The authorship of the song is attributed to King David, as evidenced by its first line. Psalm 35 has an interesting story related to the conflict between David and King Saul, who hated and feared David. He was in the service of Saul and became famous for his military exploits, which aroused jealousy, envy and fear of the king. Saul was afraid that David, beloved by the people, might take his place and did everything possible to destroy the brave and honest David.
Knowing about Saul's hatred for himself, David could take advantage of one of the situations to kill the sleepy king, which his comrades encouraged him to do. However, he only cut off the hem of the apostate’s robe, giving him the opportunity to repent of his sins before the Lord and get rid of anger and hatred.
Text of prayer Psalm 35
In Church Slavonic
Divine services are usually conducted in Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavonic, depending on the state in which the prayer has been preserved. Old Church Slavonic is the closest to the church language, which makes it possible to conduct services in the temple, therefore the text of Psalm 35 sounds in accordance with the established canons:
Finally, to the servant of the Lord David
1 The word of the most wicked is to sin in yourself: there is no fear of God before his eyes.
2 Because you would flatter him to find your iniquity and to hate him.
3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and flattery; he has no desire to please.
4 Think iniquity in your bed: I present myself to every evil way, but I am not indignant about evil.
5 Lord, Your mercy is in heaven and Your truth reaches to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your destinies are many. Save men and animals, O Lord.
7 For Thou hast multiplied Thy mercy, O God, and the sons of mankind have hope in Thy wing's blood.
8 They will be drunk with the fatness of Thy house, and I will give Thy stream of sweetness to drink.
9 For You are the source of life, in Your light we will see light.
10 Add Thy mercy to those who guide Thee, and Thy righteousness to the upright heart.
11 Let not the foot of pride come upon me, and let not the hand of the sinner move me.
12 Then all those who do iniquity fell: they became false, and they could not stand it.
In Russian
In order to turn to God, it is not always possible to visit church, so you can pray privately, that is, at home. For a better understanding of the essence and meaning of Psalm 35, it can be read in Russian:
For execution. The Servant of the Lord David.
1 The wicked man speaks to himself about sin; there is no fear of God in his sight,
2 For he is deceitful to himself, because he wants to find his iniquity and to hate.
3 The words of his mouth are lawlessness and deceit; he did not want to understand how to do good.
4 He conceived iniquity on his bed, he entered into every evil way, but he was not indignant at wickedness.
5 Lord, Your mercy is in the heavens, and Your truth reaches to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your judgments are like a great deep, You will save people and livestock, O Lord.
7 How You have increased Your mercy, O God, and the sons of men will rest in hope under the shelter of Your wings.
8 They will become drunken from the fatness of Your house, and You will give them drink from the stream of Your sweetness,
9 For with You is the source of life; in Your light we will see light.
10 Extend Your mercy to those who know You, and Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
11 Let not the foot of pride come near me, and let not the hand of sinner move me.
12 There all the workers of iniquity fell; they were cast down and could not rise.
Text of Psalm 35
In the church, the prayer is read during the service, using the text in Church Slavonic. This option, according to some, allows the believer to get as close to the Lord as possible. For this reason, many follow the church canon at home, but only those who have studied Old Church Slavonic and understand it well can work with Psalm 35 in this form.
In Church Slavonic
In Russian
A private appeal to the Lord does not imply the use of the Church Slavonic version of the prayer. It is allowed to speak with God in Russian at home. The Russian translation also allows us to better understand the essence of Psalm 35, which is what every righteous person should strive for.
Interpretation
Already at the beginning of Psalm 35 there is an inscription, that is, an indication that it was composed by David, in which he is called a servant of the Lord, that is, a son and a servant, at the same time.
- Verse 1: Without specifying a specific name, it refers to King Saul, the meeting with whom makes a lasting impression. The prophet is amazed by the power of anger that lives in the human soul. It is precisely this that leads to apostasy and lawlessness. A person who has silenced the voice of conscience within himself does not fear God and is not ashamed of people. You should not expect justice and mercy from him.
