An overview of this Psalm:

• Three laments. The psalm of David moves in three laments, each ending in a swell of praise (Ps. 35:9–10, 18, 27–28).
• Each lament’s pattern. Pain → Request → Hope
  • Lament 1: I’m being attacked without a cause.
  • Lament 2: I’ve been betrayed without a cause.
  • Lament 3: I’m being taunted without a cause.
• Interpretive Key. Without a cause.
  • “Without cause,” “for nothing,” “gratuitously” — is the nerve of the psalm.
  • Without cause/For nothing. Mentioned twice in the first lament (7), implied in the second (12-14), and again in the last (19).
  • This song is for innocent victims.

What are we to do with this psalm?

• Severity of despair. The despair here is significant—one cannot help but feel the level of turmoil, betrayal, and vitriol portrayed here occurs only a handful of times in life.
  • For many, this is their lived experience.
  • For most, these pains have an outsized impact.
  • For all, if hope can arise in these massive hurts, then perhaps it can arise in our smaller ones.
• Greater to lesser. An argument from greater to the lesser.
  • Some uncaused pains:
    • Family pain: historical wedges, estrangement, cross-generational frustrations.
    • Church pain: hurt from inside the household of faith.
    • Leadership pain: misunderstood, judged, despised.
    • Injustice pain: wrongly sentenced, abusing the environment.
    • Traumatic pain: unspeakable crimes and hurts.
  • Why hope here is rare—and possible. Hope almost never develops in soil like this. But with the Lord, with the gospel, it does. Faith, hope, and love grow where they have no natural right to (1 Cor 13:13).

Everyone has pains. Many make requests. But believers have hope.

• Theme: When you are pained (i.e. attacked, betrayed, taunted) without cause, gospel hope still rises—because the God who has seen will contend for you, rescue you, and vindicate you.

Attacked Without Cause → The Hope of a Personal Song (35:1–10)

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?”

 

The Pain: I’m being attacked without cause.

• Someone is contending and fighting with him (2)—
  • Contend is a courtroom word—he was being litigated against!
  • Fight is a battlefield word—he was being warred against!
• They seek after his life, and devise evil against him (4).
• They treat him as prey, hiding a net and digging a pit for him (7).

The Request: Lord, frustrate their purpose.

• David wanted God to contend and fight for him (1) by taking up all sorts of weapons (2-3, handheld shield, body shield, spear, javelin).
• David wanted his enemies to experience shame and dishonor, to be turned back and disappointed in their efforts (4).
• David asked for the angel of the Lord to go to war on his behalf (5), making their way dark and slippery (6).
  • The angel of the Lord is mentioned twice in the entire psalter, only in Psalms 34-35—quite the pair!
• David prayed for destruction to come upon his enemy—that the net he hid and the pit he dug would ensnare him and not David (8).

Sub-question: What do we do with these imprecatory prayers?

• These prayers are sometimes from a king required to defend God’s people.
• These prayers are often rooted in biblical law—they want God to do what he said he’d do.
• These prayers are an alternative to retaliation—David didn’t act out on them himself.
• These prayers find their hope in God.
  • Still our practice. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)
  • Be like Jesus. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:23)

The Hope: Let me sing a song of deliverance.

• He wanted God to say to his soul, “I am your salvation!” (3)
• If his request was granted, he knew he would rejoice in the LORD, exulting in his salvation (9).
• He would sing a personal song, because even in his bones he would say, “O LORD, who is like you?” (10).

The Gospel: You were attacked without cause. You frustrated the enemy’s purpose. We will sing the song of deliverance!

• The Red Sea song:
  • Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.” (Exodus 15:1–3, ESV)
• We will sing something like the Red Sea song:
  • After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” (Revelation 19:1–2, ESV)

Betrayed Without Cause → The Hope of a Congregational Song (35:11–18)

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.

The Pain: I’m being betrayed without cause.

• Malicious witnesses—a huge deal in their time—rose up and made a case against him (11).
  • Literally witnesses of violence, a technical legal term. The same false-witness machinery will one day convict Jesus (Matt 26:59–60).
• They repay him evil for good, until his soul is bereft (12)—the deepest wound in the psalm.
  • The evil is sharp because the good was real. When they were sick, David mourned for them—sackcloth, fasting, prayer, bowed down as though grieving a friend, a brother, his own mother (13-14).
  • It is as though the Good Samaritan himself fell among thieves, only to find the man he once bandaged now his chief tormentor.
• At his stumbling—his calamity, not his sin—they rejoice and gather as a mob (15).
• Like profane mockers at a feast, they gnash their teeth at him (16)—the very thing they will one day do to Stephen (Acts 7:54).
  • Hostility is rarely solitary—it snowballs.

