Psalm 35: Plead My Cause, O LORD

"Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear… say unto my soul, I am thy salvation… Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the LORD chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery."

"False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not. They rewarded me evil for good… But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting… I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother… But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together."

"Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions… Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. For they speak not peace… Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment… And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long."

Courtroom and battlefield

"Plead my cause" (riv) is legal language; "fight against" is military. The psalm moves between the two: God as advocate in a lawsuit and as warrior in battle. False witnesses (v. 11) were a recognized danger in Israel's courts (Deuteronomy 19:16–19).

A lament in three rounds

The psalm has three cycles, each ending in a vow of praise (vv. 9–10, 18, 28): complaint, petition, promise. The structure shows how lament moves toward praise even before rescue arrives.

The heading and the versions

Hebrew: le-David alone (Vulgate "Ipsi David"). Greek and Latin number this Psalm 34.

Prayers for the enemies' ruin

Psalm 35 is one of the "imprecatory" psalms, which ask God to bring harm on enemies (also 58, 69, 109, 137). Readers have long struggled with them. Proposals: they hand vengeance to God instead of taking it (Romans 12:19); they are honest cries of the oppressed, not models for behaviour; they ask for justice against real violence. The site presents the words as they are.

"Without a cause"

John 15:25 has Jesus say "They hated me without a cause," "written in their law," quoting 35:19 or 69:4, which use the same Hebrew word (hinnam).