PSALM 35
The Second of the Imprecatory Psalms
This psalm is the second of the Imprecatory Psalms. These Psalms—7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137, and 139—are psalms consisting of an imprecatory prayer, which is a prayer that imprecates or invokes damnation, judgment, calamity, or curses upon the enemies of God and God’s people.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IMPRECATORY PRAYERS READ OUR BOOKLET: THE IMPRECATORY PSALMS
Psalm 35:1
BIBLE TEXT: "Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me." (Psalm 35:1 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: We should pray for the Lord to plead our cause rather than to serve as our own public defender.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: As Christians, we should always leave it to our Advocate with the Father to argue our case against the accuser of the brethren. (1 John 2:1; Revelation 12:9-10)
Psalm 35:2
BIBLE TEXT: "Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help." (Psalm 35:2 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: Why should we worry about anyone getting to us, if God is standing up and warring for us?
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: The only way a combatant can get through to a Christian is to first get through Christ.
Psalm 35:3, 6
BIBLE TEXT: "Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation…Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them." (Psalm 35:3, 6 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: We should pray that our persecutors be held at bay at the point of God’s pike.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: Sinners surely step on a slippery slope the second they start persecuting the saints.
Psalm 35:4-5
BIBLE TEXT: "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. Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord chase them." (Psalm 35:4-5 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: We should not be too squeamish to pray for the jeopardizers of men’s souls to be jettisoned away like chaff in the wind.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: How can a winner of souls be a well-wisher of one who wars against souls?
Psalm 35:7-8
BIBLE TEXT: "For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall." (Psalm 35:7-8 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: Although we should never pray for revenge, we can, as David did, pray for retributive or reciprocal justice; that is, that God will ensnare our enemies in their own snares.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: The law of “lex talionis,” which is Latin for “the law of exact retaliation” or “of retribution in kind,” is found in Scripture. It is declared by Moses in the Mosaic Law (Exodus 21:23-25; Deuteronomy 19:21) and demonstrated in Scripture by stories like the cutting off of Adoni-bezek’s thumbs and big toes and the hanging of Haman on his own gallows (Judges 1:5-7; Esther 7:9-10).
Psalm 35:9-10
BIBLE TEXT: "And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation. 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?" (Psalm 35:9-10 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: It is not over the destruction of the spoilers of men’s souls, but over the salvation of men’s souls, that we, like the angels in Heaven, should rejoice. (Luke 15:7, 10)
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: Apart from our own salvation, nothing should bring us greater joy than the salvation of others.
Psalm 35:11
BIBLE TEXT: "False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not." (Psalm 35:11 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: God’s people should not just be innocent of the charges of false witnesses, but should never have even imagined committing such crimes.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: It’s not enough that accusations against the saints for being untoward are untrue, but to the saints themselves they should also be unthinkable.
Psalm 35:12-14
BIBLE TEXT: "They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. 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. I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother." (Psalm 35:12-14 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: The true test of the saved soul is whether or not evil can be both responded to and reacted to with good. (Matthew 5:43-48)
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: Notice, prayer for one’s own enemies returns to one’s “own bosom”; that is, it may not result in your enemies being blessed by God, but it will definitely result in you being blessed by God.
Psalm 35:15-16
BIBLE TEXT: "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: With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth." (Psalm 35:15-16 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: When bad things happen to good people, bad people hold banquets behind the goods’ backs to chew them up and spit them out.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: Affectless sinners gather together like buzzards around the adversities of saints.
Psalm 35:17-18
BIBLE TEXT: "Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions. I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people." (Psalm 35:17-18 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: A den of liars is no less a threat to our darling soul than a den of lions, neither is our soul’s need of divine deliverance any less urgent in either of the two.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: After patiently waiting and painstakingly winning out, we will passionately worship God, to whom we owe our vindication and victory.
Psalm 35:19
BIBLE TEXT: "Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause." (Psalm 35:19 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: We should pray that those who hate us for Christ’s sake never get the upper hand over us or are able to wink and nod at each other about us.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: To be hated without cause is for the Christian to be hated as Christ was hated. (John 15:25)
Psalm 35:20
BIBLE TEXT: "For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land." (Psalm 35:20 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: Even the quiet in the land can be led into quarrels by the devious devises of the devilishly divisive.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: Many a man is not only willing to fight at the drop of a hat, but even willing to drop the hat.
Psalm 35:21
BIBLE TEXT: "Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it." (Psalm 35:21 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: One must have a gaping mouth and a goggling eye to tell great lies over others’ gnat-like sins. (Matthew 23:24)
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: “He who rejoices in another’s fall rejoices in the devil’s victory.” (Ambrose)
Psalm 35:22-23
BIBLE TEXT: "This thou hast seen, O Lord: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me. Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord." (Psalm 35:22-23 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: We should pray that the Lord be stirred up to stand up with us and to speak out for us in the dock of this fallen world.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: Christ is not just the Christian’s Advocate, but the Christian’s Judge as well (1 John 2:1; 2 Corinthians 5:10). He not only argues our case for us, but He also adjudicates it in favor of us.
Psalm 35:24-26
BIBLE TEXT: "Judge me, O Lord my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me. Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him up. 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." (Psalm 35:22-23 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: The persecuting of God’s people will not result in the rejoicing of this fallen planet’s prejudiced prosecutors, but in their ridicule, when Christ dons His judicial robe and robes the saints in His perfect righteousness.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: What chance is there of the Christian’s condemnation if he or she will appear before the righteous Judge of all the earth clad in the Judge’s own seamless robe of perfect righteousness? (Genesis 18:25; John 19:23-24; Isaiah 61:10)
Psalm 35:27
BIBLE TEXT: "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." (Psalm 35:27 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: How fitting to pray for those who fervently pray for you!
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: To enlist on the winning side one must champion the cause of Christ, magnify the Most High, and pray for the success of God’s servants.
Psalm 35:28
BIBLE TEXT: "And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long." (Psalm 35:28 KJV)
BIBLE TWEET: As it is in Heaven, so should it be on earth, praise should be perpetual.
BIBLE TAKEAWAY: We should never tire of telling others about the righteousness of our God nor ever peter out in our praising of Him.