Psalm 35

Introduction and Personal Context

“Welcome to Torah Today Ministries, our continuing series, Tehillim Talks, our studies in the Psalms. And in this episode, we’re going to be looking at Psalm 35. This teaching is going to be a little unusual because there’s a bit of personal history attached to this psalm.You know, I had just finished recording Psalm 34, and on Shabbat morning of October 7th, I, before going to services, to our Torah service at Beth Tekkun, I thought, I’m going to start reading Psalm 35. And I started studying Psalm 35 and then heard the news about Hamas’ attack, a bloody attack against innocent people in Israel. And well over a thousand, around 1,400 innocent lives were lost.

And people were taken hostage. And it’s just a horrible, horrible thing. And as I record this now, a couple of weeks later, we’re waiting for the ground troops to begin to go into Gaza and wage war on the ground.

And the reason this Psalm is so closely attached to that is because this Psalm is all about warfare. It’s actually a continuation of Psalm 34, but in this Psalm, Hamas is mentioned by name. I’m not making this up. It’s quite amazing.

So I was tempted to just read through the entire Psalm first because that morning at our Torah service, our cantor used Psalm 35 to open the morning prayers. And it’s a Psalm of victory for God’s people, for the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It’s a Psalm that God would defeat their enemies. It’s a Psalm that prays for God to be glorified and that the victory and the glory for that victory would all go to God.

But instead of just reading straight through the Psalm, we’ll still take it in chunks. But this is a Psalm, along with Psalm 34, that you might use as you pray during these days of warfare in Israel. Psalm 34 and Psalm 35 both mention the angel of Adonai and praying for the angel of Adonai to come and to give victory. So, there are a number of similarities, and I’ll leave it to you to discover more similarities between these two Psalms.”

Shield, Buckler, and the Angel of Adonai (Psalm 35:1–6)

“But let’s just get right into it. We’re gonna look at the first six verses.

‘Contend, Adonai, with those who contend with me;
Wage war against those who wage war with me.
Take hold of shield and buckler, and rise up for my help.
Arm Yourself with a spear, and bar the way before my pursuers.
Say to my soul, “I am your Yeshua.”’

And that word there, Yeshua, is the word we translate as ‘salvation.’

‘Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life.
Let those be turned back and abased who devise evil against me.
Let them be like chaff before the wind,
With the angel of Adonai driving them on.
Let their way be dark and slippery,
With the angel of Adonai pursuing them.’
(Psalm 35:1–6)

A couple things to point out here is ‘shield and buckler.’ What is the difference between a shield and a buckler? These are both kinds of shields.

But the word translated ‘shield’ is the word magen or magēn. And it comes from a word ganan, which means to completely surround. So the magen was a large shield that covered the body. And as Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch says, this is a shield to protect the soldier from missiles. Now, he wrote that back in 1882. There were no missiles back then. But by missiles, he meant things like arrows and rocks and spears. And this shield covered the body. So those things coming in from the air would be blocked by this large shield.

And then I think of the Iron Dome that Israel has to protect the country from the missiles, the literal missiles that are coming in.

But a buckler is a smaller kind of shield, and it’s used for hand-to-hand combat. So when you’re in hand-to-hand with a sword, you can take a swipe at the guy with your sword, and he swings it, you can hold up that shield to block that sword.

So the shield is big, the buckler is small.

And then it says here that ‘let them be like chaff.’ Chaff is something that’s empty and hollow. And it’s like hollow them out, because there’s nothing in their core of substance that can really drive them on. In Psalm 1, we find this word ‘chaff’ used for the first time in the Psalms. And it talks about how the wicked is like the chaff that’s just driven away by the wind. So ‘let them be like chaff,’ something that’s emptied out.

And then when it says here in verse 6, ‘let their way be dark and slippery,’ that word ‘slippery’ is the word halakhlakhot. Halakhlakhot — there you see it. Halakhlakhot — and it’s the word for ‘slippery,’ but you need to know something. In Hebrew, this is also the word for ‘flattery.’ And you find it a couple of times in Daniel and in other places in the Scriptures.

