Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 35:20
For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against [them that are] quiet in the land.
20. Their conduct is just the opposite of ‘the fear of the Lord’ (Psa 34:13-14). For it is not peace that they speak, but against them that are quiet in the land they imagine words of guile, accusing them of being ‘troublers of Israel’ and disturbers of the peace.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For they speak not peace – They seek a quarrel. They are unwilling to be on good terms with others, or to live in peace with them. The idea is that they were disposed or inclined to quarrel. Thus we speak now of persons who are quarrelsome.
They devise deceitful matters – literally, they think of words of deceit. That is, they set their hearts on misrepresentation, and they study such misrepresentations as occasions for strife with others. They falsely represent my character; they attribute conduct to me of which I am not guilty; they pervert my words; they state that to be true which never occurred, and thus they attempt to justify their own conduct. Almost all the quarrels in the world, whether pertaining to nations, to neighborhoods, to families, or to individuals, are based on some misrepresentation of facts, designed or undesigned, and could have been avoided if men had been willing to look at facts as they are, or perfectly understood each other.
Against them that are quiet in the land – That are disposed to be quiet, or that are inclined to live in peace with those around them. The word rendered quiet means literally those who are timid; then, those who shrink back, and gather together from fear; then, those in general who are disposed to be peaceful and quiet, or who are indisposed to contention and strife. David implicitly asserts himself to be one of that class; a man who preferred peace to war, and who had no disposition to keep up a strife with his neighbors.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 35:20
They devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.
Sin approaching the unsuspecting
There is no temptation, said John of Wesel, one of the greatest of the pre-Lutheran reformers, so great as not to be tempted at all. We have a vivid illustration of this in a picture given us by a late writer on natural history. When the wild horses of Mexico, he tells us, are grazing unconsciously in a prairie, there may sometimes be seen gathering in the distance a troop of wolves, whom hunger has driven out after food. At first the horses snuff up the scent and become alarmed, and as long as they continue so all is safe; for their fleetness puts a barrier between themselves and their assailants, which the latter are wholly unable to surmount. But so grave and innocent do the wolves look–so solely graminivorous and gentle–that their intended victims soon become relieved from all fear, and begin again quietly to graze upon the same spot. Presently, two of the older and more wary of the wolves stroll forth, as it were listlessly, and apparently for the mere purpose of pastime, sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating, and every now and then stopping to gambol with each other, as if to show their disengaged simplicity and buoyancy of heart. Again the horses become alarmed; but again, observing how very innocent and friendly their visitors appear, they fall once more to grazing secure on the fields. But the fatal moment has now come; and with an unerring spring, the nearest of the victims finds the fangs of one of his gaunt and wily pursuers fastened in his haunches, and those of another in his neck, and in a moment he is covered by the whole of the greedy pack that has been thus waiting till this moment to dash upon his prostrate frame. So it is that sin presents itself to the incautious soul. First it lounges listlessly in the distance, as if to show its harmlessness and disengagedness of purpose. Then, when suspicion is disarmed, it comes nearer still, gambolling about as if it was mere pastime. It is not till the soul feels its fangs that it discovers that it is now the victim and slave of a master whose bitter and cruel yoke must be borne, not only through time, but through eternity. (The Preachers Lantern.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 20. They are enemies to all peaceable counsels; they breathe out nothing but threatenings and war. They use not only open violence, but deceit, and subtle artifices, against me and my followers, who desire nothing more than to live quietly and peaceably under Sauls government.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
20. deceitful mattersor,”words of deceit.”
