Psalm 35:19-28 "Praying for Justice"

Translation & Sermon By Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 01 Apr 2018

INTRO:

In Psalm 35, David discusses injustice, and we saw in the first of the three sermons on this Psalm that distorted communication, hopeless cynicism, and unhappiness are the opposite of what we are called to do as God’s people in the face of injustice. We are called to pray God’s words, we are called to hope in God’s justice, and we are called to rejoice in God.
In the second sermon, I pointed out four principles that can be followed while experiencing injustice:

1) Hold Fast to God’s Categories of Right & Wrong and stay aligned with Him,

2) Love Your Enemies,

3) Make Your Case in Prayer to God for Deliverance, and

4) Don’t Forget to Say Thank You!

Now in this third and final sermon on Psalm 35, I want to note David’s attitude towards his enemies and how that affects his prayers, and apply this not only physically to the problem people in our lives but also spiritually in our war against sin and Satan.

v.19 My treacherous enemies will not be happy concerning me. Those who gratuitously hate me wink an eye,

David’s enemies have already been “happy/rejoicing/gloating” over him, as we saw in v. 15, because it looks like they are going to get their way and David is going to be put down.

These folks are operating out of falsehood (sheqer), they are treacherous, wrong to be enemies.
They are characterized by hate and animosity, and they don’t even have a good reason to hate David. They have already demonstrated that causeless hate in v.7 by laying traps for David.
Their winking eyes are particularly mentioned by David in v.19. Taken together with the parallel word sheqer (wrongful/treacherous - literally “false”), this winking action is a physical acting out of falsehood, saying one thing and winking to signal to cronies that the opposite is meant, or winking to another enemy as a pre-planned signal for him to carry out his part of the treacherous scheme. This winking is only referred to in three other places in the OT, all in Proverbs; David must have discussed some of his experiences with treacherous winkers with his son, which led to Solomon avoiding some of the problems David encountered and writing these maxims down:

Proverbs 6:12-15 “A worthless person, a wicked man, Walks with a perverse mouth; He winks with his eyes, He shuffles his feet, He points with his fingers; Perversity is in his heart, He devises evil continually, He sows discord. Therefore his calamity shall come suddenly; Suddenly he shall be broken without remedy.” (NKJV)
10:10 “He who winks with the eye causes trouble, But a prating fool will fall.” (NKJV)
16:29-30 “A violent man entices his neighbor, And leads him in a way that is not good. He winks his eye to devise perverse things; He purses his lips and brings about evil.” (NKJV)

Once again we have a verb form in Hebrew that is ambiguous: it could be translated either future tense “my enemies will not rejoice” or jussive “let them not rejoice.” As I mentioned last week, the two are related. There’s no sense praying for what we know is not God’s will, so if we can first say that the future tense is true (in this case, if the enemies of God’s people will ultimately not be happy), then we can pray for it in the jussive sense (“Let them not be happy.”). In other words, if you know your request lines up with God’s character and His revealed will, you can pray for God’s will to be done against enemies with confidence.

V.20 because it is not peace that they speak, rather it is words of deception that they think up against those who are settling on the land.

We’ve already seen a portrait of this kind of enemy back in Psalm 10: “With arrogance a wicked man hotly-pursues a lowly man. They will be caught in schemes that they thought up because [the] wicked man boasted over his selfish desires, and it was the greedy he blessed; Yahweh he despised. A wicked man according to [the] stuck-up-ness of his nose will never be a seeker; all his schemes [assume] there is no God. His ways are circuitous during every moment; Your judgments are high above the presence of his [mind]. As for all his adversaries, he blows them off. He said in his heart, “I will never be overthrown and thus never be in bad [times] for generations and generations!” It is a curse that fills His mouth – also deceit and oppression; under his tongue are trouble and iniquity. He sits in ambush by the subdivisions. In the hiding-places he murders an innocent man. As for his eyes, they single out the weakest. He sets an ambush in the hiding-place like a lion in a den. He sets an ambush to nab a lowly one… and the weakest crumple, are brought down, and fall by his powers.” (Psalm 10:2-10, NAW)
The “settled” people of the earth that this enemy antagonizes are those who have made peace with God and settled down to enjoy God’s blessings.