So the thing that makes flattery so dangerous is it can make a person’s stance very slippery. When someone starts to flatter you, you can begin to slide down into a place you shouldn’t be, and you can fall into a pit. Flattery is a very dangerous thing.

Praise can be very healthy and good, but flattery sounds like praise, but the purpose for flattery is to manipulate the one you’re flattering, to make their feet slippery, their way slippery, so they slide into your plot, and the ploy you have for them.”

“Without Cause” – Chinam and Shoah (Psalm 35:7–10)

“Verses seven through ten:

‘For without cause they hid their net for me;
Without cause they dug a pit for my soul.
Let destruction come upon him unawares,
And let the net which he hid catch himself;
Into that very destruction let him fall.
And my soul shall rejoice in Adonai;
It shall exult in His Yeshua.
All my bones will say,
“Adonai, who is like You,
Who delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him,
And the afflicted and the needy from him who robs him?”’
(Psalm 35:7–10)

For ‘without cause’ — now that phrase ‘without cause’ is found three times in this psalm. Two times here in this verse, and then again later on, I think verse 17 or 19. And in Hebrew, it’s one word, it’s the word chinam. We’ll look at that in just a moment.

‘For chinam, without cause, there was no cause. They hid their net for me. Chinam, without cause, they dug a pit for my soul.’

It’s interesting, when you inquire of Hamas, ‘What’s the reason for your fight?’ They don’t have one. They just hate Israel. They want it to be destroyed.

It’s interesting that the Arab nations never really cared anything about what is now the land of Israel until the Jews settled there. And once the Jews came, suddenly the surrounding Arab nations all want it. And they’re determined to destroy it. They want to destroy the Jews. But the thing is, where do the Jews go? This is their land. There is no place else for them to go. This is their homeland, their ancient homeland.

And the fact that they’re there, just the fact that they’re there, it stirs up so much hatred in their Arab neighbors, their Arabic-speaking neighbors, that all they want to do is destroy them.

There’s no real reason. In fact, Israel, its existence has elevated that entire area of the Middle East. So many new inventions, so many different fruits and food, fresh water, and so many blessings flow out of this little tiny land that brings blessing to all the lands around them.

And yet, they are hated chinam — without a cause.

And then in verse 8, it says,

‘Let destruction come upon him unawares;
Let the net which he hid catch himself;
Into that very destruction let him fall.’
(Psalm 35:8)

So we find the word chinam twice, and we find the word ‘destruction’ twice. And the first chinam matches with the first use of ‘destruction,’ and the second aligns with the second. You can take a look at this later, and you’ll see what I mean.

Verse 9:

‘And my soul shall rejoice in Adonai;
It shall exult in His Yeshua.’
(Psalm 35:9)

There’s the same word again.

‘All my bones will say…’

Now, something about bones: when you see the word ‘bones’ in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Hebrew word for ‘bones’ and the Hebrew word for ‘essence’ are the same word. And so, when it’s talking about his bones, it’s talking about the very essence of himself.

‘May all my bones say, “Adonai, who is like You who delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him, and the afflicted and the needy from him who robs him?”’
(Psalm 35:10)

Now, that word chinam comes from the word chen. The first two letters of chinam, chen, is the word that means ‘grace.’ So, chinam means gratuitously, graciously, to give it freely without cost. So, we’re told that Messiah has loved us gratuitously, freely. He’s loved us even though there was no cause in ourselves that would stir up love for us. He just loves us gratuitously.

And yet, here David’s talking about how ‘they have hated me gratuitously.’ They’ve hated me freely. They’ve hated me abundantly. They’ve hated me without any cause whatsoever to deserve that kind of hate.

And that word for ‘destruction’ that we saw twice is the word Shoah. And you may recognize that word Shoah because each year we observe Yom HaShoah, which is Holocaust Memorial Day, because the word Shoah, which means destruction or calamity, is the word that’s translated ‘Holocaust.’”

