Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 35

Plead my cause. —Better, Strive, O Jehovah, with those who strive with me. The construction requires this, and the parallelism suggests recourse to arms rather than to the law.

Fight. —Literally, devour. (Compare to Numbers 24:8.

“He shall eat up the nations.” So a Latin author—
“Qua medius pugnæ vorat agmina vortex.”

SILIUS: Punic, 4:230.

Compare to Shakespeare—

“If the wars do not eat us up.”—Coriolanus, Acts 1, Scene 1)

Shield and buckler. —Better, buckler and shield, as the first (Hebrew, magen) suggests a small shield, the latter (tsinnah) a large shield covering the whole body. Greek, θυρεός (see Note, Psalms 5:12). Notice that the poet, in the intensity of his purpose, overlooks the anomaly of arming a warrior with two shields at once. The bold flight of imagination that could picture the Divine Being as a warrior, a picture common in Hebrew poetry, but here more vividly realized than anywhere else except Isaiah 63:1, may well excuse such a lapse.

Draw out also the spear — that is, from the sheath, which seems to have been used to guard its point. So δουροδόκη (Homer, Odyssey, i. 128).

Stop the way. — So say the Septuagint, Vulgate, and all ancient versions. Many modern scholars, however, are inclined to treat the word segor not as the imperative of a verb, but as a noun. They consider it equivalent to the Greek σάγαρις and the Latin securis, a Persian and Scythian weapon mentioned by Herodotus (i. 215, iv. 70) and Xenophon (Anabasis, iv. 4, 16). This weapon is generally thought to be a battle-axe, although some interpret it as a short curved sword or a scimitar. It is identified by Sir Henry Rawlinson with the khanjar of modern Persia, “a short curved double-edged dagger, almost universally worn.” The Bedouins of modern Egypt also use a schagur.

Adopting this rendering creates an excellent parallelism, and suits the word translated “against,” which actually means “to meet,” and suggests an attack rather than a merely passive defensive posture.

Confounded. — Compare to Psalm 35:26.

As chaff. —Compare Psalm 1:4, and see Note. There can be little doubt that the “angel of Jehovah” in this and the following verse is a personification of the “hurricane” itself, which drives before it all obstacles, and overwhelms even whole armies in dangerous places.