John Calvin Commentary Psalms 35:24

"Judge me, O Jehovah my God, according to thy righteousness; And let them not rejoice over me." — Psalms 35:24 (ASV)

Judge me, O Jehovah my God! David here confirms the prayer of the preceding verse that God would be his defender, and would maintain his righteous cause. Having been for a time subjected to suffering as one who had been forsaken and forgotten, he contemplates the righteousness of God, which prevents Him from completely abandoning the upright and the just. It is, therefore, not simply a prayer, but a solemn appeal to God, that as He is righteous, He would manifest His righteousness in defending His servant in a good cause.

And certainly, when we seem to be forsaken and deprived of all help, there is no more effective remedy we can use to overcome temptation than this consideration: that the righteousness of God, on which our deliverance depends, can never fail. Accordingly, the Apostle Paul, in exhorting the faithful to patience, says in 2 Thessalonians 1:6,

It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.

Now David again appeals to God in this place, and entreats Him to manifest His righteousness in restraining the insolence of his enemies, for the more proudly they assail us, the more ready God is to help us. Besides, by again introducing them as speaking, he graphically portrays the cruelty of their desires; and by this he means to show, that if things should happen according to their wishes, they would set no limit to their willfulness. But as the more they boast, the more they provoke the wrath of God against them, David with good reason uses this as an argument to encourage his hope, and uses it to support and strengthen him in prayer.