Psa 35:1-3 | KD | STEP | This Psalms 35 and Ps 34 form a pair. They are the only Psalms in which the name מלאך יהוה is mentioned. The Psalms that belong to the time of David’s persecution by Saul are the Psalms which are more especially pervaded by such retrospective references to the Tôra. And in fact this whole Psalm is, as it were, the lyrical expansion of that which David expresses before Saul in 1Sa 24:15. The critical opinion as to the authorship of this Psalm is closely allied with that respecting the author of Ps 40 and 69 to which Ps 35 is nearly related; cf. , with Psa 40:16.; with Psa 69:11.; whereas the relation of Ps 71 to Ps 35 is decidedly a secondary one. Hitzig conjectures it to be Jeremiah; but are appropriate in the lips of a persecuted king, and not of a persecuted prophet. The points of contact of the writings of Jeremiah with our Psalm (Jer 18:19., ; ), may therefore in this instance be more safely regarded as reminiscences of an earlier writer than in Ps 69. Throughout the whole Psalm there prevails a deep vexation of spirit (to which corresponds the suffix מו-, as in Ps 59; ; ; Psa 17:1-15; 22; ) and strong emotion; it is not until the second part, where the poet describes the base ingratitude of his enemies, that the language becomes more clam and transparent, and a more quiet sadness takes the place of indignation and rage. Each of the three parts opens with a cry for deliverance; and closes, in the certain assumption that it will take place, with a vow of thanksgiving. The divisions cannot therefore be mistaken, viz., , , Psa 35:19. The relative numbers of the stichs in the separate groups is as follows: 6. 6. 5. 5. 7. 7. 5. 6. 6. 6. 5. There are only a few Psalms of David belonging to the time of Saul’s persecution, which, like Ps 22, keep within the limits of deep inward grief; and in scarcely a single instance do we find him confining himself to the expression of the accursed fate of his enemies with prophetic certainty, as that which he confidently expects will be realised (as, e.g., in ). But for the most part the objective announcement of punishment is swallowed up by the force of his inmost feelings, and changed into the most importunate prayer (as in ; , and frequently); and this feverish glow of feeling becomes still more harshly prominent, when the prayer for the revelation of divine judgment in punishment passes over into a wish that it may actually take place. In this respect Ps 7, 35, 69, 109 form a fearful gradation. In Ps 109, the old expositors count as many as thirty anathemas. What explanation can we give of such language coming from the lips and heart of the poet? Perhaps as paroxysms of a desire for revenge? His advance against Nabal shows that even a David was susceptible of such feelings; but 1Sa 25:32. also shows that only a gentle stirring up of his conscience was needed to dissuade him from it. How much more natural-we throw out this consideration in agreement with Kurtz - that the preponderance of that magnanimity peculiar to him should have maintained its ascendancy in the moments of the highest religious consecration in which he composed his Psalms! It is inconceivable that the unholy fire of personal passion could be here mingled with the holy fire of his love to God. It is in fact the Psalms more especially, which are the purest and most faithful mirror of the piety of the Old Testament: the duty of love towards one’s enemies, however, is so little alien to the Old Testament (Exo 23:4., ; ; ; Pro 25:21., Job 31:29.), that the very words of the Old Testament are made use of even in the New to inculcate this love. And from Ps 7, in its agreement with the history of his conduct towards Saul, we have seen that David was conscious of having fulfilled this duty. All the imprecatory words in these Psalms come, therefore, from the pure spring of unself-seeking zeal for the honour of God. That this zeal appears in this instance as zeal for his own person or character arises from the fact, that David, as the God-anointed heir of the kingdom, stands in antagonism to Saul, the king alienated from God; and, that to his mind the cause of God, the continuance of the church, and the future of Israel, coincide with his own destiny. The fire of his anger is kindled at this focus (so to speak) of the view which he has of his own position in the course of the history of redemption. It is therefore a holy fire; but the spirit of the New Testament, as Jesus Himself declare sin , is in this respect, nevertheless, a relatively different spirit from that of the Old. That act of divine love, redemption, out of the open fountain of which there flowed forth the impulse of a love which embraces and conquers the world, was then as yet not completed; and a curtain then still hung before eternity, before heaven and hell, so that imprecations like were not understood,even by him who uttered them, in their infinite depth of meaning. Now that this curtain is drawn up, the New Testament faith shrinks back from invoking upon any one a destruction that lasts לעולם; and love seeks, so long as a mere shadow of possibility exists, to rescue everything human from the perdition of an unhappy future-a perdition the full meaning of which cannot be exhausted by human thought. In connection with all this, however, there still remains one important consideration. The curses, which are contained in the Davidic Psalms of the time of Saul’s persecution, are referred to in the New Testament as fulfilled in the enemies of Jesus Christ, ; -10. One expression found in our Psalm, ἐμίσησάν με δωρεάν (cf. ) is used by Jesus (Joh 15:25) as fulfilled in Him; it therefore appears as though the whole Psalm ought to be, or at least may be, taken typically as the words of Christ. But nowhere in the Gospels do we read an imprecation used by Jesus against His own and the enemies of the kingdom of God; David’s imprecations are not suited to the lips of the Saviour, nor do the instances in which they are cited in the New Testament give them the impress of being His direct words: they are treated as the language of prophecy by virtue of the Spirit, whose instrument David was, and whose work the Scriptures are. And it is only in this sense that the Christian adopts them in prayer. For after the pattern of his Lord, who on the cross prayed “Father forgive them,” he desires that even his bitterest enemies may not be eternally lost, but, though it be only when in articulo mortis , that they may come to their right mind. Even the anathemas of the apostle against the Judaising false teachers and against Alexander the smith ( ; ; ), refer only to temporal removal and chastisement, not to eternal perdition. They mark the extreme boundary where, in extraordinary instances, the holy zeal of the New Testament comes in contact with the holy fervour of the Old Testament.

