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Context No. 1102 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 35:1-16: in context

1Contend, LORD, with those who contend with me. Fight against those who fight against me. 2Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for my help. 3Brandish the spear and block those who pursue me. Tell my soul, “I am your salvation.” 4Let those who seek after my soul be disappointed and brought to dishonor. Let those who plot my ruin be turned back and confounded. 5Let them be as chaff before the wind, the LORD’s angel driving them on. 6Let their way be dark and slippery, the LORD’s angel pursuing them. 7For without cause they have hidden their net in a pit for me. Without cause they have dug a pit for my soul. 8Let destruction come on him unawares. Let his net that he has hidden catch himself. Let him fall into that destruction. 9My soul shall be joyful in the LORD. It shall rejoice in his salvation. 10All my bones shall say, “LORD, who is like you, who delivers the poor from him who is too strong for him; yes, the poor and the needy from him who robs him?” 11Unrighteous witnesses rise up. They ask me about things that I don’t know about. 12They reward me evil for good, to the bereaving of my soul. 13But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting. My prayer returned into my own bosom. 14I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother. I bowed down mourning, as one who mourns his mother. 15But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease. 16Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.

This is a psalm of a man under vicious attack. David cries for God to contend with those who contend with him, to take up shield and spear and say to his soul, I am your salvation. He asks that his attackers be scattered like chaff, caught in their own nets, because without cause they have dug a pit for him and rewarded him evil for good. And then the wound turns personal: when they were sick, he mourned for them, wore sackcloth, fasted, prayed, and grieved as for a friend or brother, but in his own trouble they gathered and gloated and tore at him without ceasing.

The keen pain in the psalm is not the attack itself but the betrayal of love. David had treated these people as family. When they were sick, he wept for them, put on sackcloth, fasted, prayed for their recovery as though they were his own brother or mother. He had genuinely loved them and grieved their suffering. And now, in his own hour of need, they gather to gloat, tearing at him, rejoicing in his downfall. They reward evil for good; the love he poured out came back as mockery. There is a special ache in being wronged by people you sincerely loved and served, and this psalm gives that ache a voice before God. David does not pretend it does not hurt or that he is above it; he brings the raw injustice of it, and his own genuine former love, straight to God. That is the honest thing to do with such a wound, not to swallow it or take revenge, but to lay it before the God who judges justly, saying, contend for me, and to leave the reckoning with him. The one who loved and was repaid with hatred takes it to the Lord.

When I have loved and served someone and been repaid with betrayal, can I bring the raw hurt of it honestly to God, as David did, rather than swallowing it or avenging it myself?

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