The False Witnesses and the God Who Has Seen

Each half of the line doubles its verb in Hebrew: contend with my contenders, fight my fighters. “Plead my cause” is riv, the formal verb of a lawsuit, the word the prophets use when the LORD brings a case against Israel (Micah 6:2). The psalm opens in court and on the field at once.

The magen was a small round shield carried on the arm, the tsinnah a large one that covered the whole body. No soldier carried both at once, so the pair asks for protection of every kind. “Stand up for mine help” is literally “rise as my help”.

“Stop the way” renders segor, to shut. Some scholars read it instead as the name of a weapon, a battle-axe, to pair with the spear, since the Greeks knew a similar word for an axe. Either way the pursuer finds the road closed in front of him.

Four verbs of disgrace, and “turned back” is the picture of a routed army wheeling in flight. Verse 26 returns to the same vocabulary to close the frame, and the line is reused almost word for word in Psalm 40:14 and Psalm 70:2.

Chaff is the husk winnowed off grain, as in Psalm 1:4. The angel of the LORD, who encamped round the fearful in 34:7, now drives the enemy before him; “chase” is dachah, to push or thrust down.

“Slippery” is a doubled Hebrew word, chalaqlaqqot, something like “slidderinesses”. Jeremiah 23:12 joins the same two ideas: “their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness.” “Persecute” is radaph, pursue, the verb used of the speaker’s own pursuers in verse 3: the hunters become the hunted.

The hunter’s method was a pit dug in a track and hidden under a net, so the animal fell through into both. The Hebrew order, “the pit of their net”, has led many to move “pit” into the second half: without cause they hid their net, without cause they dug a pit.

The enemies shrink to one, “him”. “At unawares” is literally “he knows it not”, and the verb returns in verses 11 and 15, where it is the speaker who does not know what is charged against him or plotted. The request is for the same blindness to fall on the plotter.

“Salvation” is yeshuah, the very word the speaker asked God to say to his soul in verse 3, “I am thy salvation”. The promised joy is the answer to that request, spoken in advance.

“LORD, who is like unto thee” is the question Israel sang beside the Red Sea (Exodus 15:11). The pairing “poor and needy”, ani and evyon, names the afflicted and the destitute, and “spoileth” means robs: the strong man in view is a thief as well as a bully.

“False witnesses” is literally “witnesses of violence”, the phrase the law uses in Exodus 23:1 and Deuteronomy 19:16, where a lying witness is to suffer the penalty he tried to bring on his neighbour. “Rise up” is the witness standing to testify.

“Spoiling of my soul” translates shekol, bereavement, the word for losing one’s children. The line “rewarded evil for good” is what Joseph’s steward charges the brothers with over the silver cup in Genesis 44:4.

Sackcloth was coarse goat’s hair, the dress of mourning. “Humbled my soul with fasting” uses the phrase of the Day of Atonement, “ye shall afflict your souls” (Leviticus 16:29): the speaker kept a day of national grief for private enemies.

“Bowed down heavily” includes the word qoder, to be dark, the grimy, unwashed look of a mourner who has stopped caring for his appearance. The scale climbs from friend to brother to mother, and a mother’s death was the grief a man would show most openly.

“Abjects” meant in 1611 the cast-off, the lowest of the low. The Hebrew nekim is obscure; it may mean smiters, or cripples, men of no account. “Did tear me” is the verb for rending a garment, and “ceased not” is literally “were not silent”.

The Hebrew is difficult and seems to say “profane mockers for a cake”: hangers-on who jest at someone’s expense for a place at the table. Gnashing the teeth is the gesture of the gloating enemy in Lamentations 2:16.

“My darling” is yechidati, my only one, from the word used of Isaac, “thine only son” (Genesis 22:2); the soul is called the only life a man has. Psalm 22:20 uses the same phrase, “my darling from the power of the dog”. The lions are the kephirim of 34:10.

“Much people” is am atsum, a mighty or numerous people. The same vow closes the lament of Psalm 22:25, “My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation”, and returns in Psalm 40:9.

“Wrongfully” is sheqer, falsely: enemies whose hostility rests on a lie. The wink is a squeeze of the eye, and Proverbs 6:13 and 10:10 both name it as the signal of a man who plans harm while his face says nothing.

“They speak not peace”: shalom, the word that will return in verse 27. “Them that are quiet in the land” is a phrase found nowhere else, people who keep to themselves and belong to no faction, the easiest targets for a slander.

“Aha, aha” is the Hebrew heach, the cry of gloating, heard again in Psalms 40:15 and 70:3 and put into Ammon’s mouth in Ezekiel 25:3 over the ruined sanctuary. The wide mouth is the mocker’s gape, a gesture of contempt.

Two divine names sit in the verse, marked by the King James capitals: LORD, the covenant name, and Lord, Adonai, master. “Be not far from me” is the cry of Psalm 22:11 and 22:19, repeated in 38:21 and 71:12.

The two words of verse 1 return: “judgment” is mishpat, the verdict, and “cause” is riv, the lawsuit. “Stir up thyself” is the language used of rousing a sleeper or a warrior, a way of asking a judge to take the bench.

“Judge me” is a defendant’s request for a verdict, vindicate me, not a plea to be spared. The second half repeats verse 19 almost exactly; the fear that enemies will rejoice is the one the speaker keeps returning to.

“Ah, so would we have it” is literally “Aha, our desire!”, the gloating cry of verse 21 again. “Swallowed him up” is the verb Proverbs 1:12 gives the robbers: “Let us swallow them up alive as the grave.”

The speaker put on sackcloth for these men in verse 13; now he asks that they put on shame and dishonour like clothing. The verbs of verse 4 return to close the frame, with “together” added: the whole gathering of verse 15 shares the disgrace.

“Prosperity” is shalom, the peace the enemies would not speak in verse 20. The same verb, chafets, describes those who “favour” the speaker’s cause and the LORD who “hath pleasure” in his servant’s welfare: the friends and God want the same thing.

“Speak” is hagah, to murmur or meditate, the verb of Psalm 1:2, “in his law doth he meditate day and night”. The enemies’ mouths were open wide all through the psalm; the last mouth is the speaker’s, and it runs “all the day long”.