1Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me. 2Take hold of buckler and shield and rise up for my help. 3Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”
If you have ever had close friends turn against you, this psalm will resonate with you. Betrayal and treachery strike deep in the soul of all who experience the actions of turncoats against them. This psalm expresses the anguish and heartfelt desire for God to take up arms, as it were, on our behalf, to fight our battle for us.
David imaginatively calls for God’s help in the form of physical armament; he desires that God would save him from his enemies. While we as believers may not wish physical harm on others, we can relate to David’s feelings. Like Paul, we may at times desire to “deliver [someone] to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,” but the caveat of such desires is “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor. 5:5). Yet, we must not be disingenuous to say we never feel like David felt: “Go get ‘em, Lord!”
David bares his soul before the Lord in verses 4-8, asking God to do to his detractors the very things they are doing to him, a leveling of the administration of justice. Why should those people gain the advantage over David, who has done nothing wrong to them? So he asks God to shame, dishonor, and humiliate them. In verse 6, he calls for “the angel of the Lord” to go after them, using a phrase often associated with the pre-incarnate activity of Christ. He desires that those who would trap him like a wild animal would be ensnared by their own devices (vs. 7-8).
Being a man of faith, David knows his God and breaks into rejoicing ahead of what he knows God will do (vss. 9-10). The God he believes in is unlike other so-called gods, who can do nothing. There is no comparison!
The excursus (or interlude) of praise gives way to further description of his oppression in verses 11-16. One cannot miss the similarities with Christ’s experience of being accused and mocked. Few things cut more deeply than when people make up stories about us and then get others to not only believe the lies but join in condemning and mocking us for things that are not true. David had helped these people when they were sick; he had prayed for their healing even though they rejected his overtures; he had even grieved at their misfortunes. And now they have turned on him. Skeptics will tell us that it takes two to make a conflict, so David must have somehow contributed to the problem. If there is any fault on his part, he is certainly open to the Lord’s correction (see Ps. 139:23-24), but that does not enter into this cry of his heart to the Lord. We must not neutralize the power of this psalm with the insecurity of our shortcomings.
David was an honest man, laying out his true feelings before the God who righteously judges all of us. In verses 17-18, we see his longing for justice and his promise to praise God publicly once he is delivered. Not that he would withhold his praise of God before then (see vss. 9-10), but he is looking forward to publicly telling what he believes will be the end of the story, namely, that God will have saved him!
So David continues to call on the Lord (vss. 19-21) to cut through the narcissistic distortions and ridiculous accusations they pass off as truth. They know precisely what they are doing (“those who … wink maliciously”). While on the human level our enemies seem to have the upper hand, like David, we desire that God would stir Himself to come to our defense and judge between them and us (vss. 22-26). So, we pray for God to vindicate us, not only for our sake but also for the sake of others who love God and His righteousness. We desire to magnify the greatness of God in the eyes of others so they would join us in praising Him more and more (vss. 27-28).
Lord, how great You are! Help me when others lie about me to remember that You are just and will vindicate me so that all will know how great You are!
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