- Verse 2: Although Saul pretends to repent of his sins and even admits his hostility towards David, there is no sincerity in his words and thoughts. He flatters himself, wishful thinking.
- Verse 3: The theme of Saul's lies and deceit continues. Despite the promises, anger and injustice were not eradicated from the king’s heart. He does not want to see and understand examples of injustice, so as not to commit atrocities in the future.
- Verse 4: Speaking of Saul, David emphasizes that the king's lack of fear of God led him into a path of lawlessness, lies and hatred. He not only pleases himself with self-deception, but also confuses others with feigned repentance and false promises. In fact, even when going to sleep, he cannot get rid of his evil thoughts; when he wakes up, he thinks about lawlessness.
- Verse 5: Having shown in the previous verses the highest degree of moral corruption not only of Saul, but in many ways of the Jewish people, the prophet shows the highest level of God's mercy and goodness. Despite the sins committed and the power of evil reigning in society, the Lord spreads His mercy “from earth to heaven.”
- Verses 6-7: Those who commit atrocities on earth often think that no one knows about them, no one sees them, which will protect them from punishment. However, God's truth and human truth are significantly different. If people can punish and punish, then the truth of the Lord is based on patience and mercy even towards those who deserve the wrath and execution of God. The justice of the Lord is the opportunity for a sinner to repent of his sins and take the path of truth and goodness.
- Verse 8: We are talking about spiritual benefits that will be received by those who have retained human dignity. Understanding the meaning of material gifts is impossible without awareness of spiritual closeness with God and the belief that spiritual life and piety are no less important, and even more so. Spiritual pleasure and God's mercy are no less important than a hearty piece of meat offered at a feast.
- Verse 9: The singer draws attention to the fact that the Lord turns a stream of Divine sweetness upon a person if he believes in the Lord. He gives life not only physical, but also spiritual, which illuminates a person’s life. Deprived of help and support, a person plunges into a gloomy state, feels helpless and abandoned. Turning to God will help you get out of it. He who commits sins is subject to disasters and suffering, his soul dies. Faith and deep repentance for sins can revive it and fill it with the mercy and goodness of the Lord.
- Verse 10: Speaking of spiritual benefits, the singer asks the Lord not to continue to deprive believers of his mercy. Those who are not hypocrites, but believe truly, keep God’s commandments in their souls and follow them through life.
- Verse 11: David asks the Lord to protect him from the pride of his enemies, asks the Lord to strengthen his spirit so that he can resist the wicked and defend the virtues.
- Verse 12: The singer is confident that all apostates and lawless people will be punished and will find their destruction in hell, being “cast into outer darkness.”
If you read Psalm 35 in Russian, its powerful essence becomes much clearer and penetrates deeper into the soul.
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Tehillim, Psalm 35
translation1.David's prayer. Rise up to war, O Lord, against those who fight against me; go to battle against those who fight against me. 2.Rise to my aid with a shield and chain mail. 3.Draw your spear and cover me from my pursuers. Tell my soul: “I am your deliverance.” 4. Those who persecute my soul will be put to shame and disgraced; those who plot evil against me will flee and be dishonored. 5. They will become like chaff in the wind, and the angel of the Lord will scatter them. 6. Their road will be dark and slippery, and the angel of the Lord will pursue them. 7. For without reason they stretched a net over the trapping pit, without reason they prepared a trap for my soul. 8. An unexpected misfortune will come upon them - they will be caught in the net that they have set, and will fall into it to their destruction. 9.And my soul will rejoice in the Lord and rejoice in His deliverance. 10. All my bones will say: “Lord, who, like You, saves the needy from the stronger, and the poor and needy from the robber?” 11. False witnesses arose; What I didn’t even know was being demanded of me. 12.They pay me evil for good, they destroy my soul. 13. And I, when they were sick, dressed in burlap, exhausted my soul with fasting, but now let my prayer for them return to me. 14. As if my friend or brother were sick, I walked around like someone grieving for his mother - gloomy, drooping. 15. But when I stumbled, they rejoiced and crowded around me, dejected, and I did not know that they were laughing at me and could not stop. 16.They flatter and mock me for a piece of the pie, and therefore gnashing their teeth at me. 17.My Lord, how long will you watch? Deliver my soul from destruction, save me from predators! 18. I will thank You in the crowd of people; I will praise You among the multitude. 19. Let not my causeless enemies rejoice over me, and let not those who hate me for anything shrink back. 20. For they do not speak peace and against those who live on earth without guile - they plot intrigues. 21. They opened their mouths at me and said: “Yeah, we saw it with our own eyes!” 22.You have seen them, O Lord, do not be silent to them; do not move away from me, My Lord! 23. Awake and hasten to my judgment; my G-d and Master, sit down for me. 24. Judge me according to Your justice, O Lord my God, so that they may not rejoice over me. 25. They will not say in their hearts: “Hurray! We like this!” They won’t say: “We swallowed it!” 26. All those who rejoice in my misfortune will be ashamed and disgraced; those who magnify themselves over me will be clothed with shame and disgrace. 27. Those who thirst for the triumph of justice will sing and rejoice and will not stop saying: “May the Lord be magnified, who desires peace for His servant!” 28.Then my tongue will tell of Your justice, and I will praise You all day long!