The first time that word occurs is in the list of curses in Deut. 28:65, where it says that if you don’t love and obey God, you won’t be able to settle down peacefully anywhere.
Jeremiah 50:34 states the converse positively: “Their Redeemer is strong; The LORD of hosts is His name. He will thoroughly plead their case, That He may give rest to the land, And disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.” (cf. Jer. 31:2)
Those who are “quiet/settled on the land” are those who are living in covenant with God, enjoying God’s blessings of land-ownership and peace, so it’s just another way to say those who have been made right with God, the righteous, are the target of the enemy’s deception and false accusations.
Have you noticed yet how much this enemy resembles Satan?

V. 21 And they opened their mouth wide over me; they said, “Aha! Aha! Our eyes saw!”

The picture here seems to be of false witnesses accusing David of things he didn’t actually do, and when he denies in court that he did those things, the witnesses yell, “But we SAW you do it!” They open their mouths wide to say, “Ha! Aha! You’re going down, buster!”
It is in this hopeless situation that David cries out to the LORD to intervene:

V. 22 Yahweh, You saw it; don’t be silent! My master, don’t be far from me!

David knows that God sees all things and that no matter what these false witnesses say they saw, God saw what actually happened, and He asks God to stick close by and witness to the truth.
There are times when God does keep His distance, so to speak, and allows trials to come upon us (although His eye is always on us and He never actually leaves us or forsakes us – Heb. 13:5), but David is praying that this will not be one of those times, because this is no mere trial; this enemy is out for blood.
This is like his prayer earlier in Psalm 28:1 where he said, “It is to you, Yahweh, my landmark-rock, that I call. You must not be silent in regard to me. If you sit still in regard to me, then I will be [in] the same [boat] with those who go down the pit.”
And, once again, David invokes the covenant relationship between himself and God, calling Him both by His proper name (Yahweh – or LORD in all caps) and by His role (that of “lord” – lower case, that is, my master, owner), which implies that God has a responsibility to protect His vassal under His responsibility.
Now, after two negative commands (“don’t be silent” and “don’t be far away”), David issues two positive commands to God:

V.23 Please mobilize justice for me, my God and my Master, and put Yourself on the alert for arguing my [case]!

The first command David gives to God is to “stir up/awake/mobilize” for David’s “judgment/his rights/ his defense.” He has used this command once before in Ps. 7:6 “Ariseקומה) ), Yahweh, in Your anger! Be lifted up by [the] excesses of my adversaries, and stir up for me [the] judgment You decreed.” (NAW)
I get the idea that David is thinking to himself, “So Saul or Absalom wants to play hardball does he? Well, it’s time to call in the best lawyer there is. When God mobilizes a case and crafts legal arguments, He never loses!
Of course, God never sleeps, so David’s behests of God are not literally to “wake up” so much as to “take special interest in” what was going on with David in order to bail him out of this legal case where he was being falsely accused of treason.

V. 24 Execute justice for me, Yahweh, my God, according to Your righteousness, so that they will not be happy concerning me!

The “they” here is referring to the “treacherous enemies” in v.19 who are currently gloating over David’s misfortune, smug and happy that it looks like David is going to lose and that they are in control. In v.26 they are happy about David getting hurt – over his distress/calamity.
So David is calling for an upset in the judicial system, for God, the ultimate judge, to step in and correct the injustice that is going on, by executing justice according to His righteousness instead of justice being executed by these crooked politicians according to their corrupt desires. This tsidek-righteousness becomes a key term in the final two verses of the psalm.
In the midst of a hopeless situation, humanly-speaking, David clings to ultimate truth, that there is a God, that God is righteous, that this righteous God is going to judge mankind, and that joy and happiness belong to God and to His people ultimately, not to those who are in rebellion against God. These bedrock truths revealed in God’s word are what David clings to in the teeth of evil, when it looks like God is not near, when it looks like God is not bringing justice, when it looks like righteousness will lose out, and when it looks like it’s the bad guys who are happy.
In faith, we to must cling to the ultimate truths that we know will characterize eternity, even when it looks like they aren’t happening now, and we too can call those ultimate truths of God’s presence, God’s justice, God’s righteousness, and God’s joy down into the here and now through prayer!

