FAKE FRIENDS AND HYPOCRITICAL ENEMIES ~ Psalm 35

I listened to a ten-second blurb of an interview done recently with a well-known celebrity who has been accused of a crime. What she said struck a chord with my own heart. She was speaking about the pain of realizing how quickly people can turn on you. This type of treatment from people who really do not know us does not bother us nearly as much as it does from those who know us well—those with whom we have had an intimate relationship. Jesus experienced both. First, Judas, one of His own disciples, betrayed Him, then the crowds turned on Him almost overnight.

Psalm 35:12-16—They repay me evil for good, to the bereavement of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer kept returning to my bosom. I went about as though it were my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother. But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves together. The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me, they slandered me without ceasing. Like godless jesters at a feast, they gnashed at me with their teeth.

The heartache David was experiencing was the deepest because it was coming from personal friends. The language is pain of the most intimate of relationships. This is the highest form of injustice and you do not have to go to prison to experience it. In Psalm 38:20, David, again, says that there are those who repay evil to him for good. He says the reason is because he follows what is good. Psalm 109:5 is a similar sentiment. I love how the psalms resonate with common themes giving us added color to see how the Lord works in and through the lives of His children. I do not have to stand in a trial confused and bewildered as if something strange is happening to me. In whatever situation I find myself, I can know that I stand with a great cloud of witnesses surrounding me. We all can run with endurance the race that is set before us. …fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:2-3)

Jeremiah experienced a similar situation that gives us some understanding of the good he did for others. It is a “good” that means little to most people in the world today. How many times do you run into someone and they say, “I’ll be praying for you.” It has become a trite offering of sympathy and condolence. We encounter this phrase all the time. Anyone who knows what it is to really have a burden for someone in prayer, however, knows that it is not easy. In fact, it is a good done to another that few other things in life can match. Prayer like this that pounds the gates of heaven on another’s behalf takes the very love of God from a humble and sacrificial heart. It takes commitment and patient endurance. It takes waiting upon God for His wisdom to pray rightly. Jeremiah 18:18-20—Then they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike at him with our tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words.” Jeremiah responds in prayer to the Lord, “Do give heed to me, O LORD, and listen to what my opponents are saying! Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good on their behalf, so as to turn away Your wrath from them…”

…to the bereavement of my soul.” (Psalm 35, vs. 12b) Isaiah 47:8 uses the same word for bereavement here as loss of children. It is the condition of one who has been left by all—abandoned, being utterly forsaken. In other words, there was no one there to support him because the people to whom he would ordinarily turn to for help and encouragement had forsaken him. He had not treated them that way when they needed him. Going to the Lord on their behalf, he had been truly burdened for them. If one prays for another like this, he could never abandon that person in their time of need. Godly prayer creates bonds in our hearts for those we pray for that cannot be easily broken. For the believer, it will always be hard to believe one whom you have loved this deeply can turn on you so quickly. Job cried out in his pain, “Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?” (30:25)

But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer kept returning to my bosom. (vs. 13) The burden David had carried for these who had turned against him had overwhelmed his whole life. It humbled him to his core. This phrase, kept returning to my bosom, is hard to interpret. I do know that a burden such as this does not lift easily; the conviction to pray is pressed hard against the soul. Psalm 38:6 says, “I am bent over and greatly bowed down; I go mourning all day long.”

I went about as though it were my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother. (vs. 14) David had viewed these people as family. Mourning for a mother is a special kind of grief. Going through my dearly beloved Psalm 35 during my prison trial, it was not lost on me that I could no longer turn to my mother who had died just six months before I was indicted. I knew the very type of grief of which David spoke. It was fresh. We will only ever have one mother. The loss cannot be measured. My mother was, indeed, my best friend.

When I was a teenager, someone whom I loved deeply rejected me. I wrote this person a letter saying that my love was so deep it hurt as if rocks were laying on my chest all the time. This person responded by mocking me and telling me to stop being so melodramatic. At the time, I was not saved, so I learned to pull back from telling people my feelings. David turns to the Lord and bears his painful soul to Him as our example.

But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves together; the smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me, they slandered me without ceasing. (vs. 15)

When they should have gathered together for David’s help, they gathered together against him to ridicule and express contempt for him. They rejoiced to see him painfully hurt. Obadiah 12 warns: Do not gloat over your brother’s day, the day of his misfortune. And do not rejoice over the sons of Judah in the day of their destruction; yes, do not boast in the day of their distress.

Stumbling can mean limping. It is the picture of a wounded animal. They gather together for the very purpose of celebrating David’s painful circumstances. Pulpit Commentary says this of this verse: It is a matter of common experience that when men fall from a high position into misfortune, the base vulgar crowd always turns against them with scoffs and jeers and every sort of contumely. (Contumely means insolent or insulting language or treatment. Never heard of it; had to look it up!) The Pulpit Commentary also says of the smiters whom I did not know is the idea that they were of so low a condition, that he had no acquaintance with them. Job 30:1, 8, 12 also paints the same picture for us.

It would appear that there are two groups of people involved here. The first group of people David is speaking about are those whom he is intimately acquainted with. It would seem that the people David did not even know then heaped on even more abuses by slandering him unceasingly. They literally tore him to shreds repeatedly. He was surrounded by slanderers who continued to strike at him, beating him with their tongues by reviling his name. Slanderers in Proverbs 20:19 are referred to as simple babblers.

Hundreds of newspaper articles were written about my family in our scandalous ordeal. Whole blogs were dedicated for the comments of people who had had business dealings with my husband, from employees, and people we had grown up with. It was an open forum for Podlucky bashing, but the majority of the attacks were directed toward my husband. Yet, here and there were slanderous arrows directed towards me and my “character”. It was interesting to me that they were usually making claims that had absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand. It certainly added no credibility to the case either. Statements having to do with my “fat” appearance, being lazy, and being “a goody-two shoes”. When my son and I were driving by the courthouse after the trial, when we were at our very lowest, we saw jury members coming out of the courthouse high fiving each other, laughing, and getting ready for their Thanksgiving holiday. Was it a coincidence that the trial proceedings were strung out over an almost four-week period in order that they might end right before the upcoming holiday? Perhaps. After witnessing this display, however, it was not hard to believe that it was of utmost importance to the jurors (some who had slept through the actual trial along with the judge) to render a very quick and haphazard verdict. I cannot even imagine this type of light-hearted engagement after such a burdensome and humbling responsibility of sitting on a jury.

David gave true sympathy. In return, they gleefully flock together to mock and triumph.

Like godless jesters at a feast, they gnashed at me with their teeth. (vs. 16) I was surprised to learn how this phrase is interpreted when I began looking at the biblical meaning of the words. The picture here is of hypocritical mockers at a feast. It would be appropriate to liken these to people who are commonly found in scenes of revelry. Jesters is the idea of a buffoon, a foreigner, one who is stammering, speaking in a barbarous or foreign tongue. It literally means “mockers for a cake” or parasites, those who act the part of buffoons at the feasts of the wealthy for the sake of dainty fare. “Like profane cake devourers” is comparing his enemies to greedy gluttons, to whom the psalmist’s ruin is a dainty morsel eagerly devoured. This is exactly how gossip is fueled and fed upon. To gnash with the teeth is to grind or grate the teeth in anger and wrath. Interestingly, Matthew 8:1; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51 and 25:30 tell us that the godless will be assigned with the other hypocrites who will do the same towards God for all eternity in hell.

Lamentations 2:16—All your enemies have opened their mouths wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day for which we waited; we have reached it; we have seen it.” (See also Job 16:9)

Tomorrow, “Lord, how long…”