‏ Psalms 35:1-3

Call to Arms against Ungrateful Persecutors, Addressed to God

This Psalms 35 and Ps 34 form a pair. They are the only Psalms in which the name מלאך יהוה is mentioned. The Psalms that belong to the time of David’s persecution by Saul are the Psalms which are more especially pervaded by such retrospective references to the Tôra. And in fact this whole Psalm is, as it were, the lyrical expansion of that which David expresses before Saul in 1Sa 24:15. The critical opinion as to the authorship of this Psalm is closely allied with that respecting the author of Ps 40 and 69 to which Ps 35 is nearly related; cf. Psa 35:21, Psa 35:27 with Psa 40:16.; Psa 35:13 with Psa 69:11.; whereas the relation of Ps 71 to Ps 35 is decidedly a secondary one. Hitzig conjectures it to be Jeremiah; but Psa 35:1 are appropriate in the lips of a persecuted king, and not of a persecuted prophet. The points of contact of the writings of Jeremiah with our Psalm (Jer 18:19., Jer 23:12; Lam 2:16), may therefore in this instance be more safely regarded as reminiscences of an earlier writer than in Ps 69. Throughout the whole Psalm there prevails a deep vexation of spirit (to which corresponds the suffix מו-, as in Ps 59; Psa 56:1-13; Psa 11:1-7; Psa 17:1-15; 22; Psa 64:1-10) and strong emotion; it is not until the second part, where the poet describes the base ingratitude of his enemies, that the language becomes more clam and transparent, and a more quiet sadness takes the place of indignation and rage.

Each of the three parts opens with a cry for deliverance; and closes, in the certain assumption that it will take place, with a vow of thanksgiving. The divisions cannot therefore be mistaken, viz., Psa 35:1, Psa 35:11, Psa 35:19. The relative numbers of the stichs in the separate groups is as follows: 6. 6. 5. 5. 7. 7. 5. 6. 6. 6. 5.