V. 25 Don’t let them say in their heart, “Aha! Our dream-come-true!” Don’t let them say, “We have swallowed him up!”

This talk in the inner self of the wicked reveals the orientation of the thoughts of the enemies of God – one-up-manship, literally “our own soul” – a preoccupation with self, and ultimately stealing, killing, and destroying (John 10:10), which we know is the orientation of the thoughts of Satan.
Just as Saul became insanely fixated on killing David, and Absalom became insensibly consumed with killing his brother and unseating his father as king, they think it will bring some kind of satisfaction and happiness to put you down. There will always be people on this earth who think they are doing God a favor to kill Christians, and we have seen that throughout history from the rampages of Saul of Tarsus against the early church to the Pagan Roman Catholic massacres of Christians in Europe, to the modern-day terror-tactics of Atheists, Buddhists, and Muslims against Christian communities.
The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk expressed a similar prayer in the first chapter of his book: “Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O LORD, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct. Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?” (Hab. 1:12-13, NASB)
God answered Habakkuk to say that He was divinely orchestrating the Chaldean army campaigns so as to chastise the unfaithful among His people and to mature faith among the faithful remnant, and when He was done with the Chaldean army, He would bring justice upon them and destroy them and bring salvation to His people.

v.26 Those who are happy about evil happening to me will experience shame and blush together. Those trying to be great against me will wear shame and embarrassment.

These folks who are magnifying/exalting themselves over/against David and seeking self-aggrandizement would certainly be a fitting description of Absalom and his cohorts who tried to take over the country and to kill David and the rulers loyal to David.
This point in the cyclical structure of Psalm 35 corresponds with verses 4-5 where David said, “Those who seek [to end] my life will experience shame and will be embarrassed; those who think up evil [against] me will be turned back and they will blush. They will be like chaff before the wind while the angel of Yahweh shoves [them] down.” (NAW)
Like verses 4-5, v. 26 can legitimately be interpreted, as most English versions have done, in the form of a wish for these adversaries to blush with shame, confusion, and humiliation, but it can just as legitimately be interpreted as a faith statement about what will happen in the future when God fulfills justice.
There is a link between God and His people. Jesus said that the world would hate us because it hated Him. The Apostle John wrote that if you love God, you’ll love the Christian brotherhood. You can’t love God and hate your brother.
In the case of this psalm, the bad guys are fighting against David (v.1), persecuting him (v.3), seeking to end his life and thinking up evil (v.4), digging pits and setting up traps (v.7), they are robbers (v.10), violent terrorists (v.11), repaying evil for good (v.12), they are either literally cutting, hitting, and injuring David or figuratively slandering him (v.15), they are mocking, scoffing, and using profanity (v.16), wreaking destruction (v.17), they are filled with hate and they are saying things that are false, trying to deceive (vs. 19-21), their desire is to see David swallowed up like Jonah in the whale, erased from the land of the living (v.25), and they are happy when people get hurt (v.26). If David’s perception is even partly accurate concerning these folks, there can be no doubt that with this much hatred and animosity against a “man after God’s own heart,” they must be equally antagonistic to God and therefore they rightfully deserve a heavy blow of justice upon them.
But note that David is not doing the same thing back to them that they are doing to him. He is not plotting ways to torture them to get revenge. He’s not saying, “O Lord, lash them with whips until they bleed. Fill their bowels with sickness and make them miserable. Make their children slaves... Or other such inventions. No, instead, David is just asking to be delivered so that they won’t feel triumphant about their evil activity, and he is asking God to make them aware that that what they were doing was wrong (which is basically what shame is about). This is not revenge, this is asking for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Psalms 70, 71, and 83 have similar prayers; notice how clearly the purpose of this shaming of the wicked is expressed in the ending of Psalm 83: “So pursue them with Your tempest, And frighten them with Your storm. Fill their faces with shame, That they may seek Your name, O LORD. Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; Yes, let them be put to shame and perish, That they may know that You, whose name alone is the LORD, Are the Most High over all the earth.” (Psalm 83:15-18, NKJV) God’s people don’t call down shame on the wicked just because we want to see the wicked suffer, we ask God to move shame from its mis-placed place on us to its proper place of conviction of sin upon sinners so that the wicked themselves might be made right with God!
And, by the way, David’s prayer-prophecy here in Psalm 35 really did come true: instead of Absalom and Ahithophel “rejoicing” and “shouting” victoriously and “living happily” ever after, it was David and Solomon, and we see some of that happiness in the procession that returned David to Jerusalem as king in 2 Samuel 19 after Absalom died, and we see David “singing out” in his victory psalm in 2 Samuel 22. Nowadays when we think of Absalom, we think of a failed coup, of a dishonorable son who tried to usurp a good king, and of a foppish young man who grew his hair out so long it got tangled in a tree where he died. Many such wicked men will never get right with God, but it is clear that David hoped to the end for Absalom’s redemption.

