Psalms 35:26

Psa 35:26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify [themselves] against me.

Ver. 26. Let them be ashamed, &c.] They shall so; and this prayer against the Church’s enemies shall still speak effectually.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

26. (Psa 35:26) Let them be ashamed and blush together—the rejoicers in my evil; let them put on shame and contempt the (men) magnifying against me (their words, or their deeds, or themselves)! The relative construction, who rejoice in my hurt, who magnify against me, gives the sense, but in an English rather than a Hebrew form.—Ashamed, disappointed and defeated. See above, on Psa 35:4.—Blush, be confused or confounded.—My evil, i.e. evil fortune, injury, including the idea of injustice, as the antithetical term in Psa 35:27 is righteousness or justification.—Put on, as a dress, and wear it, or be covered with it. See below, on Psa 109:18 (17), and compare Job 8:24.—Contempt, disgrace, ignominy.—Making great, etc., their mouth or words, i.e. speaking proudly, Oba 1:12, Eze 35:13; or still more probably and agreeably to usage, acting proudly, as in Psa 55:13 (12), and elsewhere. The complete expression may be that used in Joe 2:20.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

35:26-28 The psalmist calls on the Lord to judge the wicked and to rescue the godly and bring them joy.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

That is, at once, were they never so many or mighty.

This prayer shall always be verified against them that persecute the faithful.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

clothed--covered wholly (Job 8:22).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 26. Let them be ashamed] This may be a prophetic declaration against Saul and his courtiers. They were ashamed, confounded, clothed with shame, and dishonoured. All these took place in Saul's last battle with the Philistines, where he lost his crown and his life, and came to a most dishonourable end.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

26. Let those who rejoice at thy hurt be ashamed and confounded together. This imprecation has already been expounded; and it is only necessary to remark, that there is peculiar force in the expression, together, or at once. It shows that it was not only one or two, but a great multitude, who waged war against him, and that he yielded not to the influence of fear, but believed that as soon as God should lift up his hand, he could at one stroke easily overthrow them all. When it is said that they seek after and rejoice in David’s hurt, this shows that they were filled with cruel hatred against him. And when it is said, that they magnify themselves against him, this is a token of pride. David, therefore, in order to render them more hateful in the sight of God, represents them as filled with pride and cruelty. And as this form of prayer was dictated by the Holy Spirit to David, there can be no doubt that the end of all the proud shall be such as is here predicted, that they shall turn back overwhelmed with shame and disgrace.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

26. A repetition of Psa_35:4, with some variations, occurring again in Psa_40:14.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together,.... In a body, as one man; as they gathered together against him, Psa 35:15; so he entreats they might together be brought to shame and confusion, they not being able to execute their designs; their schemes being broken, their counsels defeated, and they exposed to contempt;

that rejoice at mine hurt; the same with his adversity, or halting, Psa 35:15;

let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me; let them be covered with it, as a man is with a garment; who magnified themselves, opened their mouths in great swelling words of vanity against him, vaunted and bragged over him, as in their power, and at their will.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Let them be ashamed ... - See the notes at Psa 35:4.

That magnify themselves against me - Who seek to exalt themselves over me; to make themselves great by humbling and destroying me. They hope to rise on my ruin.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

As they gathered themselves together to deride and oppose me, so do thou gather them together to destroy them. Or, in like manner, one as well as another; let the proud and great ones of them be disappointed and ashamed as well as the meanest among them.

Themselves; the same ellipsis we have Psa 38:16; 55:12; Jer 48:26. Or, their mouth, as it is expressed, Oba 1:12. So Eze 35:13. That extol themselves and their power, and look upon me with scorn and contempt.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Verse 26. Here is the eternal result of all the laborious and crafty devices of the Lord's enemies. God will make little of them, though they ["magnified themselves;"] he will shame them for shaming his people, bring them to confusion for making confusion, pull off their fine apparel and give them a beggardly suit of dishonour, and turn all their rejoicing into weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Truly, the saints can afford to wait.

[Verses] 4 - 8, 26. How are we to account for such prayers for vengeance? We find them chiefly in four Psalms, the seventh, thirty-fifth, sixty-ninth, and one-hundred and ninth, and the imprecations in these form a terrible climax. In the last no less than thirty anathemas have been counted. Are these the mere outbursts of passionate and unsanctified feeling, or are they the legitimate expression of a righteous indignation? Are they to be excused as being animated by the "spirit of Elias"? a spirit not unholy indeed, but far removed from the meekness and gentleness of Christ; or are they the stereotyped forms in which the spirit of devotion may utter itself? Are they Jewish only, or may they be Christian also? An uninstructed fastidiousness, as it is well known, has made many persons recoil from reading these Psalms at all. Many have found their lips falter when they have been called to join in using them in the congregation, and have either uttered them with bated breath and doubting heart, or have interpreted them in a sense widely at variance with the letter. Some have tried to reconcile them with a more enlightened conscience, by regarding such words not as the expression of a wish, but as the utterance of a prediction; but the Hebrew optative which is distinct enough from the simple future, absolutely forbids this expedient. Others again would see in them expressions which may lawfully be used in the soul's wrestling against spiritual enemies. And finally, some would defend them as utterances of righteous zeal for God's honour, and remind us that if we do not sympathise with such zeal, it may be not because our religion is more pure, but because our hearts are colder.

