger, but by being weaker. The Apostle Paul puts it this way: "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."⁹ Jesus' victory demonstrates to us that, for us also, we should conquer our enemies, not by being stronger than they, but by being weaker. This is a hard lesson to learn. But we should remember that, in the end, the world will take to flight because of "the wrath of the Lamb."¹⁰ The Holy Spirit shows us in this psalm the way of Jesus' victory on the cross, with the mention of "ruthless witnesses," or as the KJV calls them "false witnesses." We see them appear in the report of Jesus' court case before the Sanhedrin.¹¹ This travesty, which was played to maintain a resemblance of justice in the process makes the whole matter utterly disgusting. The devil borrows one of God's attributes, that is righteousness, in order to strengthen the kingdom of lies. In His suffering and death, Jesus repaid evil with good.

The NIV renders vs. 12 with: "They … leave my soul forlorn." The Hebrew word used here is shekowl, which literally means bereavement, or "loss of children." Since the Bible does not record that David lost a child, other than the son who was born after his sin with Bathsheba, we take this to mean that he wanted to express a sense of deep grief. For the Old Testament Israelite the death of a child was more than a deep emotional shock. It meant the interruption of the family name, which was loss of eternal life. The verses 13 and 14 are, probably, also pictures of compassion and neighborly love, and should not be interpreted in a literal sense. The verses 15 and 16 may also be mere pictures of sadistic enjoyment by his enemies of David's misfortune. There rings a prophetic tone in these verses that points toward our Lord Jesus Christ, who "was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and … [who] he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.… [and] was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities."¹²

The interrogative, which is translated with "how long?" is used at least twelve times in the Book of Psalms in connection with God. It is difficult to reconcile the presence of evil in this world with God's holiness. Some people, however, do understand that God permits evil for a purpose. It is in conjunction with this insight that the cry escapes from the psalmist's lips: "O Lord, how long will you look on?" It is a lament from a man, confined to time and space, to the eternal God. The impression he has, that God would look on for a certain time while the soul of man is being destroyed, is an optical illusion. John describes in chapter five of his Gospel, that Jesus on a Sabbath day announced: "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."¹³ Ever since the fall, God rests no longer, but He works with feverish haste at man's redemption. The only time God looked away was at Jesus' crucifixion, when He cried out: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? … "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"¹⁴

The phrase: "Rescue my life from their ravages, my precious life from these lions" is highly interesting as far as the use of words is concerned. "My life" and "my precious life" are two different words. The KJV reads: "Rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions." "My soul" and "my darling" are used as parallels. The Hebrew word for the latter is yachiyd, which Strongs defines as: "united, i.e. sole; by implication, beloved; also lonely; (feminine) the life (as not to be replaced)." TLB paraphrases the phrase: "Act now and rescue me, for I have but one life and these young lions are out to get it." David holds his life to be precious and wonderful, and the suggestion is that God considers it to be so also. "These lions" probably symbolize, as elsewhere, demonic elements in the hostility that humans demonstrate against David. We could, therefore, see this verse as a paraphrase of the prayer Jesus taught us: "Deliver us from evil."¹⁵ The Holy Spirit follows in this psalm more or less the same pattern as in Psalm 22. The lament leads to hope and praise. Here we read: "O Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my life from their ravages, my precious life from these lions. I will give you thanks in the great assembly; among throngs of people I will praise you," and in that psalm: "Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you."¹⁶ This would be an indication that, in this psalm also, we find a prophecy about the suffering and resurrection of Christ. In this psalm there is a greater emphasis on the large size of the assembly in whose midst the praises are sung. In connection with the verses in Psalm 22, we remarked that the essence of all praise is the resurrection of Jesus. He is the One who praises the Father, and we follow Him therein. In this psalm it becomes evident how large the number is of those who can say this praise after Him. It is "the great assembly," "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language."¹⁷ We could join others asking the question of where all these people came from. It seems as if there are only too few Christians in this world. How can there be so many all of a sudden?