v.27 Those who are inclined toward righteousness happening to me will sing out and be happy, and those who are inclined toward the peace of His servant will always say, “Yahweh is great.”

Instead of delighting in hurting and swallowing up God’s people as the wicked do in v.25, those who will be happy are those who align their desires with God’s righteousness and with God’s people.

The NIV (and ESV) bring this out by translating the word chaphēts as “delight” both times it occurs in v. 27, whereas the KJV and NASB translate it “favor” at the beginning of the verse and then as “pleasure/delight” at the end of the verse.
I am going with the reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint which render the chaphets in the second half of the verse as a plural participle describing the same people who are happy about God’s justice also delighting in the shalom of God’s servant. This reading is a thousand years older than the Masoretic text that the modern versions follow, but the modern reading that attributes delighting in the welfare of the servant to God doesn’t make a big difference in meaning because alignment with God’s desires is the very definition of righteousness, so whether it is God or Gods people delighting in the peace of God’s people, there is no contradiction. If what God says is right is what you love to see happen, then you are going to be on the right side of history, and you’re going to come out happily praising God!

“Being in the right” is a key concept here at the end of the psalm. The Hebrew word tsideq[1] that the modern English versions translate “vindication” in v. 27 is the same word that they all translated “righteousness” in verse 24 before it and “righteousness” in verse 28 after it.
In verse 26 we see the wicked humanists who are magnifying themselves and trying to be great, and then in verse 27 we see the God who is already the greatest (and His people who align themselves with God in proclaiming God’s greatness). The contrast couldn’t be more stark.
This Biblical proclamation of God’s greatness, by the way, bears no comparison to Islam. Muslims are often heard to verbally affirm that God is great by saying, “Allahu Akbar,” but at every turn, the actions of Islamicists contradict their words. By the constant intervention of religious and political leaders and the constant vigilantism of terrorists, Muslims affirm by their actions that they do not believe that Allah is actually all that great but rather that Allah needs human help to establish justice. Muslims, of course, are not the only religion that does this; throughout history there have been plenty of so-called “Christians,” too, who have compromised so much with Humanism that there is a world of difference between their man-centered religion and the doctrine of God expressed in this psalm.

v.28 So my tongue will meditate on Your righteousness - all day long on Your praise.

We have not seen this verb in the Psalms since Psalms 1 & 2. Hagah is what the righteous do with God’s law day and night, and it’s what the wicked do with their vain plans to ovethrow the Lord and His anointed: repeat it to themselves, murmur it, meditate on it, hardly thinking of anything else. That’s what David says his tongue will do regarding God’s righteousness and praise: meditate, murmur, and repeatedly affirm God’s righteousness and praise the Lord.

Your Enemy the Devil and your Savior Jesus

Now, I want to take all this in a new direction. So far, I’ve applied it mostly in terms of physical enemies and discussed how the phrases of this psalm relate to the animosity of his son Absalom, but I want to consider all that is said at a deeper level, the spiritual level.