Now the real source of the difficulty lies in our not observing and bearing in mind the essential difference between the Old Testament and the New. The older dispensation was in every sense a sterner one than the new. The spirit of Elias, though not an evil spirit, was not the spirit of Christ. "The Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Luke 9:56. And through him his disciples are made partakers of the same spirit. But this was not the spirit of the older economy. The Jewish nation had been trained in a sterner school. It had been steeled and hardened by the discipline which had pledged it to a war of extermination with idolaters; and however necessary such a discipline might be, it would not tend to foster the gentler virtues; it is conceivable how even a righteous man, under it, feeling it to be his bounden duty to root out evil wherever he saw it, and identifying, as he did, his own enemies with the enemies of Jehovah, might use language which to us appears unnecessarily vindictive. To men so trained and taught, what we call "religious toleration," was a thing not only wrong, but absolutely inconceivable.

It may be quite true that we find revenge forbidden as directly in the Old Testament as in the New, as, for instance, in Leviticus 19:18, "Thou shalt not avenge," etc., though even there is a limitation, "against the children of thy people." And it may be no less true that we find instances of imprecation in the New; as when St. Paul says (2 Timothy 4:14), "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works," or when he exclaims (Acts 23:3), "God will smite thee, thou whited wall;" or, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema." But even these expressions are very different from the varied, deliberate, carefully constructed, detailed anathemas of the Psalms. And our Lord's denunciations, to which Hengstenberg refers, are in no way parallel. They are not curses upon individuals, but in fact solemn utterances of the great truth, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." But after all, whatever may be said of particular passages, the general tone which runs through the two covenants, is unquestionably different. To deny this is not to honour Moses, but to dishonour Christ. Matthew 5:43; 19:8. On the other hand, we must not forget that these imprecations are not the passionate longings for personal revenge. The singer undoubtedly sees in his enemies the enemies of God and his church. They that are not with him are against God. And because the zeal of God's house even consumes him, he prays that all the doers of iniquity may be rooted out. The indignation therefore is righteous, though it may appear to us wrongly directed, or excessive in its utterance.

Once more, the very fact that a dark cloud hid God's judgment in the world to come from the view of the Old Testament saints, may be alleged in excuse of this their desire to see him take vengeance on his enemies here. How deeply this problem of God's righteousness exercised their minds is abundantly evident from numerous places in the Psalms. They longed to see that righteousness manifested. It could be manifested, they thought, only in the evident exaltation of the righteous, and the evident destruction of the wicked here. Hence, with their eye always fixed on temporal recompense, they could even wish and pray for the destruction of the ungodly. The awful things of the world to come were to a great extent hid from their eyes. Could they have seen these, then surely their prayer would have been not, "Let the angel of the Lord persecute them," "Blot them out of thy book;" but rather with him who hung upon the cross; "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." [J. J. Stewart Perowne.]

[Verses] 4, 8, 26. David was about as devoid of vindictiveness as any public character who can well be named. His conduct in relation to Saul, from first to last displayed a singularly noble spirit, far removed from anything like the lust of vengeance; and the meekness with which he endured the bitter reproaches of Shimei, bore witness to the same spirit after his accession to the throne. . . . .

When David's whole career is intelligently and fairly reviewed, it leaves on the mind the impression of a man possessed of as meek and placable a temper as was ever associated with so great strength of will, and such strong passions. Even in the heats of sudden resentment, he was not apt to be hurried into deeds of revenge. Such being the case, it would certainly have been a strange and unaccountable thing if he had shown himself less the master of his own spirit in poems composed in seasons of retirement and communion with God, especially since these very poems express a keen sense of the heinousness of the sin that has been laid to his charge. He can affirm regarding his implacable enemies, "As for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother." Psalm 35:13, 14. "O Lord, my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy): let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth." Psalm 7:3 - 5. Surely one ought to think twice before putting on the imprecations an interpretation which would make them utterly incongruous with these appeals, uttered almost in the same breath. [William Binnie, D.D.]

[Verse] 26. The convict dress of the wicked - ["clothed with shame,"] etc.

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

26. Let them be ashamed—In this and the connecting verses of the strophe is given the moral sense of all the imprecations in Psa_35:4-8

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me (comp. ver. 4, of which this is an enlargement, with variations, the sentiment being exactly the same). Very similar maledictions will be found in Psa_40:14 Psa_70:2 Psa_71:13 Psa_109:29.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.