Psalm 35: Lord, Give Me Justice!

An “Imprecatory Psalm”

A psalm of vengeance

What do you do when you have been betrayed?

This is one of those Psalms that it is hard to know what to do with.

Depends on how you have been brought up or taught, we may have the idea that God wants us to be “nice” and “positive” most, or all of the time

Especially for midwest folks like us.

You know, I think that rural folks have a really difficult time expressing negative emotions

Negative emotions are something that we try to stuff and not pay a whole lot of attention to

The reason for that is probably somewhat cultural.

There would have been a time when our forefathers were out here on the western frontier working night and day to just eek out a living

Life was very difficult and uncertain. You didn’t know if you were going to make it or not

But you had sacrificed so much to get out here that you had to give it everything you had

And you didn’t have the time to sit around processing “what if’s” and other negative emotions

You just had to put your head down, pull your boots on and keep slogging on

Negative emotions were either dismissed, or just stuffed down as hard as you could stuff them

And, I think that is something that perhaps we have inherited.

We still approach life this way.

Negative emotions are not often dealt with in a healthy manner

We think that we don’t have time to really sit down and delve into the things that bother us

Or, we think, “Those negative emotions are no big deal”. If I just dig a little deeper and try a little harder, I can over come that

Or, we are scared to go there, or let someone else go there with us

Because we might accidentally expose something about ourselves that we don’t want others to see

We don’t want God to see it

God wants us to think nice positive thoughts,

talk nice positive words

And look nice and act nice

Which is a nice thought. And at times that’s OK

But, as you know, life isn’t that cut and dried

Life has tragedy. Life has pain. There are times when life just feels really unfair.

Especially when it comes to people. God made us to be relational beings

We need close relationships, and without close and intimate relationships, life can become very dark, chaotic, and confusing

But sometimes we feel betrayed by those who we thought were supposed to be close to us, to walk along side of us

to be there for us when we needed a friend.

Maybe it was our parents who wounded us. a sibling, a cousin, a best friend

We try to act nice. But sometimes what is going on inside of us is anything but “nice”.

And too often, we don’t know what to do with that pain inside of us.

So we just stuff it. We try to act like everything is OK. But it’s not. And sometimes our pain comes out in other things

Anger, rage

depression

Isolation

But you know, I’m convinced that this is not the way that it’s supposed to be. It’s not how God created us. It’s not natural!

In fact, if you look at the language of Scripture, and particularly at the Psalms

You will quickly find that the Jewish people weren’t like this.

They were very free with their emotions with each other, and especially with God

They didn’t hold back from expressing to God what was on their minds and telling Him how they felt about it!

Because they were confident that God could handle their emotions and by reaching out to Him, He could help them walk through the pain in their lives

And that bring us to the psalm that we want to look at today.

Psalm 35

This psalm isn’t very “nice”. It’s not filled with nice language

It’s what we call an “imprecatory psalm”.

Imprecatory: A psalm that calls down judgement or curses on the author’s perceived enemies or the enemies of God.

It’s full of language that expresses anger and hurt

Again, it’s one of those psalms that maybe we aren’t sure what we are supposed to do with

Kind of like Psalm 2. The language is raw and uncomfortable at places

But one of the things the Psalms are supposed to do is give us a window into our souls

The theologian, John Calvin compares the Psalms to a mirror:

There is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not represented in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here draw to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, complexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated.

English Standard Version Psalm 35

Great Is the LORD

35 OF DAVID.

1  Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me;

fight against those who fight against me!

2  Take hold of shield and buckler

and rise for my help!

3  Draw the spear and javelin

against my pursuers!

Say to my soul,

“I am your salvation!”

4  Let them be put to shame and dishonor

who seek after my life!

Let them be turned back and disappointed

who devise evil against me!

5  Let them be like chaff before the wind,

with the angel of the LORD driving them away!

6  Let their way be dark and slippery,

with the angel of the LORD pursuing them!

7  For without cause they hid their net for me;

without cause they dug a pit for my life.

8  Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it!

And let the net that he hid ensnare him;

let him fall into it—to his destruction!

9  Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD,

exulting in his salvation.

10  All my bones shall say,

“O LORD, who is like you,

delivering the poor

from him who is too strong for him,

the poor and needy from him who robs him?”

11  Malicious witnesses rise up;

they ask me of things that I do not know.

12  They repay me evil for good;

my soul is bereft.

13  But I, when they were sick—

I wore sackcloth;

I afflicted myself with fasting;

I prayed with head bowed on my chest.

14  I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;

as one who laments his mother,

I bowed down in mourning.

15  But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered;

they gathered together against me;

wretches whom I did not know

tore at me without ceasing;

16  like profane mockers at a feast,

they gnash at me with their teeth.