v.19 speaks of someone who hates a follower of God for no good reason. When a person of the world hates us, is he not merely reflecting the hatred toward us that our enemy the Devil has?[2]
And when they speak lies, are they not merely speaking according to their spiritual father, the Devil, who is the original liar? (John 8:44)[3]
v.20 speaks of the enemy’s thoughts and scheming. Does not this match what we see of the Devil in the book of Job, preoccupied with scheming up and executing plans to get Job to stop trusting God?
Now think of the picture in v.21, a hate-filled enemy pointing his finger in damnation, accusing you over and over again and bring up in your mind over and over again every little thing you have done wrong –sometimes even accusing you of things you’ve done that weren’t actually wrong but making you feel it was wrong anyway. Is this not why Satan is called the Devil – the Accuser of the Brethren [4]? Is this not his modus operandi to mercilessly accuse you and try to make you live under shame?
Not only does Satan harp on our sins in our own minds to keep us from asking for forgiveness and to keep us from believing that we have been forgiven, He also is our accuser before God, reminding God (as though He is not perfectly aware Himself) of all our offenses against Him. C.S. Lewis did a good job of painting that portrait of the Devil as the accuser of the brethren before God in his character of the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia, when she strides up to Aslan, the lion-Christ-figure: “‘You have a traitor there, Aslan,’ said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said. ‘Well,’ said Aslan. ‘His offense was not against you.’ ‘Have you forgotten the Deep magic?’ asked the Witch… You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey, and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill… And so,’ continued the Witch, ‘that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property.’” If you know the story, Aslan acknowledges that all this is true and offers himself to die in Edmund’s place at the hands of the Witch, and only then does she relinquish her claim on Edmond’s life.
V.25 speaks of this adversary’s goal being to swallow the godly up. Is this not what the Apostle Peter says in his first epistle? “Your opponent, an accuser, goes around like a lion, roaring, seeking for someone he might swallow down.” (1 Pet. 5:8, NAW) He would love nothing better than to see you destroyed.
V.26 spoke of the enemy’s self-aggrandizement, seeking to magnify himself over his rightful authority. Doesn’t that characterize Satan’s attitude toward God, as expressed in Isaiah 14? "How you are fallen from the heavens, Day-Star, son of Dawn! … You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high… I will make myself like the Most High.'” (Isa. 14:12-14, NAW)
Whether or not you have a physical enemy making trouble for you, you have a supernatural foe who is cunningly preying on your weaknesses and is hell-bent on getting you to sin and on destroying you. Satan nails me from time to time to the point that I feel as panicky as David seems to be in Psalm 35. When that happens, I need to trust Jesus to deliver me, and I will rejoice to see Satan brought to justice.
The late Dr. James Boice, when he preached on this Psalm, observed: “[W]e can apply the word of this psalm to the devil, for he is described in Scripture precisely as David describes his enemies… We are like helpless sheep before this powerful enemy. But, thank God, we have a powerful champion and advocate in King Jesus. It is not wrong for us to pray for his help for the confounding of Satan’s devices and to rejoice in anticipation of the devil’s ultimate and certain fall.”

What does this psalm relate to us about how to deal with this supernatural foe?

When temptation to sin becomes powerful, we can pray according to v.19 & 24, “Lord, don’t let Satan have any cause for rejoicing over this!”

v.26 “Lord, Satan is trying to magnify himself against you by encouraging me to sin against you; please bring him to shame and humiliation for his rebellion against you and confound his plans for my destruction.
Lord, you told John in the Revelation that You are going to throw Satan into the bottomless pit, well, bring it on!”
“To ask that the wicked may not prevail against us and insult us is to beseech God to exercise his glorious attributes in a manner suited to beget godly fear and firm confidence,” ~William Plumer

We can recognize from v.20 that Satan’s currency is deception. The sin you find so tempting is only alluring because it presents as true something that is poisonously false, and if you take the bait, it will also take away your peace, but if you can identify the lie at the root and see the truth of it, this can cause sin to lose power over you.
And then when the accusing thoughts come because you fell into sin in the past or because you fell into that sin again, get out of business of being your own lawyer and call in the big guns. Pray like David did in verses 22-24, “Lord, You understand what’s going on, so take over as my defense attorney. You are my God and my Master, I am your child and your servant. Instead of me trying to be good enough, put your own righteousness in for me and execute justice and make everything right. My sin and treachery against You makes me Satan’s lawful prey, but You forfeited your life on the cross in my place to satisfy the claims of the enemy of my soul, and he must relinquish his claims. Fight for me and be my shield of defense; I know You will win!”
When sin seems inevitable and you feel like you are out of control and your head is going under, fight for your spiritual life by asking God along the lines of v.25, “Lord, save me; don’t let them say that they have swallowed me up [5]. I don’t want to be swallowed up by Satan and pass over into His dominion. I don’t want to be swallowed up by sin and become a slave to sin again. Lord, it cannot be for I believe You bought me with Your blood. You can’t let me be swallowed up!”
And then we fill our minds with God’s truth so that it spills out of our mouth,

V.27, affirming – not once or twice, but “continually/always” that “God is great;” He can handle Satan easily for us.
And v.28, Repeating meditatively over and over again in spoken words what God’s righteousness is – what His laws are, and how He keeps them with perfect integrity, and how He has also given us who can’t keep His laws His own righteousness through Jesus.
And praising God every Sunday morning, right? NO! Praising God “all day long” every day!

