1 Plead my cause, Jehovah, with those who plead against me;
Fight with those who fight with me.
2 Grasp target and shield,
And stand up in my help,
3 And unsheathe lance and battle-axe (?) against my pursuers;
Say to my soul, Thy salvation am I.
4 Be the seekers after my life put to shame and dishonoured;
Be the plotters of my hurt turned back and confounded
5 Be they as chaff before the wind,
And the angel of Jehovah striking them down!
6 Be their path darkness and slipperiness,
And the angel of Jehovah pursuing them!
7 For without provocation have they hidden for me their net;
Without provocation have they dug a pit for my life.
8 May destruction light on him unawares,
And his net which he hath hidden snare him;
Into destruction (the pit?)--may he fall therein!
9 And my soul shall exult in Jehovah,
Shall rejoice in His salvation.
10 All my bones shall say, Jehovah, who is like Thee,
Delivering the afflicted from a stronger than he,
Even the afflicted and poor from his spoiler?
11 Unjust witnesses rise up;
Of what I know not they ask me.
12 They requite me evil for good--
Bereavement to my soul!
13 But I--in their sickness my garment was sackcloth,
I afflicted my soul by fasting,
And my prayer--may it return again (do thou return?) to my own
bosom.
14 As [for] my friend or brother, I dragged myself about (bowed
myself down?);
As one mourning for a mother, I bowed down (dragged myself about?)
in squalid attire.
15 And at my tottering they rejoice and assemble themselves;
Abjects and those whom I know not assemble against me;
They tear me, and cease not,
16 Like the profanest of buffoons for a bit of bread,
Gnashing their teeth at me.
17 Lord, how long wilt Thou look on?
Bring back my soul from their destructions,
My only one from the young lions.
18 I will praise Thee in the great congregation;
Among people strong [in number] will I sound Thy praise.
19 Let not my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me,
Nor my haters without provocation wink the eye.
20 For it is not peace they speak,
And against the quiet of the land they plan words of guile.
21 And they open wide their mouth against me;
They say, Oho! Oho! our eyes have seen.
22 Thou hast seen, Jehovah: be not deaf;
Lord, be not far from me!
23 Arouse Thyself, and awake for my judgment,
My God and my Lord, for my suit!
24 Judge me according to Thy righteousness, Jehovah, my God,
And let them not rejoice over me.
25 Let them not say in their hearts, Oho! our desire!
Let them not say, We have swallowed him.
26 Be those who rejoice over my calamity put to shame and confounded
together!
Be those who magnify themselves against me clothed in shame and
dishonour!
27 May those who delight in my righteous cause sound out their
gladness and rejoice,
And say continually, Magnified be Jehovah,
Who delights in the peace of His servant.
28 And my tongue shall meditate Thy righteousness,
All day long Thy praise.
The psalmist's life is in danger. He is the victim of ungrateful
hatred. False accusations of crimes that he never dreamed of are
brought against him. He professes innocence, and appeals to Jehovah to
be his Advocate and also his Judge. The prayer in ver. 1 a uses the
same word and metaphor as David does in his remonstrance with Saul (1
Sam. xxiv. 15). The correspondence with David's situation in the
Sauline persecution is, at least, remarkable, and goes far to sustain
the Davidic authorship. The distinctly individual traits in the psalm
are difficulties in the way of regarding it as a national psalm.
Jeremiah has several coincidences in point of expression and
sentiment, which are more naturally accounted for as reminiscences by
the prophet than as indications that he was the psalmist. His genius
was assimilative, and liked to rest itself on earlier utterances.
The psalm has three parts, all of substantially the same import, and
marked off by the conclusion of each being a vow of praise and the
main body of each being a cry for deliverance, a characterisation of
the enemy as ungrateful and malicious, and a profession of the
singer's innocence. We do not look for melodious variations of note in
a cry for help. The only variety to be expected is in its shrill
intensity and prolongation. The triple division is in accordance with
the natural feeling of completeness attaching to the number. If there
is any difference between the three sets of petitions, it may be
observed that the first (vv. 1-10) alleges innocence and vows praise
without reference to others; that the second (vv. 11-18) rises to a
profession not only of innocence, but of beneficence and affection met
by hate, and ends with a vow of public praise; and that the final
section (vv. 19-28) has less description of the machinations of the
enemy and more prolonged appeal to Jehovah for His judgment, and ends,
not with a solo of the psalmist's gratitude, but with a chorus of his
friends, praising God for his "prosperity."