17  How long, O Lord, will you look on?

Rescue me from their destruction,

my precious life from the lions!

18  I will thank you in the great congregation;

in the mighty throng I will praise you.

19  Let not those rejoice over me

who are wrongfully my foes,

and let not those wink the eye

who hate me without cause.

20  For they do not speak peace,

but against those who are quiet in the land

they devise words of deceit.

21  They open wide their mouths against me;

they say, “Aha, Aha!

Our eyes have seen it!”

22  You have seen, O LORD; be not silent!

O Lord, be not far from me!

23  Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication,

for my cause, my God and my Lord!

24  Vindicate me, O LORD, my God,

according to your righteousness,

and let them not rejoice over me!

25  Let them not say in their hearts,

“Aha, our heart’s desire!”

Let them not say, “We have swallowed him up.”

26  Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether

who rejoice at my calamity!

Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor

who magnify themselves against me!

27  Let those who delight in my righteousness

shout for joy and be glad

and say evermore,

“Great is the LORD,

who delights in the welfare of his servant!”

28  Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness

and of your praise all the day long.

You can see what’s going on in David’s life here, can’t you?

Relationships have really gone down the tubes

The last time, we looked at Psalm 34. And in that Psalm, David chose to praise God in the midst of betrayal and broken relationships.

But, now, we see quite the opposite. Perhaps this Psalm is written around the same time as Psalm thirty four. We don’t know

But look at verses 11 through 16 to get a pretty clear picture of what is going on

Check these verses out:

11  Malicious witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know. 12  They repay me evil for good; my soul is bereft. 13  But I, when they were sick— I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest. 14  I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother; as one who laments his mother, I bowed down in mourning. 15  But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered; they gathered together against me; wretches whom I did not know tore at me without ceasing; 16  like profane mockers at a feast, they gnash at me with their teeth.

Read it in NLT

11 Malicious witnesses testify against me.     They accuse me of crimes I know nothing about. 12 They repay me evil for good.     I am sick with despair. 13 Yet when they were ill, I grieved for them.     I denied myself by fasting for them,     but my prayers returned unanswered. 14 I was sad, as though they were my friends or family,     as if I were grieving for my own mother. 15 But they are glad now that I am in trouble;     they gleefully join together against me. I am attacked by people I don’t even know;     they slander me constantly. 16 They mock me and call me names;     they snarl at me.

So, as we know this is a Pssalm, which means that it is a poem

And because it is a poem, David uses some very colorful and descriptive language to describe his feelings

And to describe how he perceives that he is being treated

Do they really “snarl” or “gnash their teeth at him”

Did they really dig a pit for him to fall into? or hide a net for him to get tangled in?

Are they really going to be blown away like chaff in the wind?

Is God really going to buckle on His armor and get out His javelin and go hunting bad guys?

The answer is “No” to all of these things

But poets use this kind of language to paint a picture for us and to involve our emotions

Which this Psalm does very effectively!

Clearly, whatever is going on in David’s life is rough

And he feels like people that he knows have betrayed Him, and he’s not happy about it!

But here’s what I notice about this Psalm

As we’ve already noted, David is not shy about telling God how he feels

He’s very honest with God about how much he is hurting and angry

And you know what? You can be honest with God, too

About your “nice” and “good” emotions, as well as your difficult and

We see this all throughout the Scripture as we have noted

One person that comes to mind is Job

You know the story of Job, how he had it made. Lot’s of flocks and herds, very wealthy, had a great family, good health

And through a series of events, all of that was taken away from him.

flocks and herds wiped out

His children killed

His health was taken from him

And Job is left in a really awful situation. And he’s not happy about it

at the beginning of the book, we do see his initial response, “The Lord gives, and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD”

he recognizes that it is God’s sovereign right to do what God did,

but as the book goes along, we see how much Job really is wresting with feeling like things just aren’t fair a

in chapter 3, already, he says, “It’s probably just better if I would die”

There’s no sense in my being alive

I mean, better yet, I should have just died at birth

And in chapter 7, he basically asks the question of God, “Why are you playing games with me? Why am I your target?”

And he asks lots of questions like this as the book goes along

He never comes out and curses God. He never accuses God of being evil

But neither does he hold back in expressing that he thinks God is being unfair

Now, I think we do have to be careful here. I think that Job was walking a fine line between saying what was on his heart and accusing God of wrongdoing

the fact that he had 3 unhelpful friends sitting with him really didn’t make things better for Job

But my point is that God handled Job’s emotions

David does not lash out personally at his enemies

God does not explain Himself

David:

Jesus: Bless those who persecute you. Bless and curse not