Sacraments of the Church. About the Psalter. Psalm 35
Audio |
Conversation with Archpriest Alexy Ladygin about the Psalter.
– Today we continue our conversation about the Psalter. I hope that our TV viewers have their books ready and are reading the Psalter with us. We are waiting, father, for your interesting thoughts.
– Today, dear brothers and sisters, we will talk about the 35th Psalm. It is very deep, very interesting and close to our lives, because together with the psalmist David we also experience many difficulties, troubles, temptations from those insidious people who want us harm.
This psalm is written: “To the end, to the servant of the Lord David . Very tenderly the Psalter calls David the servant of the Lord. A youth can only be called a person who, like a youth, has a pure and bright attitude towards his benefactor and is always ready to do good, remaining faithful to God. And David always did good deeds towards those close to him, because he had the fear of God in his soul, in his heart, and always strived to fulfill the commandments of God. Of course, he did this because his love was directed towards God, and through this towards his neighbors who surrounded him. And even when someone did evil to him, David never took revenge on the person, he only complained to God: “I don’t take revenge, Lord, but they do evil to me, they want to do evil to me.” Therefore, here David is called a youth.
At the same time, the pre-writing is “to the end.” Interpreters say that this psalm speaks of the end of all those who used cunning and deceit against King David. The psalmist rebuked them and implored the Lord to bring His judgment and righteousness to bear on them. Therefore, the end of their deceit and the end of their lives were already visible, because, as a rule, the Lord takes the lives of those people who commit untruths in our earthly life.
So the psalm begins with these words:
“The most lawless verb is to sin in oneself: have no fear of God before your eyes.” Every person has a conscience that tells him what he is doing wrong, because conscience is the voice of God in a person. And you will answer before God for the unrighteousness that you do. But Saul thought: “If I do unrighteousness and present it as truth, then I will not answer to God, and no one knows that I am thinking unrighteously against a righteous person. Therefore, no one will expose me, including the Lord, who will not recognize my untruth, because this untruth is within me.” This is how he deceived himself.
“As if you would flatter yourself before him to find your iniquity and begin to hate.” He flattered himself, that is, he flattered himself, convinced himself, and then did not examine this lawlessness in order to hate it, in order to defeat it within himself, to fight with it, but simply convinced himself and said that this lawlessness is true. Therefore, he became entrenched in unrighteousness and rebelled against David.
“The words of his mouth are lawlessness and flattery; he has no desire to please him. Think iniquity in your bed: I present myself to every evil path, but I am not indignant about malice.” Therefore, his mouth began to speak iniquity, and he did not want to tell the truth about David, but spoke a lie. Moreover, his thoughts were so constant that he never changed them. Moreover, he even thought about it on his bed. That is, he excited himself so much and convinced himself of this that he could not even sleep, and during sleep, in silence, when all human feelings, the body itself calms down, he could not calm down and composed all sorts of lies and lawlessness against David and then all this embodied.