There are only a few Psalms of David belonging to the time of Saul’s persecution, which, like Ps 22, keep within the limits of deep inward grief; and in scarcely a single instance do we find him confining himself to the expression of the accursed fate of his enemies with prophetic certainty, as that which he confidently expects will be realised (as, e.g., in Psa 7:13-17). But for the most part the objective announcement of punishment is swallowed up by the force of his inmost feelings, and changed into the most importunate prayer (as in Psa 7:7; Psa 17:13, and frequently); and this feverish glow of feeling becomes still more harshly prominent, when the prayer for the revelation of divine judgment in punishment passes over into a wish that it may actually take place. In this respect Ps 7, 35, 69, 109 form a fearful gradation. In Ps 109, the old expositors count as many as thirty anathemas. What explanation can we give of such language coming from the lips and heart of the poet? Perhaps as paroxysms of a desire for revenge? His advance against Nabal shows that even a David was susceptible of such feelings; but 1Sa 25:32. also shows that only a gentle stirring up of his conscience was needed to dissuade him from it. How much more natural-we throw out this consideration in agreement with Kurtz - that the preponderance of that magnanimity peculiar to him should have maintained its ascendancy in the moments of the highest religious consecration in which he composed his Psalms! It is inconceivable that the unholy fire of personal passion could be here mingled with the holy fire of his love to God. It is in fact the Psalms more especially, which are the purest and most faithful mirror of the piety of the Old Testament: the duty of love towards one’s enemies, however, is so little alien to the Old Testament (Exo 23:4., Lev 19:18; Pro 20:22; Pro 24:17; Pro 25:21., Job 31:29.), that the very words of the Old Testament are made use of even in the New to inculcate this love. And from Ps 7, in its agreement with the history of his conduct towards Saul, we have seen that David was conscious of having fulfilled this duty. All the imprecatory words in these Psalms come, therefore, from the pure spring of unself-seeking zeal for the honour of God. That this zeal appears in this instance as zeal for his own person or character arises from the fact, that David, as the God-anointed heir of the kingdom, stands in antagonism to Saul, the king alienated from God; and, that to his mind the cause of God, the continuance of the church, and the future of Israel, coincide with his own destiny. The fire of his anger is kindled at this focus (so to speak) of the view which he has of his own position in the course of the history of redemption. It is therefore a holy fire; but the spirit of the New Testament, as Jesus Himself declare sin Luk 9:55, is in this respect, nevertheless, a relatively different spirit from that of the Old. That act of divine love, redemption, out of the open fountain of which there flowed forth the impulse of a love which embraces and conquers the world, was then as yet not completed; and a curtain then still hung before eternity, before heaven and hell, so that imprecations like Psa 69:20 were not understood,even by him who uttered them, in their infinite depth of meaning. Now that this curtain is drawn up, the New Testament faith shrinks back from invoking upon any one a destruction that lasts לעולם; and love seeks, so long as a mere shadow of possibility exists, to rescue everything human from the perdition of an unhappy future-a perdition the full meaning of which cannot be exhausted by human thought.

In connection with all this, however, there still remains one important consideration. The curses, which are contained in the Davidic Psalms of the time of Saul’s persecution, are referred to in the New Testament as fulfilled in the enemies of Jesus Christ, Act 1:20; Rom 11:7-10. One expression found in our Psalm, ἐμίσησάν με δωρεάν (cf. Psa 69:5) is used by Jesus (Joh 15:25) as fulfilled in Him; it therefore appears as though the whole Psalm ought to be, or at least may be, taken typically as the words of Christ. But nowhere in the Gospels do we read an imprecation used by Jesus against His own and the enemies of the kingdom of God; David’s imprecations are not suited to the lips of the Saviour, nor do the instances in which they are cited in the New Testament give them the impress of being His direct words: they are treated as the language of prophecy by virtue of the Spirit, whose instrument David was, and whose work the Scriptures are. And it is only in this sense that the Christian adopts them in prayer. For after the pattern of his Lord, who on the cross prayed “Father forgive them,” he desires that even his bitterest enemies may not be eternally lost, but, though it be only when in articulo mortis, that they may come to their right mind. Even the anathemas of the apostle against the Judaising false teachers and against Alexander the smith (Gal 1:9; Gal 5:12; 2Ti 4:14), refer only to temporal removal and chastisement, not to eternal perdition. They mark the extreme boundary where, in extraordinary instances, the holy zeal of the New Testament comes in contact with the holy fervour of the Old Testament. Psa 35:1-3