Witnesses of Violence – Hamas (Psalm 35:11–16)

“And then we come to verse 11. I told you that the word Hamas is found here in the psalm. Well, this is where it’s found.

‘Violent witnesses rise up;
They ask me of things that I do not know.’
(Psalm 35:11)

Now, it would be a better translation to say ‘witnesses of violence,’ because the word that’s used here is actually a noun and not an adjective as it appears in the English. But it’s edei hamas — witnesses of violence. In other words, they are people who are stirred by violence. Everything they want to do is to bring violence. And the Hebrew word for ‘violence’ is hamas.

You find the word hamas, which is the same name as the terrorist organization that attacked Israel — that word is found for the first time back in Genesis, and it was the reason for the flood. Back in Genesis, in chapter 6, verses 11 and 13, this is what it says:

‘Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God,
And the earth was filled with hamas [violence].
And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with hamas because of them; and behold, I am about to ruin them with the earth.”’
(Genesis 6:11, 13)

Maybe. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidence. But the day that the attack of Hamas against Israel was the day that I began to study this psalm. And in this psalm, we find the word hamas. Maybe a coincidence, if you believe in coincidence, but I don’t.”

“Verses 13 to 16:

‘But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth;
I humbled my soul with fasting,
And my prayer kept returning to my bosom.
I went about as though it were my friend or brother;
I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother.
But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves together;
The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me;
They slandered me without ceasing.
Like godless jesters at a feast,
They gnashed at me with their teeth.’
(Psalm 35:13–16)

But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer kept returning to my bosom. In other words, he’s saying: when they were hurting, when they were down and out, I took action. It affected me.

And we’ve seen over and over and over again how, when Palestinians are suffering, the Jews will come to their aid and to their assistance. And I’ve read stories and accounts over and over again where, when a Palestinian — a terrorist, a Hamas member — is wounded in action, maybe by one of his own bombs, and they’ll take him into an Israeli hospital, and this victim needs blood, and they go to give a blood transfusion, and he refuses blood transfusions. He says, ‘I won’t take any Jewish blood.’ So they’ll actually go out — I mean, I guess I’m hard-hearted, I would just let him die — but they’re more kind and soft-hearted than I am. They will go out and find another Palestinian to give blood so they can give a Palestinian blood transfusion to this Palestinian victim.

It’s the approach of the Palestinians and Hamas towards the Jews and of the Jews towards Palestinians. It’s night and day. It’s complete opposites. One is driven by hatred without a cause. The other one is driven by kindness because they follow the Torah, which says that you should love your neighbor as yourself. That you should do good to your enemies.

And they each follow their religion. They follow their core beliefs, and their core beliefs are completely, totally opposed to one another.”

Prayer Returning to the Bosom (Psalm 35:13–16)

“But what does this mean: ‘I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer kept returning to my bosom,’ or ‘my prayer returned to my bosom’? It could also be ‘may my prayer return to my bosom.’

What that means is a couple of things. It’s saying: I am praying for them exactly the way I pray for myself. I would want people to pray for me in their situation.

Another thing could be that as I prayed for them to be blessed, I was blessed in return. When I pray for my enemies, I find blessing. And you could say, I want my prayer to return to my heart because I want to pray for them the way I wish people would pray for me.

‘I went about as though my brother, my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning as one whose sorrow is for a mother. But at my stumbling, they rejoiced and gathered themselves together. The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me. They slandered me without ceasing. Like godless jesters at a feast, they gnashed at me with their teeth.’

Gnashing of teeth — whenever you see that in the Scriptures, it’s not pain, it’s anger. Whenever you read about ‘gnashing of teeth,’ it does not refer to pain; it refers to anger.”