“Lord, Your mercy is in Heaven and Your truth reaches to the clouds.” Here the psalmist David turns to God, because the truth of the Lord is higher than the mountains of the earth, it reaches to the clouds, and the truth of God reaches such a height.
“Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your destinies are many in the abyss. Save men and beasts, O Lord.” Here David says that the truth and mercy of God are so limitless that you, Lord, will save men and animals. Even a dumb creature is saved by the Lord. Nowadays, many people turn to animals. Pravmir even released a calendar, where every month there is a photograph of a famous priest with a cat. This, of course, is a slightly Protestant attitude towards cattle and dumb creatures, so we can go as far as the wedding and communion of cats and dogs.
When we carefully read the lines of the psalm, we will understand that the Lord does good to everyone and gives His mercy. One of the interpreters said that the pagan world is called beasts here, but not because they had no lips or had no reason, but because they they lived according to instincts, as cattle live, that is, without having any law of God within themselves and not living according to God’s law. And even these people who do not have faith, the Lord still benefits and gives His mercy: He sends them rain, illuminates and warms them with the sun, feeds them from the fruits of the earth, which He blesses. And the Lord gives His great mercy to such people.
“For Thou hast multiplied Thy mercy, O God, and the sons of mankind trust in Thy wing’s blood.” The Lord gives His mercy to every person, and the sons of men who seek it always receive it. The Lord leaves no one without His mercy.
“They will be drunk with the fatness of Thy house, and I will give Thy stream of sweetness to drink.” Here David shares with us: what mercy the Lord gives, how much mercy he gives... He makes it possible for the human heart to be glad, because wine makes glad the human heart. Fat is an ointment (fragrant ointment, oil, oil), that is, the Lord allows one to achieve a certain state, a certain position in life. And it fills a person with sweetness, that is, it makes life so acceptable that no one wants to die. Although we experience many difficulties from life, we still receive the sweetness of life, and we don’t want to die, we don’t want to leave this life.
“For You are the source of life, in Your light we will see light.” There is a very deep story here that the Lord has the source of life. Very often in our church hymns we call the Lord, in the words from the psalm, the Author of our life, that is, the one who laid the foundation for life. Every person who enjoys this life and at the same time says: “I don’t believe in God, I don’t recognize God” should remember this... This means that you do not recognize the One who gave you the beginning of life, who laid the foundation for all life on earth in general , including each individual person. Or they say: “What should I thank God for?” For a dacha, for a nag, for a large apartment, for trips abroad... Of course, first of all, we must thank God for our lives.
– I’ll tell you a funny thing: on one of the federal channels they recently said that we are all, it turns out, Martians and that life is random. Why Martians? Life accidentally flew to us from Mars: some grain of sand fell with a comet (or a meteorite fell), and from here human life began. Some people want to be descended from a monkey, others from a pebble...
– The terrorists who blow up everything in the world probably want to create something so that something will come out of their explosions. This is the stupidest version, because an explosion cannot give birth to life. An explosion is always destruction, the destruction of life itself. Wherever the explosion occurs - on earth or in space - it is always destruction. Nothing is created from explosions of satellites in space; they immediately fall and are subject to disposal and further destruction.
I want to say how much you begin to appreciate life... We carry out obedience at hospitals (17th narcological, 64th city). And when you visit the sick who are in the most difficult condition, whose arms and legs do not work, only then sobriety comes to you and you begin to think that your life is truly in the hands of God. How valuable it is when you get up in the morning, your arms and legs are working. Then you remember the Lord - the Source of life, the Source and Director of our life, who laid the foundation for life and supports it in man. We understand: if the Lord does not give us His blessing, our arms and legs will be paralyzed, our head and tongue may not even speak - this is the disastrous state we may be in.