Psalm 35:18-28 [A]

Vaticanus (Psalm 34)	Brenton (LXX)	Douay-Rheims (Vulgate)	KJV	NAW	MT
34:19 μὴ ἐπιχαρείησάν μοι οἱ ἐχθραίνοντές μοι ἀδίκως, οἱ μισοῦντές με δωρεὰν [καὶ] διανεύοντες ὀφθαλμ~~οῖς~~.	19 Let not them that are mine enemies without a cause rejoice against me; who hate me for nothing, [and] wink with [their] eye[s].	19 Let not them that are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: who have hated me without cause, and wink with the eye[s].	19 Let not them that are mine enemies [B] wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink [with the] eye that hate me without a cause.	19 My treacherous enemies will not be happy concerning me. Those who gratuitously hate me wink an eye,	יט אַל יִשְׂמְחוּ לִי אֹיְבַי שֶׁקֶר שֹׂנְאַי חִנָּם יִקְרְצוּ עָיִן.
34:20 ὅτι ~~ἐμοὶ~~ μὲν εἰρην~~ικὰ~~ ἐλάλουν [C] καὶ ἐπ᾿ ~~ὀργὴν~~ X X δόλους διελογίζοντο	20 [For] ~~to me~~ they spoke peace~~ably~~, but imagined X deceits in [their] ~~anger~~ X X.	20 For they spoke ~~indeed~~ peace~~ably~~ to me; and speaking in the ~~anger~~ of the earth they devised guile.	20 For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.	20 because it is not peace that they speak, rather it is words of deception that they think up against those who are settling the land.	כ כִּי לֹא שָׁלוֹם יְדַבֵּרוּ וְעַל [D] רִגְעֵי אֶרֶץ דִּבְרֵי מִרְמוֹת יַחֲשֹׁבוּן [E].
34:21 καὶ ἐπλάτυναν ἐπ᾿ ἐμὲ τὸ στόμα αὐτῶν, εἶπαν Εὖγε εὖγε, εἶδαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἡμῶν.	21 And they opened wide their mouth upon me; they said Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it.	21 And they opened their mouth wide against me; they said: Well done, well done, our eyes have seen it.	21 Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it.	21 And they opened their mouth wide over me; they said, “Aha! Aha! Our eyes saw!”	כא וַיַּרְחִיבוּ עָלַי פִּיהֶם [F] אָמְרוּ הֶאָח הֶאָח רָאֲתָה [G] עֵינֵינוּ.
34:22 εἶδες, κύριε, μὴ παρασιωπήσῃς [H], κύριε, μὴ ἀποστῇς ἀπ᾿ ἐμοῦ·	22 Thou hast seen it, O Lord: keep not silence: O Lord, withdraw not thyself from me.	22 Thou hast seen, O Lord, be not thou silent: O Lord, depart not from me.	22 This thou hast seen, O LORD: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me.	22 Yahweh, You saw it; don’t be silent! My Master, don’t be far from me!	כב רָאִיתָה [I] יְהוָה אַל תֶּחֱרַשׁ אֲדֹנָי אֲל תִּרְחַק מִמֶּנִּי.
34:23 ἐξεγέρθητι, κύριε, καὶ πρόσχες τῇ κρίσει μου, ὁ θεός μου καὶ ὁ κύριός μου, εἰς τὴν δίκην μου.	23 Awake, O Lord, and attend to my judgment, [even] to my cause, my God and my Lord.	23 Arise, and be attentive to my judgment: to my cause, my God, and my Lord.	23 Stir up thyself, and awake [J] to my judgment [K], even unto my cause, my God and my Lord.	23 Please mobilize justice for me, my God and my Master, and put Yourself on the alert for arguing my [case]!	כג הָעִירָה [L]וְהָקִיצָה לְמִשְׁפָּטִי אֱלֹהַי וַאדֹנָי לְרִיבִי.
34:24 κρῖνόν με κατὰ τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου, κύριε ὁ θεός μου, καὶ μὴ ἐπιχαρείησάν μοι·	24 Judge me, O Lord, according to thy righteousness, O Lord my God; and let them not rejoice against me.	24 Judge me, O Lord my God according to thy justice, and let them not rejoice over me.	24 Judge me, O LORD my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.	24 Execute justice for me, Yahweh, my God, according to Your righteousness, so that they will not be happy concerning me!	כד שָׁפְטֵנִי כְצִדְקְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהָי וְאַל יִשְׂמְחוּ לִי.