False Enemies and Lies Against the Quiet in the Land (Psalm 35:17–21)

“Verse 17:

‘Adonai, how long will You look on?
Rescue my soul from their ravages,
My only life from the lions.
I will give You thanks in the great congregation;
I will praise You among a mighty throng.
Do not let those who are wrongfully my enemies rejoice over me;
Neither let those who hate me without cause wink maliciously.
For they do not speak peace,
But they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.
They opened their mouth wide against me;
They said, “Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it!”’
(Psalm 35:17–21)

‘I will give You thanks in the great…’ and the word ‘congregation’ there is the word kahal. It’s the Hebrew word that equals the word ekklesia, which is the Greek word we translate, for whatever reason, translate as ‘church.’

‘I will praise You among a mighty throng.

Do not let my false enemies rejoice over me.’

Now, why does David call these people his false enemies? It’s because there’s no grounds for them to be enemies. I do good to them, they treat me like an enemy. I provide for them, they treat me like an enemy. I’ve done nothing to them, they treat me like an enemy. They’re false enemies. There’s no grounds for their animosity towards me.

‘Neither let those who hate me’ — there’s that word chinam again — ‘hate me without cause, wink maliciously. For what they speak is not peace. But they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.’

The Jews just want to live quietly in their homeland.

‘But there are those who hate them without a cause.’

And I know we hear Palestinians say that ‘we want a two-state system.’ The thing is, it was offered to them, and they rejected it. They say they want this or they want that, and it’s given to them, and they reject it.

We’re told by the lies in the media that Israel drove the Palestinians out of the land. They did no such thing. In fact, Jewish people, settlers there, invited the Palestinians to stay, to be friends. But the other Arab nations told the Palestinians, ‘Get out because our armies are going to invade and destroy the Jews. And when we destroy them, you can move back into your homes.’

Well, the war didn’t quite turn out the way it was predicted. It turns out the ones who attacked Israel lost the war. And then the Palestinians found themselves without a home.

But don’t let anyone tell you they were driven out of their land. That is utterly and completely false. It’s historically false.

And I think most of the people who spread that lie know it’s a lie. And they’re doing exactly what David describes here: ‘For what they speak is not peace, but they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.

And they opened their mouth wide against me. They said, “Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it.”’

You know, I have found so many times when people make up a lie in their mind and they choose to believe a lie, what they see — even though it’s not there — they see in their imaginations a manifestation and fulfillment of the lie that they believe.

You know, we really don’t believe what we see; we see what we believe. It’s important we believe the truth. If we believe the truth, we will see things in reality, because truth and reality are the same thing. But when we believe lies, we will see manifestations and proofs of those lies around us. We must choose to believe truth at all cost.”

Prayer for Vindication and God’s Servant (Psalm 35:22–28)

“Verses 22 to 28:

‘You have seen this, Adonai, do not keep silent;
O Adonai, do not be far from me.
Stir up Yourself, and awake to my right
And to my cause, my God and my Lord.
Judge me, Adonai my God, according to Your righteousness,
And do not let them rejoice over me.
Do not let them say in their heart, “Aha, our desire!”
Do not let them say, “We have swallowed him up!”
Let those be ashamed and humiliated altogether who rejoice at my distress;
Let those be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves over me.
Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favor my vindication;
And let them say continually, “Adonai be magnified,
Who delights in the prosperity of His servant.”
And my tongue shall declare Your righteousness
And Your praise all day long.’
(Psalm 35:22–28)

‘Do not let them say in their heart, “Aha, our desire, we’re gonna get what we want. Do not let them say, “We have swallowed him up.”

‘Let those be ashamed and abased altogether, who rejoice at my distress. Let those be clothed with shame and dishonor, who magnify themselves over me.’

And then the closing of the Psalm, verses 27, 28:

‘Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favor my vindication. And let them say continually, “Adonai be magnified, who delights in the prosperity of His servant.”’

And who is His servant? Well, David’s writing this from his own personal experience, and he was God’s servant. But in Isaiah, the nation of Israel, God refers to as ‘My servant.’

‘And my tongue shall declare Your righteousness and Your praise all day long.’”