The most striking features of the first part are the boldness of the
appeal to Jehovah to fight for the psalmist and the terrible
imprecations and magnificent picture in vv. 5, 6. The relation between
the two petitions of ver. 1, "Plead with those who plead against the"
and "Fight with them that fight against me," may be variously
determined. Both may be figurative, the former drawn from legal
processes, the latter from the battle-field. But more probably the
psalmist was really the object of armed attack, and the "fighting" was
a grim reality. The suit against him was being carried on, not in a
court, but in the field. The rendering of the R.V. in ver. 1, "Strive
with ... who strive against me," obscures the metaphor of a lawsuit,
which, in view of its further expansion in vv. 23, 24 (and in
"witnesses" in ver. 11?), is best retained. That is a daring flight of
reverent imagination which thinks of the armed Jehovah as starting to
His feet to help one poor man. The attitude anticipates Stephen's
vision of "the Son of man standing," not throned in rest, but risen in
eager sympathy and intent to succour. But the panoply in which the
psalmist's faith arrays Jehovah, is purely imaginative and, of course,
has nothing parallel in the martyr's vision. The "target" was smaller
than the "shield" (2 Chron. ix. 15, 16). Both could not be wielded at
once, but the incongruity helps to idealise the bold imagery and to
emphasise the Divine completeness of protecting power. It is the
psalmist, and not his heavenly Ally, who is to be sheltered. The two
defensive weapons are probably matched by two offensive ones in ver.
3. The word rendered in the A.V. "stop" ("the way" being a supplement)
is more probably to be taken as the name of a weapon, a battle-axe
according to some, a dirk or dagger according to others. The ordinary
translation gives a satisfactory sense, but the other is more in
accordance with the following preposition, with the accents, and with
the parallelism of target and shield. In either case, how beautifully
the spiritual reality breaks through the warlike metaphor! This armed
Jehovah, grasping shield and drawing spear, utters no battle shout,
but whispers consolation to the trembling man crouching behind his
shield. The outward side of the Divine activity, turned to the foe, is
martial and menacing; the inner side is full of tender, secret
breathings of comfort and love.
The previous imagery of the battle-field and the Warrior God moulds the
terrible wishes in vv. 4-6, which should not be interpreted as having a
wider reference than to the issue of the attacks on the psalmist. The
substance of them is nothing more than the obverse of his wish for his
own deliverance, which necessarily is accomplished by the defeat of his
enemies. The "moral difficulty" of such wishes is not removed by
restricting them to the special matter in hand, but it is unduly
aggravated if they are supposed to go beyond it. However restricted,
they express a stage of feeling far beneath the Christian, and the
attempt to slur over the contrast is in danger of hiding the glory of
midday for fear of not doing justice to the beauty of morning twilight.
It is true that the "imprecations" of the Psalter are not the offspring
of passion, and that the psalmists speak as identifying their cause with
God's; but when all such considerations are taken into account, these
prayers against enemies remain distinctly inferior to the code of
Christian ethics. The more frankly the fact is recognised, the better.
But, if we turn from the moral to the poetic side of these verses, what
stern beauty there is in that awful picture of the fleeing foe, with
the angel of Jehovah pressing hard on their broken ranks! The hope which
has been embodied in the legends of many nations, that the gods were
seen fighting for their worshippers, is the psalmist's faith, and in its
essence is ever true. That angel, whom we heard of in the previous psalm
as defending the defenceless encampment of them that fear Jehovah,
fights with and scatters the enemies like chaff before the wind. One
more touch of terror is added in that picture of flight in the dark, on
a slippery path, with the celestial avenger close on the fugitives'
heels, as when the Amorite kings fled down the pass of Beth-horon, and
"Jehovah cast great stones from heaven upon them." Æschylus or Dante has
nothing more concentrated or suggestive of terror and beauty than this
picture.