34:25 μὴ εἴπαισαν ἐν καρδί~~αις~~ αὐτῶν Εὖγε [εὖγε τῇ] ψυχῇ ἡμῶν· μη[δὲ] εἴπαισαν Κατεπίομεν αὐτόν.	25 Let them not say in their heart[s], Aha, [aha, it is pleasing] to our soul: ~~neither~~ let them say, We have devoured him.	25 Let them not say in their heart[s]: It is well, [it is well], to our mind: ~~neither~~ let them say: We have swallowed him up.	25 Let them not say in their heart[s], Ah, [so] would we [have it]: let them not say, We have swallowed him up.	25 Don’t let them say in their heart, “Aha! Our dream-come-true!” Don’t let them say, “We have swallowed him up!”	כה אַל יֹאמְרוּ בְלִבָּם הֶאָח נַפְשֵׁנוּ אַל יֹאמְרוּ בִּלַּעֲנוּהוּ.
34:26 αἰσχυνθείησαν καὶ ἐντραπείησαν ἅμα οἱ ἐπιχαίροντες τοῖς κακ~~οῖς~~ μου, ἐνδυσάσ~~θωσ~~αν αἰσχύνην καὶ ἐντροπὴν οἱ μεγαλορρημονοῦντες ἐπ᾿ ἐμέ.	26 Let them be confounded and ashamed together that rejoice at my affliction[s]: let them be clothed with shame and confusion that speak great [swelling words] against me.	26 Let them blush: and be ashamed together, who rejoice at my evil[s]. Let them be clothed with confusion and shame, who [speak] great things against me.	26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion [M] together that rejoice at mine hurt [N]: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.	26 Those who are happy about evil happening to me will experience shame and blush together. Those trying to be great against me will wear shame and embarrassment.	כו יֵבֹשׁוּ וְיַחְפְּרוּ יַחְדָּו שְׂמֵחֵי רָעָתִי יִלְבְּשׁוּ בֹשֶׁת וּכְלִמָּה הַמַּגְדִּילִים עָלָי.
34:27 ἀγαλλιάσαιντο καὶ εὐφρανθείησαν οἱ θέλοντες τὴν δικαιοσύνην μου καὶ εἰπάτωσαν διὰ παντός Μεγαλυν~~θήτω~~ ὁ κύριος, οἱ θέλοντες τὴν εἰρήνην τοῦ δούλου αὐτοῦ.	27 Let them that rejoice in my righteousness exult and be glad: and let them say continually, The Lord be magnified, who desire the peace of his servant.	27 Let them rejoice and be glad, who are well pleased with my justice, and let them say always: The Lord be magnif~~ied~~, who delights in the peace of his servant.	27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnif~~ied~~[O], which hath pleasure in the prosperity [P] of his servant.	27 Those who are inclined toward righteousness happening to me will sing out and be happy, and those who are inclined toward the peace of His servant will always say, “Yahweh is great.”	כז יָרֹנּוּ וְיִשְׂמְחוּ חֲפֵצֵי צִדְקִי וְיֹאמְרוּ תָמִיד יִגְדַּל יְהוָה הֶחָפֵץ [Q] שְׁלוֹם עַבְדּוֹ.
34:28 καὶ ἡ γλῶσσά μου μελετήσει τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου, ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν τὸν ἔπαινόν σου.	28 And my tongue shall meditate on thy righteousness, [and] on thy praise all the day.	28 And my tongue shall meditate thy justice, thy praise all the day long.	28 And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long.	28 So my tongue will meditate on Your righteousness - all day long on Your praise.	כח וּלְשׁוֹנִי תֶּהְגֶּה צִדְקֶךָ כָּל הַיּוֹם תְּהִלָּתֶךָ.

