Psalm XXXV

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: 1 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 hastseen, 0 Lord: keep not silence: 0 Lord, be notfarfrom 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.

There is this link of connection between this Psalm and the preceding, that in both we find “tJie bones” referred to; in the former as “not broken” (ver. 20), in the latter as “rejoicing” (ver. ] 6). In both, too, we find the angel of the Lord acting as the Lord’s instrument. In the former the angel acts to protect and preserve (ver. 6), because the whole song is one of the Lord’s care; but in the latter the angel acts in the way of vengeance, as an instrument in inflicting the Lord’s wrath (ver. 5, 6), because the burden of the Psalm is an awful intercession against those who hate the righteous without cause.

Throughout this is an awful Psalm. Let us read it as the words of the Lord Jesus, and what do we find? We find Him praying to the Father for help, and then consenting to the doom of his relentless, impenitent foes; yea, rather pronouncing the doom with his own lips, even as when He shall say to the barren fig-tree, “Cut it down,” and to those on the left hand, “Depart.” It is in that spirit He says: —

“Let them be confounded.
Let them be turned hack.
Let them be as chaff,

Let the angel of the Lord smite them down. Let their way be dark. Let the angel of the Lord cJiase them.” (Ver. 4, 5, 6.)

This is their sentence, uttered by the lips of the Judge. It is not the wish of one who is revengeful; it is the utterance of justice, compelled by the state of the parties to speak in stern severity. Our Lord himself quotes verse 19, “the)/hctte me

The plan.

without a cause,” in John xv. 25, on the last evening he spent with his disciples before he suffered. For then he found himself in the very situation so strikingly described in verses 1 1, ] 2; — false witnesses rising up, — men rewarding his whole career of kindness by spoiling his soul.

What a deeply affecting picture do verses 13, 14, 15, give of the Saviour’s life for us. It may have been literally realised at Nazareth; Christ may have put on sackcloth when he heard of some one in sickness, fasting for the dying man whose soul he longed to save — none the less that the man was a foe. Jesus acted as if the man had been “friend or brother;” yea, he felt such grief as men usually feel only when a beloved “mother” dies. And so he felt for all this miserable world. But now, says he, when the day of my calamity has come, they do not sympathise with me: —

“They rejoice and gather together. They gather against me, tJce abjects I Even those whom I knew not, tear me, and cease not. The vile, who mock for a cake (parasites), gnash their teeth at me.” (Ver. 15, 16.) His cry ascends; his pleadings up go before the righteous Father, *’ Lord, bring back my soul from desolations caused by their ruinous plots. The vehement appeal (ver. 23), “My God, and my Lord!” may have been in Thomas’s thoughts on that memorable occasion, John xx. 28. We have the answer in verses 26, 27: —

“They are ashamed; they are clothed with shame.” This answer carries us forward to the day when they who rejected Him shall have as their portion “shame and everlasting contempt;” while they that favour his righteous cause —

“Shout for joy, and are glad;
They cry continually. Let the Lord he magnified f
Whose pleasure is the prosperity of his servants.”

Sence” ^°* “Hallelujah” of the glorified redeemed? Is

not this their shout of joy, when sorrow and sighing flee away? And, once more, is not this the sound of the Lamb’s harp and voice we hear, when amid this jubilee of bliss he says, — “And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness, Of thy praise, all the day long.”

Throughout the endless day of eternity the Lord Jesus shall himself speak the Father’s “praise,” and shall put marked emphasis on his “righteousness” — that righteousness which shall have been exhibited both in the doom of those who hated the offered Redeemer, and in the salvation of those who received him. There is nothing in all this wherein his own may not fully join, especially on that day when their views of justice shall be far clearer and fuller than now. On that day we shall be able to understand how Samuel could hew Agag in pieces, and the godly hosts of Israel slay utterly in Canaan man and woman and child, at God’s command. We shall be able, not only fully to agree in the doom, “Let them be confounded,” &c., but even to sing, “Amen, Hallelujah,” over the smoke of torment. (Rev. xix. 1, 2.) We should in some measure now be able to use every verse of this Psalm in the spirit in which the Judge spake it, we feeling ourselves his assessors in judging the world, (i Cor. vi. 2.) We shall, at all events, be able to use it on that day when what is written here shall be all accomplished: —

The awful utterance of the Righteous One regarding those that hate Him without a cause.