The psalmist's consciousness of innocence is the ground of his prayer
and confidence. Causeless hatred is the lot of the good in this evil
world. Their goodness is cause enough; for men's likes and dislikes
follow their moral character. Virtue rebukes, and even patient endurance
irritates. No hostility is so hard to turn into love as that which has
its origin, not in the attitude of its object, but in instinctive
consciousness of contrariety in the depths of the soul. Whoever wills to
live near God and tries to shape his life accordingly may make up his
mind to be the mark for many arrows of popular dislike, sometimes
lightly tipped with ridicule, sometimes dipped in gall, sometimes
steeped in poison, but always sharpened by hostility. The experience is
too uniform to identify the poet by it, but the correspondence with
David's tone in his remonstrances with Saul is, at least, worthy of
consideration. The familiar figures of the hunter's snare and pitfall
recur here, as expressing crafty plans for destruction, and pass, as in
other places, into the wish that the lex talionis may fall on the
would-be ensnarer. The text appears to be somewhat dislocated and
corrupted in vv. 7, 8. The word "pit" is needless in ver. 7 _a_, since
snares are not usually spread in pits, and it is wanted in the next
clause, and should therefore probably be transposed. Again, the last
clause of ver. 8, whether the translation of the A.V. or of the R.V. be
adopted, is awkward and feeble from the repetition of "destruction," but
if we read "pit," which involves only a slight change of letters, we
avoid tautology, and preserve the reference to the two engines of craft:
"Let his net which he spread catch him; in the pit--let him fall
therein!" The enemy's fall is the occasion of glad praise, not because
his intended victim yields to the temptation to take malicious delight
in his calamity (_Schadenfreude_). His own deliverance, not the other's
destruction, makes the singer joyful in Jehovah, and what he vows to
celebrate is not the retributive, but the delivering, aspect of the
Divine act. In such joy there is nothing unworthy of the purest
forgiving love to foes. The relaxation of the tension of anxiety and
fear brings the sweetest moments, in the sweetness of which soul and
body seem to share, and the very bones, which were consumed and waxed
old (vi. 3, xxxii. 3), are at ease, and, in their sense of well-being,
have a tongue to ascribe it to Jehovah's delivering hand. No physical
enjoyment surpasses the delight of simple freedom from long torture of
pain, nor are there many experiences so poignantly blessed as that of
passing out of tempest into calm. Well for those who deepen and hallow
such joy by turning it into praise, and see even in the experiences of
their little lives tokens of the incomparable greatness and
unparalleled love of their delivering God!
Once more the singer plunges into the depths, not because his faith
fails to sustain him on the heights which it had won, but because it
would travel the road again, in order to strengthen itself by persistent
prayers which are not "vain repetitions." The second division (vv.
11-18) runs parallel with the first, with some differences. The
reference to "unjust witnesses" and their charges of crimes which he had
never dreamed of may be but the reappearance of the image of a lawsuit,
as in ver. 1, but is more probably fact. We may venture to think of the
slanders which poisoned Saul's too jealous mind, just as in "They
requite me evil for good" we have at least a remarkable verbal
coincidence with the latter's burst of tearful penitence (1 Sam. xxiv.
17): "Thou art more righteous than I, for thou hast rendered unto me
good, whereas I have rendered unto thee evil." What a wail breaks the
continuity of the sentence in the pathetic words of ver. 12
_b_!--"Bereavement to my soul!" The word is used again in Isa. xlviii.
7, 8, and there is translated "loss of children." The forlorn man felt
as if all whom he loved were swept away, and he left alone to face the
storm. The utter loneliness of sorrow was never more vividly expressed.
The interjected clause sounds like an agonised cry forced from a man on
the rack. Surely we hear in it not the voice of a personified nation,
but of an individual sufferer, and if we have been down into the depths
ourselves, we recognise the sound. The consciousness of innocence
marking the former section becomes now the assertion of active sympathy,
met by ungrateful hate. The power of kindness is great, but there are
ill-conditioned souls which resent it. There is too much truth in the
cynical belief that the sure way to make an enemy is to do a kindness.
It is all too common an experience that the more abundantly one loves,
the less he is loved. The highest degree of unrequited participation in
others' sorrows is seen in Him who "Himself took our sicknesses." This
psalmist so shared in those of his foes that in sackcloth and with
fasting he prayed for their healing. Whether the prayer was answered to
them or not, it brought reflex blessing to him, for self-forgetting
sympathy is never waste, even though it does not secure returns of
gratitude. "Your peace shall return to you again," though it may not
bring peace to nor with a jangling household. Riehm (in Hupfeld)
suggests the transposition of the verbs in 14 _a_ and _b_: "I _bowed
down_ as though he had been my friend or brother; I _went_ in mourning,"
etc., the former clause painting the drooping head of a mourner, the
latter his slow walk and sad attire, either squalid or black.
