Psalm 35

The King James Version heads this psalm A Psalm of David. Below is the King James wording, numbered by verse, with nothing cut. It reads as one prayer, so go straight through it once before reading anything about it.

1 Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. 2 Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. 3 Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.

4 Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt. 5 Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the LORD chase them. 6 Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the LORD persecute them.

7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. 8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall.

9 And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation. 10 All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him?

11 False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not. 12 They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul.

13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. 14 I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.

15 But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not: 16 With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.

17 Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions. 18 I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people.

19 Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. 20 For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.

21 Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it. 22 This thou hast seen, O LORD: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me.

23 Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord. 24 Judge me, O LORD my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.

25 Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him up. 26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.

27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. 28 And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long.

The Hebrew text opens verse 1 with a single word, ledavid, of David or for David. The Greek Septuagint renders it with a dative, to David. The King James sets the word apart as a heading and expands it into A Psalm of David. It names no event and no date, so anything said about the occasion is inference from the body of the psalm.

Two standard commentaries tie it to David's years as a fugitive. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, whose Psalms volume is by Alexander Kirkpatrick, reads the psalm against David's persecution by Saul, but aims it at the courtiers who fed Saul's jealousy with slander. The Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary names 1 Samuel 24 as the probable occasion. In that chapter David spares Saul and says to him, in the King James wording: "The LORD therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand."

A minority view gives the psalm to Jeremiah. Kirkpatrick reports that some commentators did so because the language overlaps with his book. One parallel he lists is Jeremiah 18:20: "Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul." Kirkpatrick answers that Jeremiah may simply be borrowing the psalm's words, and that the military figures of verses 1 to 3 have no parallel anywhere in Jeremiah.

Neither side can be proved from the text. The heading attaches the psalm to David and stops there. A page that tells you exactly when and where David wrote it is reporting a reasonable guess.

The first verb is riv, which Strong's glosses as to grapple or to hold a controversy, and by implication to defend. Kirkpatrick reads verse 1 as a suit between the speaker and his enemies, with God asked to sit as judge, except that the court turns out to be a field of battle, so the speaker drops the legal figure and asks God to arm. Shield, buckler, and spear follow in verses 2 and 3. Verse 23 returns to the courtroom: "awake to my judgment, even unto my cause."

Psalm 35 is a lament. Wikipedia's Psalms article, citing Michael Coogan, lists a lament's typical elements: address to God, a description of suffering, cursing of the party responsible, a protestation of innocence or admission of guilt, a petition for help, faith that the prayer is received, anticipation of an answer, and a song of thanksgiving. Here, verse 1 is the address, verses 11 to 16 the suffering, verses 4 to 8 and 26 the cursing, verses 7 and 19 the innocence, verses 17 and 22 to 24 the petition, and the vows at verses 9 to 10, 18, and 27 to 28 the thanksgiving.

It is also counted as imprecatory, though not on every list. John N. Day, writing in Bibliotheca Sacra in 2002, listed imprecations in at least ninety-eight verses spread over thirty-two psalms, and named fourteen psalms whose characterizing element is a cry for divine vengeance. Psalm 35 is on his list. The Wikipedia article on imprecatory psalms names six as generally considered imprecatory and leaves 35 out of that core group, then puts it in a longer list of psalms also counted. Whether you call it imprecatory depends on whose list you are reading.

The structure is the most useful thing to know before praying it. Kirkpatrick divides the psalm into three parts, verses 1 to 10, 11 to 18, and 19 to 28, and each one ends with a vow of thanksgiving. The vows sit at verses 9 to 10, at verse 18, and at verses 27 to 28. The speaker keeps breaking off his complaint to promise praise, before anything in his situation has changed.

Verse 11 names the charge. The King James says false witnesses, and Kirkpatrick notes the Hebrew is literally witnesses of violence, the phrase used in Exodus 23:1 and Deuteronomy 19:16. He calls the language that of a court while doubting the speaker was literally on trial. Verse 12 says they repaid evil for good "to the spoiling of my soul." The American Standard and World English Bible both say bereaving, and Kirkpatrick glosses it as feeling as desolate as a mother who has lost her children.

Then the speaker says what the good was. When his accusers were sick he wore sackcloth and fasted. He behaved as though each one were a friend or a brother, and he went bowed down like a man mourning his mother. Albert Barnes concludes from this that the accusers were people the psalmist had once counted as personal friends, since nobody grieves this way for strangers.

The last clause of verse 13, "my prayer returned into mine own bosom," has no agreed meaning. Barnes, following De Wette, reads it as posture, praying with the head sunk on the chest. Matthew Poole and Joseph Benson both record the reading that the prayer did them no good and came back unanswered. Charles Ellicott's commentary rejects that and prefers a prayer repeated over and over. Kirkpatrick rejects the posture reading and takes it as a prayer that returns as a blessing to the one who offered it.

Day makes a point about sequence that matters for anyone wondering whether to pray this psalm. The psalmist calls for judgment only after his enemies have repeatedly returned evil for good, and Day cites verses 12 to 14 as the evidence. The man asking for his accusers to be shamed is the same man who fasted when they were ill.

In John 15 Jesus warns his disciples about the hatred of the world and then cites scripture. The King James reads: "But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." The phrase appears in Psalm 35:19 and again in Psalm 69:4, which reads "They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head."

Commentators split on which psalm John means. Barnes names Psalm 35:19 outright. John Gill allows either and leans to Psalm 69:4, on the grounds that Psalm 69 is quoted elsewhere in the New Testament. Ellicott calls 69:4 the probable source and notes the words also stand in 35:19. The Cambridge Bible on John says it may be either, with similar lines in Psalm 109:3 and 119:161.