At the same time, the Lord also cares about our eternal life, about the continuation of our life not only on earth, but also in eternity. And for this we must strive for something in life. And the psalmist writes about this amazingly. He says: in Your light we will see light. What does it mean to see the light in the light of the Lord Himself? The Holy Fathers say that this is about Christ; through Christ we saw greater light: we saw the light of the Father and the light of the Holy Spirit. When, in a conversation with his disciples, Philip says: “Lord, show us your Father,” the Lord replies: “Whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father also.” That is, the Divine light of God the Father is revealed through Christ, the Son of God. And whoever does not believe in Jesus Christ will never see the fullness of the Holy Trinity, will never see the Divine light. That is why it is important to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to begin the sacraments, especially the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, because only through the Lord we see the fullness of the Divine Tabor light and through this we join our God in all its fullness.
This is such an amazing psalm. We have not yet reached the end of the psalm, but what depth it reveals to us! First, David began to talk about those who live unrighteously, who want unrighteousness. Then the psalmist very subtly moves on to the glory of God, to the mercy of God, which the Lord shows.
He sees all evil thoughts, He knows what a wicked person thinks about. Therefore, when a person commits untruth, this untruth exposes him and leads to defeat. Because the truth of God and the mercy of God are above all mystery, all untruth, and it is aimed at the salvation of man.
Everyone uses the mercy of God: both those people who are in faith and those who are in unbelief. The Talmudists, despite the fact that they had before their eyes the Psalter of David, said that the mercy of God extends only to the chosen people: in relation to the chosen people, all laws, all commandments must be observed, but in relation to a person who is in paganism, it is not necessary to observe no laws. And the psalmist David, admonishing the people of both the Old Testament religion and those who live today in Judaism, many, many years ago said: “Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your destinies are many. Save men and beasts, O Lord.” Men and beasts... Naturally, we are not talking about cattle, because they are not eternal, their soul is in their blood, it does not have an eternal beginning, but a material one. The interpreter is right when he speaks about people who now do not have baptism, but then had no relation to the chosen people. But the Lord saves everyone. This is what God's love is like!
Why does the Lord save everyone? Because He is merciful, He gave birth to life to all living things, including livestock. Therefore, God wants a person to live not only this earthly life, but also have a continuation in eternity. But then, as the Apostle Paul says, there will be a new earth, a new heaven and new people. What new people? A new man will not be created, but a renewed man, renewed by the Divine nature itself, by his faith. Only he will dwell on this earth with the Lord.
“In Your light we will see light.” These words are included in church hymns that are sung in our churches during the liturgy and during evening services. Whoever studies the Psalter and reads it thoroughly begins to understand the divine service. Many people say: “Translate into Russian, we don’t understand anything about the service.” You don’t have to translate, but just read the Psalter, then you will understand everything yourself. When you begin to read the Psalter, the service opens up very brightly.
- Those who talk about translating into Russian simply do not want to bother themselves with studying Church Slavonic - the basis of our language. Although they study eight foreign languages, and among them such complex ones as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic - what they don’t study! And the native Church Slavonic - they are afraid to bother themselves...
– This is very difficult, because it is connected with the spiritual development of a person, so here the enemy of the human race will always interfere, and there he will push.
– Our Church Slavonic language is beautiful.
- Not only beautiful, he is life-saving. Because it reveals the depth of a person’s spiritual life and fills it with liturgical meaning.
“Add Thy mercy to those who guide Thee, and Thy righteousness to the right heart.” Here the psalmist David asks for Divine mercy not for everyone living, but specifically for those who “know You, honor You,” who live in the law of God. Because he who knows and loves God fulfills His commandments and does the truth with all his heart, that is, he does not need to be forced, somehow edified, instructed, forced, he will still fulfill the law, because he knows God. For someone who knows God, the law of God always lives in the heart, it is not drowned out by anything, it will always act according to the commandments that the Lord left to man.
“Let not the foot of pride come upon me, and let not the hand of a sinner move me.” We are accustomed to asking God: “Give me, Lord, only good, only good, only truth, deliver me from the lawless, from those who punish, deliver me, Lord, from earthly poverty...”
- Natural desires...