After this climax, there is another descent in this psalm. David still sees his enemies standing before him; they gloat over him, devise false accusations, insinuate, mock, joy over his misery with great duplicity. The problem is that there are, in the life of each person, certain things that are kept secret. The accusations of the devil against God's saints are not mere fantasies. In our day, when someone is running for a high office, the press and antagonists display the record his private life to be scrutinized and in most cases they find things that cannot stand publicity. When David writes that his enemies "gape at [him] and say, 'Aha! Aha! With our own eyes we have seen it,' " he does not deny the truth of this accusation. Jesus' words to the men of His time: "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her,"¹⁸ indicate that we are dealing with an age-old problem.

The question is not whether we have sinned or not, but if we have confessed our sins, and if we have been washed in the blood of Christ. David's words: "O LORD, you have seen this," point in the direction of a confession. God's character, His omnipresence, and omniscience are guarantees that God is thoroughly acquainted with our sins. But David does not talk about that here. He had already confessed his sins to God. If this were not so, his case in court would have been lost to start with. The accuser of the brethren is, first of all, defeated by the blood of the Lamb,¹⁹ meaning that the devil is conquered because of the forgiveness of our sins. The essence of the Gospel is not for sinless people. God has not only seen our sins, and has brought about our cleansing through Jesus Christ, but He has also seen the hypocrisy of Satan who, after causing the fall of man, tries to play off our sin against God's holiness. Unless we acquire insight in the meaning of the atonement, we will always be susceptible to the insinuations of the enemy. Our heart will always condemn us until the full depth of God's love for us penetrates our conscience, our entire being. Sometimes it seems as if the devil is the only one who is speaking and God remains silent. But God has already spoken to us in Jesus Christ.²⁰ Our joy is based on the fact that the Lord is near us.²¹

David is right in using juridical terms to describe his relationship with God. The phrase: "Vindicate me in your righteousness," seems a contradiction-in-terms, but that is incorrect. God's righteousness in Jesus Christ is our vindication. Paul says this also to the Corinthian church: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."²² As in vs. 4, so here also, David asks God to put his enemies to shame. We already elaborated on this point. However strange as this may sound, the request implies hope. David does not ask that his enemies may be exterminated, but that the Lord will make them see what they have done. Shame is the result of a comparison between what we ought to be and what we are. Only one who has felt shame himself will be able to intercede this way for others.

The essence of the Gospel is "a righteousness from God," as the Apostle Paul explains in his epistle to the Romans. We read there: "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.' "²³ Paul demonstrates in his epistle that God punished our sins in Jesus Christ, and that, through this act of righteousness, we have been redeemed, both from our guilt, as well as from the power of sin over us. God's righteousness ought to have been our undoing, but it became our salvation. We will always have to return to this marvel in our lives, and we will never get used to it. It is the focal point of all God's eternal attributes, the nature of which He imparts to us. Praise always begins at this point. When David says: "My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long," he does not mean, of course, that during his life on earth he literally praised God all day long. Mortal man cannot do that. In saying this he reached out beyond himself into eternity.

² Zech. 4:6

³ See John 14:16

⁴ See Gen. 3:7,10

⁵ Rev. 1:7

⁶ See Rev. 6:15-17

⁷ Heb. 2:14,15

⁸ Rom. 8:31-39

⁹ I Cor. 1:25

¹⁰ See Rev. 6:15-17

¹¹ See Matt. 26:59-61; Mark 14:55-58

¹² Isa. 53:3-5

¹³ John 5:17

¹⁴ Matt. 27:46

¹⁵ Matt. 6:13 (KJV)

¹⁶ Compare vs. 17, 18 with Ps. 22:21,22

¹⁷ Rev. 7:9

¹⁸ John 8:7

¹⁹ See Rev. 12:10,11

²⁰ See Heb. 1:1

²¹ See Phil. 4:4,5

²² II Cor. 5:21

²³ Rom. 1:16,17

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