[1] Psalm 5:4 “…You are not a god [who] inclines toward wickedness…” NAW

[2] John 15:18-19 NKJV "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

[3] John 8:44 NKJV You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

[4] Rev. 12:10 NKJV Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.

[5] “What is, ‘had swallowed us up’? Had passed into their own body. For that thou swallowest up, which thou passest into thy own body... Do thou swallow up the body of Pagans. Why the body of Pagans? It would swallow thee up. Do thou to it, what it would to thee. Therefore perhaps that calf, being ground to powder, was cast into the water and given to the children of Israel to drink, that so the body of ungodliness might be swallowed up by Israel.” ~Augustine

[A] My original chart includes the NASB and NIV, but their copyright restrictions have forced me to remove them from the publicly-available edition of this chart. I have included the ESV in footnotes when it employs a word not already used by the KJV, NASB, or NIV. (NAW is my translation.) When a translation adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different from all the other translations, I underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original text, I use ~~strikeout~~. And when a version omits a word which is in the Hebrew text, I insert an X. (I also place an X at the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English translation is singular.) I occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between the various editions and versions when there are more than two different translations of a given word. Hebrew text that is colored purple matches the Dead Sea Scrolls, and variants between the DSS and the MT are noted in endnotes with the following exceptions: When a holem or qametz-hatuf or qibbutz pointing in the MT is represented in the DSS by a vav (or vice versa), or when a hireq pointing in the MT is represented in the DSS by a yod (the corresponding consonantal representation of the same vowel) – or vice versa, or when the tetragrammaton is spelled with paleo-Hebrew letters, I did not record it a variant. The three known Dead Sea Scrolls containing Psalm 35 are 4Q83 (vs. 2, 13-20, 26-27), 4Q85 (vs. 27-28), 4Q98 (vs. 4-20).

[B] ESV=foes

[C] Symmachus & Origin’s 5^th column have a negative which makes it read like the MT, whereas the older LXX and Aquila have no negative. (DSS are obliterated at this point.) Whether the enemies are duplicitous or not, they are still carrying animus, and that is the main point. Aquila, Symmachus, and E are all agreed, however in removing the word “anger” in favor of the MT reading.

[D] DSS 4Q83 reads the synonym אל “to,” but despite the LXX interpreting the opening of the sentence as “to me” (לי) instead of “not” (לא), the LXX επι supports the MT over the DSS on this preposition. The next word, reg’ah is a hapex legomenon, although its verb form occurs in Deuteronomy 28:65; Job 7:5; 26:12; Proverbs 12:19; Isaiah 34:14; 51:4,15; Jeremiah 31:2,35; 47:6; 49:19; 50:34,44.

[E] DSS 4Q98 transposes two letters reading יחשֹובן – I think this is just euphonics and not a change of meaning.

[F] This phrase “open mouth” occurs in only two other places in the OT: 1Sam._2:1 & Isa. 57:4.

[G] Qal Perfect 3fs

[H] Aq. μη κωφευσης, Sym. μη ησυχασης

[I] Davidson labels this Qal Perfect 3ms, but his Lamed He chart admits it could be 2ms if the final he is paragogic.

[J] NIV=rise, ESV=rouse yourself

[K] NASB=cause, NIV=defense, ESV=vindication

[L] Hiphil Imperative ms with paragogic he

[M] NASB=humiliated, NIV=confusion, ESV=disappointed

[N] NASB=distress, ESV=calamity. LXX, followed by Vulgate, reads plural, which could be construed from the consonantal spelling of the MT, although the MT pointing added later indicates singular.

[O] NIV=~~exalted~~, ESV=great is

[P] NIV=well-being, ESV=welfare

[Q] DSS 4Q83 reads חפצי, pluralizing the participle and agreeing with the LXX. So it is my judgment that the quote ends before this, and this phrase is defining the subject who should be magnifying the Lord.

Psalm 35:19-28 "Praying for Justice"

INTRO:

Your Enemy the Devil and your Savior Jesus

Psalm 35:18-28[A]

Psalm 35:18-28 [A]