Big Idea: Rather than taking vengeance for injustice into our own hands, we can pray that its perpetrators will become victims of their own contrivances.

Understanding the Text

Psalm 35, the first of the imprecatory psalms, deals with the issue of divine justice in a bare-bones way. In one sense, it is an individual lament (Craigie), but in its total effect, it is more a prayer for deliverance (Wilson). The form critics, seeking the cultural context for such prayers, are inclined to view the psalm as a royal or national lament,[1] and based on verses 20 and 27, the speaker is assumed to be the king.

This psalm belongs among the imprecations (“curses”) of the Psalter, and is one of the three psalms designated as the imprecatory psalms (Pss. 35; 69; 109),[2] although they do not hold excl…