quiet in the landthepious lovers of peace.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For they speak not peace,…. Meaning to himself, or any good man; as Joseph’s brethren could not to him, Ge 37:4; such were the men David had to do with, Ps 120:6; and such were the enemies of Christ, who could not give him a good word, nor speak one to him,
Joh 10:20; and such are the enemies of his people, who breathe out nothing but threatenings and slaughter, and not anything that tends to peace, to promote and maintain it. Some versions, as the Septuagint, and they that follow that, render it, “they do speak peace to me”; but then it was in an hypocritical way, as in Ps 28:3; and as the Jews did to Christ, Mt 22:16; for it follows:
but they devise deceitful matters against [them that are] quiet in the land; meaning not the wicked, as Kimchi thinks; the rich, who live at ease and in quietness, having as much as heart can wish, “with” whom, as he renders it, David’s enemies devised mischief in a deceitful way; but the righteous of the earth, as the Targum; such as David and his men were, who desired to live peaceable and quiet lives under Saul’s government; and had no intention to disturb his government, or wrest the crown from him; and as the Messiah, David’s son, was, “the humble one in the earth”; as the Arabic version renders it in the singular number; a character that well agrees with Christ, who showed great humility in coming into this world, and during his stay in it; it was a state of humiliation with him, and in which he behaved in the most lowly and humble manner; he was the quiet one in the land; he strove not, nor cried, nor was his voice heard in the street; he was not noisy and clamorous, quarrelsome and litigious; but all the reverse; he bore all insults, reproaches, and sufferings, patiently and quietly: and such are his people, so far as they are influenced by his grace and Spirit; they are quiet and peaceable in kingdoms, cities, and neighbourhoods, and in the churches of God; and yet the wicked are continually plotting against them, and devising things, to their hurt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In the following verse, that he may cherish still greater confidence in God, David again declares, that he has to do with enemies of an irreconcilable character, and who are fully bent upon cruelty. Of this we ought to be firmly persuaded, that the more grievously we are oppressed, so much the more certainly ought we to expect deliverance. He therefore says, that they speak of nothing but of tumults and slaughter. The meaning of the latter clause is somewhat obscure, arising from the ambiguous signification of the word רגע , rige. As the word from which it is derived sometimes signifies to cut, and sometimes to rest, or to be quiet and peaceable, there are some who translate it the meek and peaceable of the earth: others translate it, with the tranquil and easy of the earth; meaning by this, those who live in the midst of riches and abundance, in the enjoyment of undisturbed repose. Both these seem to me to be forced interpretations. Others, too, though not more correctly, expound the word in caves or secret places, in order that, as they say, the wicked and deceitful counsels of such persons may not come to light. But it may be very appropriately rendered, the clefts of the earth, and by this metaphor are meant the miserable and afflicted, who are, as it were, broken and maimed. David, therefore, declares that as soon as his enemies see any opening, that is to say, some calamity befall him, they instantly put forth all their efforts to accomplish his destruction. Those who, in the time of his prosperity and power, never dared even to utter a word against him, began now, when they saw that his influence was feeble, to plot his ruin, just as we know that the wicked are for the most part persons of a servile and cowardly disposition, and assume not the tone of insolence save when an advantageous opportunity presents itself, as when the good and simple are in adversity. To the same purpose he represents them in the next verse, as crying out with open mouth, Aha! aha! and clapping their hands for joy that they saw David overcome, and, as it were, laid prostrate in the dust, a spectacle in which they took great delight.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(20) Quiet in the land.For the construction, comp. Isa. 23:8 : The honourable of the earth. They are evidently the pious Jews who wished to preserve their national life and religion against foreign influence and intervention, and certainly among them were Levites.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. Quiet in the land The peaceable, inoffensive ones the pious.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 35:20 For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against [them that are] quiet in the land.
Ver. 20. For they speak not peace ] Which yet God doth to his people, Psa 85:9 , and that is their comfort. “I am for peace,” saith David elsewhere, “but when I speak, they are for war,” Psa 120:7 .
Against the quiet of the land
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
deceitful matters. Hebrew “words of frauds”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
For: Psa 120:5-7
but: Psa 31:13, Psa 36:3, Psa 36:4, Psa 38:12, Psa 52:2, Psa 64:4-6, Psa 140:2-5, Jer 11:19, Dan 6:5, Mat 26:4, Act 23:15, Act 25:3
quiet: Mat 12:19, Mat 12:24, 1Pe 2:22, 1Pe 2:23
Reciprocal: Gen 9:22 – told Psa 21:11 – imagined Psa 109:3 – fought Psa 120:7 – for peace Pro 3:29 – Devise not evil