Whichever psalm John had in view, Christian commentators read the innocent speaker of Psalm 35 as a figure of Christ. Matthew Henry's concise commentary on verses 11 to 16 says of David, "Herein he was a type of Christ." Kirkpatrick points readers of verse 11 to Matthew 26, where the council sought false witnesses against Jesus.

Verses 4 to 8 are the hardest part of the psalm. The speaker asks that his accusers be shamed and turned back, driven like chaff with the angel of the LORD chasing them, sent down a dark and slippery road, and caught in the net they hid for him. Kirkpatrick calls it a terrible picture of a rout, and says it reads more naturally if a literal defeat was at least possible. The angel of the LORD appears one psalm earlier in a gentler role, at Psalm 34:7: "The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them."

Read the grammar. Every line is a request: let them, let their way, let destruction come. Nothing in the psalm tells the speaker he will win, or when. By verse 17 he is still asking, "Lord, how long wilt thou look on?" The psalm also hands the outcome to God. The speaker asks God to act and never says he will act himself, which is the line Romans 12:19 draws: "avenge not yourselves."

That still leaves Matthew 5:44, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you." Day summarizes three ways Christians have handled the tension. C. S. Lewis treated the curses as evil emotion to be avoided, and Walter Brueggemann as anger to be voiced and then given up. Laney and Martin say they fit the old covenant and not the new. Dietrich Bonhoeffer held that they belong on the lips of Christ, and so on his followers only through him. Day's own conclusion is that the righteous may at times still call for God's judgment on severe or violent oppressors.

The Catholic Church handles it in daily prayer by selection. The Liturgy of the Hours prays Psalm 35 in the Office of Readings on Friday of Week 1, using verses 1 to 2, 3c, 9 to 19, 22 to 23, and 27 to 28. The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, paragraph 131, explains that three psalms are omitted entirely and verses of several others passed over because of their imprecatory character, while noting such psalms are in no way meant to be used as curses.

Verse 1 shows the biggest difference in tone. The King James says "Plead my cause, O LORD." The American Standard says "Strive thou, O Jehovah," and the World English Bible says "Contend, Yahweh, with those who contend with me." Kirkpatrick argues that strive and contend hide the legal point and break the link with verse 23, and he prefers Cheyne's rendering, plead my cause with them that implead me. On this verse the 1611 wording is closer to his reading than the modern one.

Verse 17 is the strangest line for a modern reader. The King James and American Standard ask God to rescue "my darling from the lions." The World English Bible says "my precious life from the lions." The Hebrew is yechidati, my only one, from the word yachid. Brown-Driver-Briggs calls it poetic for my life, the one possession that can never be replaced. The same word sits in Psalm 22:20, "my darling from the power of the dog." Here the darling is the speaker's own life.

Verse 15 has a word Kirkpatrick calls doubtful in meaning and possibly corrupt. The King James and American Standard say abjects, the World English Bible says attackers. One reading he gives makes them a rabble of outcasts. Another, which the Aramaic Targum follows, makes them men who wound with words. Verse 11 differs too. The King James has accusers laying things to his charge, and the World English Bible has them asking him about things he does not know.

Verse 27 deserves care. All three translations say God has pleasure in "the prosperity of his servant." Kirkpatrick notes the Hebrew is literally the peace of his servant, his welfare. It is shalom, the same noun as verse 20, "they speak not peace." A reader who takes verse 27 as a promise of money is reading an English word the Hebrew does not require.

On the morning of September 7, 1774, at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, the Episcopal clergyman Jacob Duché read the set prayers and then the psalm the Book of Common Prayer appoints for the morning of the seventh day of the month. It was Psalm 35. John Adams wrote to Abigail on September 16 that the delegates had heard, the night before, a rumor that Boston had been cannonaded. "I never saw a greater Effect upon an Audience," he wrote.

Adams asked her to read the psalm to her father and to Mr. Wibirt, and remarked that anyone who put faith in opening the Bible at random for guidance would call it providential. The reading was a coincidence of the calendar. Delegates who believed Boston was under fire heard one man's complaint against his accusers as a prayer for their colonies.

People reach for this psalm in specific situations. A coworker files a complaint describing a meeting that did not happen that way. An ex tells a family court things that are not true. A friend you sat with in the hospital starts telling others a different story about you. A group chat turns on you overnight. Verses 11 to 16 describe almost exactly that: people you helped, saying things you never did.

The psalm gives you a pattern. Tell God the facts, in detail, the way verses 11 to 16 do. Ask God to judge. Notice that verse 24 asks to be judged too, "according to thy righteousness," which puts the speaker under the same scrutiny as his accusers. It is worth sitting with that line before praying the others.

The psalm asks God to plead the cause, and it leaves room for the people whose job is to plead it on earth. A false accusation at work goes to human resources in writing, with dates. If it touches your job or your children, call a lawyer. If someone is threatening you, report it to the police.

If the person lying about you also lives with you, or controls your money or your phone, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800.799.7233, or text START to 88788. If the strain has turned into thoughts of not being here, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 answers calls and texts every hour of every day. If you are in danger right now, dial 911.

For the psalm itself, ask your own pastor or priest, who knows you and answers the phone. PrayWithJesus.ai is a software product, and no church has approved or authorized what it says. If your church reads Psalm 35 another way, let your church's reading guide you.