The Request: Lord, rescue me.

• David cries, “How long, O Lord, will you look on?” (17)—the honest question of the sufferer.
  • The glorified martyrs pray the very same words: “O Sovereign Lord… how long before you will judge?” (Revelation 6:10).
• He asks to be rescued from their destruction—Save my precious life—my one and only life—from the lions (17).
  • Example: Ahithophel, David’s most trusted counselor, who sided with Absalom’s rebellion (2 Sam 15–17; and Ps 41:9, “who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me”).
  • Example: The marriage register—“I have loved him for twelve years… and now he tells me he ‘doesn’t feel the same.'”

The Hope: Let me sing a song in the assembly.

• He turns the corner from complaint to praise: “I will thank you in the great congregation; in the mighty throng I will praise you” (18).
• He recalled the congregation—not everyone was against him!
  • Example: Elijah (1 Ki. 19:18, 7K had not bowed).

The Gospel: You were betrayed without cause. You were rescued from the lion’s mouth. We will sing of you in the great congregation forever!

• After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9–10)

Taunted Without Cause → The Hope of an Eternal Song (35:19–28)

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.

The Pain: I’m being taunted without cause.

• His wrongful foes rejoice over him and wink the eye—they hate him, again, without cause (19).
• They will not speak peace (20). Against the quiet in the land—the unassuming faithful—they devise words of deceit (20).
• They open wide their mouths and taunt: “Aha, Aha! Our eyes have seen it!” (21)—manufacturing a reality out of a lie.

The Request: Lord, vindicate me.

• The pivot of the whole psalm: over against their “our eyes have seen it,” David answers, “You have seen, O LORD; be not silent!” (22).
  • Their false testimony is overturned not by David’s protests but by the Judge’s own eyewitness. The Lord is the only truly reliable witness.
  • Example: Hagar, who named the Lord “a God of seeing” at the well of “the Living One who sees me” (Gen 16)
• He prays boldly: “Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication… Vindicate me, O LORD, my God, according to your righteousness” (23-24).
• He asks that their gloating be silenced—no “Aha,” no “We have swallowed him up” (25)—and that those who rejoice at his calamity be clothed with shame (26).

The Hope: Let me sing a never ending song.

• David widens the circle: “Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad” (27)—a collective song.
• Their cry is God-centered: “Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare of his servant!” (27). The point of his vindication is the magnifying of God’s name.
• And it never stops: “my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long“ (28).
  • Psalm 34 and 35 close the same way.
    • Psalm 34 begins, “I will bless the LORD at all times”; Psalm 35 ends, “all the day long.”
    • The two songs bracket each other—continual, unending praise.

The Gospel: You were taunted without cause. You were vindicated by the all-seeing Judge. And we will sing forever because of you!

• 13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Revelation 5:13)

Conclusion

Jesus quoted this Psalm: But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ (John 15:25, a quote of Psalm 35:19)

• He is the only truly sinless one.
• He was attacked, betrayed, and taunted without cause.

• Because Christ submitted to the very things we dread, he received the requests we want.
  • The sinless one (a) handed himself over to the enemy’s purpose, (b) refused rescue from his men and his Father, and (c) resisted the impulse to vindicate himself.
    • All this happened under the watchful eye of the Father!
  • Because he submitted to those pains, Jesus (a) frustrated the enemy’s purpose, (b) was rescued through death in his resurrection, and (c) will be vindicated one day when everyone bows to his name.
• And now we find the fulfillment of our requests in him!
  • So we have great hope and can sing the personal song, the congregational song, and the eternal song—today!

Study Questions

Head

1. According to the psalm’s own repeated language, what does “without cause” mean, and where does it appear across all three laments?
2. How does the psalm structure each lament the same way—pain, request, hope—and how does David’s plea in verse 3 (“Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation!'”) anticipate the hope that follows each complaint?

Heart

1. When have you felt attacked, betrayed, or mocked for no fault of your own? What did that pain stir in you—anger, despair, a desire for revenge?
2. Reading David’s honest cry, “How long, O Lord, will you look on?” (Ps. 35:17), what do you feel toward a God who sees suffering and yet seems to delay? How does knowing Jesus was hated “without a cause” (John 15:25) change that feeling?

Hands

1. Romans 12:19 and 1 Peter 2:23 both call believers to entrust vengeance to God rather than take it themselves. Is there a person or situation where you’re currently holding onto the right to “get even”? What would it look like this week to hand that over to the Lord instead?
2. David moves from private lament to public praise (“I will thank you in the great congregation,” Ps. 35:18). Who in your life is carrying uncaused pain right now, and how could you help them take one step toward hope or worship rather than isolation?