The reverse of this picture of true sympathy is given in the conduct
of its objects when it was the psalmist's turn to sorrow. Gleefully
they flock together to mock and triumph. His calamity was as good as a
feast to the ingrates. Vv. 15 and 16 are in parts obscure, but the
general sense is clear. The word rendered "abjects" is unique, and
consequently its meaning is doubtful, and various conjectural
emendations have been proposed--_e.g._, "foreigners," which, as
Hupfeld says, is "as foreign to the connection as can be," "smiting,"
and others--but the rendering "abjects," or men of low degree, gives
an intelligible meaning. The comparison in ver. 16 _a_ is extremely
obscure. The existing text is harsh; "profane of mockers for a cake"
needs much explanation to be intelligible. "Mockers for a cake" are
usually explained to be hangers-on at feasts who found wit for dull
guests and were paid by a share of good things, or who crept into
favour and entertainment by slandering the objects of the host's
dislike. Another explanation, suggested by Hupfeld as an alternative,
connects the word rendered "mockers" with the imagery in "tear" (ver.
15) and "gnash" (ver. 16) and "swallow" (ver. 25), and by an
alteration of one letter gets the rendering "like profane
cake-devourers," so comparing the enemies to greedy gluttons, to whom
the psalmist's ruin is a dainty morsel eagerly devoured.
The picture of his danger is followed, as in the former part, by the
psalmist's prayer. To him God's beholding without interposing is
strange, and the time seems protracted; for the moments creep when
sorrow-laden, and God's help seems slow to tortured hearts. But the
impatience which speaks of itself to Him is soothed, and, though the
man who cries, _How long?_ may feel that his life lies as among lions,
he will swiftly change his note of petition into thanksgiving. The
designation of the life as "my only one," as in xxii. 20, enhances the
earnestness of petition by the thought that, once lost, it can never
be restored. A man has but one life; therefore he holds it so dear.
The mercy implored for the single soul will be occasion of praise
before many people. Not now, as in vv. 9, 10, is the thankfulness a
private soliloquy. Individual blessings should be publicly
acknowledged, and the praise accruing thence may be used as a plea
with God, who delivers men that they may "show forth the excellencies
of Him who hath called them out of" trouble into His marvellous peace.
The third division (ver. 18 to end) goes over nearly the same ground
as before, with the difference that the prayer for deliverance is
more extended, and that the resulting praise comes from the great
congregation, joining in as chorus in the singer's solo. The former
references to innocence and causeless hatred, lies and plots,
open-mouthed rage, are repeated. "Our eyes have seen," say the
enemies, counting their plots as good as successful and snorting
contempt of their victim's helplessness; but he bethinks him of
another eye, and grandly opposes God's sight to theirs. Usually that
Jehovah sees is, in the Psalter, the same as His helping; but here, as
in ver. 17, the two things are separated, as they so often are, in
fact, for the trial of faith. God's inaction does not disprove His
knowledge, but the pleading soul presses on Him His knowledge as a
plea that He would not be deaf to its cry nor far from its help. The
greedy eyes of the enemy round the psalmist gloat on their prey; but
he cries aloud to his God, and dares to speak to Him as if He were
deaf and far off, inactive and asleep. The imagery of the lawsuit
reappears in fuller form here. "My cause" in ver. 23 is a noun cognate
with the verb rendered "plead" or "strive" in ver. 1; "Judge me" in
ver. 24 does not mean, Pronounce sentence on my character and conduct,
but, Do me right in this case of mine _versus_ my gratuitous foes.
Again recurs the prayer for their confusion, which clearly has no
wider scope than concerning the matter in hand. It is no breach of
Christian charity to pray that hostile devices may fail. The vivid
imagination of the poet hears the triumphant exclamations of gratified
hatred: "Oho! our desire!" "We have swallowed him," and sums up the
character of his enemies in the two traits of malicious joy in his
hurt and self-exaltation in their hostility to him.
At last the prayer, which has run through so many moods of feeling,
settles itself into restful contemplation of the sure results of
Jehovah's sure deliverance. One receives the blessing; many rejoice in
it. In significant antithesis to the enemies' joy is the joy of the
rescued man's lovers and favourers. Their "saying" stands over against
the silenced boastings of the losers of the suit. The latter
"magnified themselves," but the end of Jehovah's deliverance will be
that true hearts will "magnify" Him. The victor in the cause will give
all the praise to the Judge, and he and his friends will unite in
self-oblivious praise. Those who delight in his righteousness are of
one mind with Jehovah, and magnify Him because He "delights in the
peace of His servant." While they ring out their praises, the humble
suppliant, whose cry has brought the Divine act which has waked all
this surging song, "shall musingly speak in the low murmur of one
entranced by a sweet thought" (Cheyne), or, if we might use a fine old
word, shall "croon" over God's righteousness all the day long. That is
the right end of mercies received. Whether there be many voices to
join in praise or no, one voice should not be silent, that of the
receiver of the blessings, and, even when he pauses in his song, his
heart should keep singing day-long and life-long praises.