Sinat Chinam – Hatred Without a Cause, the Temples, and Yeshua

“I want to close with this picture. This picture most all of you will recognize. This is a picture either I took it or one of the guys I was with took it when we were up on the Temple Mount. And you see the Dome of the Rock. This golden domed mosque sits directly on top of where the Holy of Holies was in the Temple. Herod’s Temple stood here. And the Dome of the Rock is over the rock, which was the threshing floor that David purchased upon which to build the Temple. And it was the location, the place, where the Holy of Holies stood.

And in the back, you see another dome, a gray dome, that’s to the south. This is looking south. That’s the Al Aqsa Mosque. It’s also right there on top of the Temple Mount.

Now, we looked at this word chinam, which means ‘graciously,’ ‘gratuitously,’ or ‘freely,’ and ‘without cause,’ ‘without earning.’ And in Psalm 69:4, there’s another use of this word. It says:

‘More in number than the hairs of my head
Are those who hate me chinam, without cause;
Mighty are those who would destroy me,
Those who attack me with lies.
What I did not steal must I now restore?’
(Psalm 69:4)

And that verse, that ‘they hated me without a cause,’ is quoted in John 15:25. When Messiah was crucified, John writes:

‘But the word that is written in their Torah must be fulfilled:
“They hated Me without a cause.”’
(John 15:25)

‘They hated Me without a cause.’

Hatred without a cause is sinat chinam — gratuitous hatred.

Now what I find very interesting, and the reason I’m showing you this picture, is in the Talmud the question is asked: Why was Solomon’s Temple destroyed? And then hundreds of years later, the second Temple — we call it Herod’s Temple, the Temple that Yeshua visited — why was that Temple destroyed? And you find this discussion in Tractate Yoma, around page 9.

And there they say that Solomon’s Temple was destroyed because of idolatry, sexual sin and bloodshed. And then they ask, ‘Well, why was the second Temple destroyed, Herod’s Temple?’ And here’s the reason they give. I’ll read it for you verbatim:

‘Why was the second Temple destroyed? … It was destroyed due to sinat chinam, hatred without a cause, during that period.’

This comes to teach you that the sin of sinat chinam, hatred without a cause, is equivalent to the three severe transgressions — idol worship, forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed — the sins that were the cause of the first Temple’s destruction.

Yeshua was hated without a cause. There was no reason to hate Him. There was every reason to love Him. He went about doing good. He loved His enemies. He blessed His persecutors. He brought healing. He brought wisdom. He brought wise teaching. Everywhere He went, it was the living out of God’s mind and character itself. It was the living out of the Torah itself, and everything He said and did, it was beautiful. It was wonderful. It was perfect.

But He was hated without a cause.

And because of that, according to the Talmud — though they don’t say it’s hatred of Yeshua without a cause, they say it was just general hatred without a cause — but regardless, it is because of sinat chinam, hatred without a cause, that the Temple, according to the Talmud — Herod’s Temple, the Temple that stood in Yeshua’s day — it was destroyed.

The destruction of Solomon’s Temple led to an exile that lasted just a few hundred years, actually only about 70 years. But the exile because of hatred without a cause has lasted now for 2,000 years. And as you can see in the photograph, there’s still no Temple on the Temple Mount.

But what God has done is that He’s placed there — in His sovereignty, He’s seen fit for there to stand here — a building that represents a religion whose very foundation is sinat chinam, hatred without a cause.

And the Temple cannot be rebuilt on the Temple Mount while this stands there. It’s like this is a placeholder and a memorial of hatred without a cause. Until the day, I believe, when the Jewish people will say:

Baruch haba b’shem Adonai — ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of Adonai.’

It’s almost like God is waiting for the people who sent Messiah away to say, ‘Please come back.’ And when they do that, He will return for sure.”

Final Warning and Blessing

“So let me close with one last verse also from Psalms. It’s one we saw back in Psalm 11, it’s verse 5:

‘Adonai tests the righteous and the wicked,
And the one who loves hamas [violence] His soul hates.’
(Psalm 11:5)

I’ll let that speak for itself.

So until next time, I wish you shalom, and may God bless, and may God bless His people Israel and grant them a swift and sure victory.”

Links

Read Psalm 35

Psalm 34 Teaching