John Calvin Commentary Psalms 35:17

"Lord, how long wilt thou look on? Rescue my soul from their destructions, My darling from the lions." — Psalms 35:17 (ASV)

O Lord! how long will you look on? The meaning of the word that I have translated as how long, is ambiguous in Hebrew. In Latin, it signifies, How long will you see it and allow it without uttering a word? But the other interpretation is equally appropriate, namely, after seeming to take no notice of the matter for a long time, when will you at last begin to see it?

The meaning, however, is substantially the same, for David complains of God’s long forbearance, declaring that while the wicked are running to every excess, God connives at them, and delays too much to take vengeance. And although God inculcates upon the faithful the duty of quietly and patiently waiting until the time arrives when He judges it proper to help them, yet He allows them to lament in prayer the grief they experience on account of His delay.

At the same time, David shows that in speaking this way he is not carried headlong merely by the insistence of his desire, but that he is constrained to it by the extremity of his distress. For he says that they tumultuously rush upon him to take away his life, and he compares them to lions, and calls his soul solitary, or alone. Some think that the expression only soul, means clear and precious, or well beloved; but those do not sufficiently consider David's design, as has been stated in Psalm 22:21.