The psalmist begins in a martial and anthropomorphical style such as we have not hitherto met with. On the ultima-accentuation of ריבה, vid., on Psa 3:8. Both את are signs of the accusative. This is a more natural rendering here, where the psalmist implores God to subjugate his foes, than to regard את as equivalent to עם (cf. Isa 49:25 with ib. Psa 27:8; Job 10:2); and, moreover, for the very same reason the expression in this instance is לחם, (in the Kal, which otherwise only lends the part. לחם, Psa 56:2., to the Niph. נלחם) instead of the reciprocal form הלּחם. It is usually supposed that לחם means properly vorare, and war is consequently conceived of as a devouring of men; but the Arabic offers another primary meaning: to press close and compact (Niph. to one another), consequently מלחמה means a dense crowd, a dense bustle and tumult (cf. the Homeric κλόνος). The summons to Jahve to arm, and that in a twofold manner, viz., with the מגן for warding off the hostile blow and צנּה (vid., Ps 5:13) which covers the body like a testudo - by which, inasmuch as it is impossible to hold both shields at the same time, the figure is idealised - is meant to express, that He is to make Himself felt by the foes, in every possible way, to their own confounding, as the unapproachable One. The ב of בּעזרתי (in the character of help turned towards me) is the so-called Beth essentiae, ^{▼▼The Hebrew Beth essentiae is used much more freely and extensively than the Arabic, which is joined exclusively to the predicate of a simple clause, where in our language the verb is “to be,” and as a rule only to the predicate of negative clauses: laisa bi - hakı̂mim, he is not wise, or laisa bi - l - hakı̂mi, he is not the wise man. The predicate can accordingly be indeterminate or determinate. Moreover, in Hebrew, where this ב is found with the predicate, with the complement of the subject, or even, though only as a solecism (vid., Gesenius’ Thesaurus p. 175), with the subject itself, the word to which it is prefixed may be determinate, whether as an attribute determined by itself (Exo 6:3, בּאל שׁדּי), by a suffix (as above, Psa 35:2, cf. Psa 146:5; Exo 18:4; Pro 3:26), or even by the article. At all events no syntactic objection can be brought against the interpretations of בעשׁן, “in the quality of smoke,” Psa 37:20; cf. בּהבל, Psa 78:33, and of בּנּפשׁ, “in the character of the soul,” Lev 17:11.} as in Exo 18:4; Pro 3:26; Isa 48:10 (tanquam argentum), and frequently. הריק has the same meaning as in Exo 15:9, cf. Gen 14:14, viz., to bring forth, draw forth, to draw or unsheath (a sword); for as a sword is sheathed when not in use, so a spear is kept in the δουροδόκη (Odyss. i. 128). Even Parchon understands סגר to mean a weapon; and the word σάγαρις, in Herodotus, Xenophon, and Strabo, a northern Asiatic, more especially a Scythian, battle-axe, has been compared here; ^{▼▼Probably one and the same word with the Armenian sakr, to which are assigned the (Italian) meanings mannaja, scure, brando ferro, in Ciakciak’s Armenian Lexicon; cf. Lagarde’s Gesammelte Abhandlungen, 1866, S. 203.} but the battle-axe was not a Hebrew weapon, and סגר, which, thus defectively written, has the look of an imperative, also gives the best sense when so taken (lxx σύγκλεισον, Targ. וּטרוק), viz., close, i.e., cut off, interclude scil. viam. The word has Dechî, because לקראת רדפי, “casting Thyself against my persecutors,” belongs to both the preceding summonses. Dachselt rightly directs attention to the similar sequence of the accents in Psa 55:19; Psa 66:15. The Mosaic figure of Jahve as a man of war (אישׁ מלחמה, Exo 15:3; Deu 32:41.) is worked out here with brilliant colours, under the impulse of a wrathful spirit. But we see from Psa 35:3 what a spiritual meaning, nevertheless, the whole description is intended to convey. In God’s intervention, thus manifested in facts, he would gladly hear His consolatory utterance to himself. The burden of his cry is that God’s love may break through the present outward appearance of wrath and make itself felt by him.