– And here David, on the contrary, teaches us that we must pray that the Lord will deliver us from sin, from untruth into which we can fall. We can not only be materially poor and unhappy, we can walk in step with sinners, with the unrighteous. Then we will move away from the truth, and our earthly life will change, and eternity will turn away from us and will be unattainable for us. Therefore David says: Let not the foot of pride come upon me, and let not the hand of a sinner move me.
What is the foot of pride? Let us remember the prophet Elijah from the Holy Scriptures, who denounced and said: “Why are you lame on both legs?” Or you can limp on one leg. If you have the foot of pride, although the other foot may want to step on the right path, the foot of pride will not give, and you will be lame all your life. If you even half allow pride into yourself... And pride is not just one vice, it is the mother of vices, it is the embodiment of all the evil that a person can do. All sins come from pride: unpeacefulness, malice, envy, contempt, fornication. All sins are fueled by the pride that a person has cultivated in himself. Therefore, if we do not want to perish, we must run from the feet of pride - this lameness, spiritual deformity that comes along with pride.
Why the hand of the sinner? If a person does something, then, naturally, he does it with his hands. It talks about sinful things that a person can do. Therefore, the psalmist David asks the Lord not to give him the foot of pride and the hand of unrighteousness.
“There are those who have fallen and committed iniquity...” There – there, in that place, in that state – those who have fallen and committed iniquity. That is, people who are in such a state will commit lawlessness and fall into unrighteousness, which will destroy them.
And David concludes this psalm with very deep words: “... they have made excuses, and they will not be able to do it.” With sadness and pain, he says that such people are sinful, that is, they will be rejected and will not be able to get up. When will we not be able to fully justify ourselves? At the Last Judgment of Christ. Therefore, we must pray not only for our earthly well-being, for the well-being of our loved ones, but we must also pray that the Lord will not allow us to be together with sinners, to be in such a state from which we then cannot justify ourselves. Because earthly life will pass very quickly, but a believer has faith in the deepest future of the afterlife. And if you don’t follow the path of this future, why live on earth? And if we believe in the future, then we must ask God that the Lord will save us from pride and from the hand that does iniquity, so that no truth will remain in our lives, so that we will have justification in the eternal future life.
– You just asked the TV viewers a question: what do we live for? Even in Soviet times, if we remember, people always asked themselves this question. There was even a song: “If you, a man, leave without a trace, what are you living for?..” Although God was taken away from the Russians, the human soul is still a Christian, and people asked this question: what are we living for?
– At that time it was translated into at least some kind of idea. I would say, so that the people are not left without eternity, the eternal meaning of human life is covered up with the idea. But the surprising thing is that now life is arranged completely differently: only financially beautiful and “entertained.” Everyone has fun with us: they wear headphones, no one denies themselves the opportunity to drink, eat, have fun and do those things that bring some kind of consolation. These are not necessarily some base sins. For example, now everyone plays: both old and young. I can't imagine picking up a tablet and playing a game...
- It's a pity at this time...
– I remember nun Nonna, who is now a little ill. One day she asked me to sort out her library and take the extra books and magazines that she had already read to the drug treatment hospital. And so I was faced with the fact that she, having been retired for about twenty-five years, had read all these books and magazines (including Soviet ones): they were all covered with notes, underlined, with bookmarks. When I visited her, she always said: “How I love to read! I take great comfort in this. My favorite books, I have a lot of them, but they are so beloved...” I thought that she was saying this, perhaps for the sake of the “red word,” but I saw - indeed, a lot of read and spiritual books. She kept photographs of priests, bishops, patriarchs: she admired the images of the clergy. Of course, this person is going to eternity, and eternity will accept him with joy.
– Thank you sincerely for a very informative, serious, instructive conversation. And thank you for being with the Soyuz TV channel and our TV viewers for many years. We are very grateful to you for this, thank you!
Presenter: Lyubov Akelina Transcript: Nina Kirsanova
Psalm “Psalm 35”. Reason to read
In relation to Psalm 35, we can identify key situations in which reading or listening to an audio version of the psalm will serve as a source of inspiration, support for resolving difficult circumstances:
