Psalms 35:12

12 ¹They repay me evil for good; my soul is bereft.^[a]

Psalms 35:12 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 35:12

They rewarded me evil for good
For the good David did in killing Goliath, and slaying his ten thousands of the Philistines, and thereby saving his king and country, Saul and his courtiers envied him, and sought to slay him: so our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the good he did to the Jews, by healing their bodies of diseases, and preaching the Gospel to them for the benefit of their souls, was rewarded with reproaches and persecutions, and at last with the shameful death of the cross; and in like manner are his people used; but this is an evil that shall not go unpunished; see ( Proverbs 17:13 ) . It is added,

[to] the spoiling of my soul;
or "to the bereaving of it" ^F20; causing it to be fatherless; that is, to the bereaving it of its joy, peace, and comfort; so fatherless is put for comfortless, ( John 14:18 ) ; or to the taking away of his soul, which being separated from the body, its companion is left alone, as one that is fatherless.

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 (lwkv) "orbitatem", Montanus, Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth.

Psalms 35:12 In-Context

10 All my bones shall say, "O LORD, who is like you, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him?"

11 Malicious witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know.

12 They repay me evil for good; my soul is bereft.

13 But I, when they were sick-- I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest.

14 I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother; as one who laments his mother, I bowed down in mourning.

Cross References

• 1. Psalms 38:20; Psalms 109:4; Jeremiah 18:20; [John 10:32]

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew it is bereavement to my soul