What Does Psalm 35:23 Mean?
Rouse yourself, and awake to my judgment, to my cause, my God and my Lord.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “cause” names an active dispute, a case placed before God for judgment.
THE MEANING
Your cause appears here as a case brought before God for adjudication. The paired calls to stir and wake keep the urgency visible, while “my God and my Lord” names the one being asked to hear it.
THE ROOT
רִיבִי
rîḇî
GROWS FROM
ר־י־ב
To contend, dispute, or bring a case.
The English “cause” can sound like a reason or abstract purpose; this word names a live contention, and its suffix makes it “my contention.” The grievance is framed as a case that can be heard and judged.
ALSO GROWS
yārîḇ: He contends.
יָרִיב
The same root presents contention as an active dispute, not just a feeling held inside.
mərîḇâ: Strife or dispute.
מְרִיבָה
This branch shows the conflict contained within “my cause”: a matter of contention brought forward.
מִשְׁפָּטִי
mishpāṭî
GROWS FROM
ש־פ־ט
To judge, decide a case, and establish what is right.
Beside “my cause,” judgment carries a judicial sense: the speaker presents a claim to be heard and decided. The appeal concerns more than being noticed; it asks for the dispute to be adjudicated.
ALSO GROWS
shōfēṭ: Judge.
שֹׁפֵט
The judge is the one who hears and decides the kind of case named by “my cause.”
mishpāṭîm: Judgments or ordinances.
מִשְׁפָּטִים
This plural branch shows judgment as decisions that establish what is right.
הָעִירָה
hāʿîrâ
GROWS FROM
ע־ו־ר
To rouse, awaken, or stir into action.
“rouse yourself” in this verse is hāʿîrâ. The command asks for a stirring into action, then repeats the call to awake with another verb. That doubling makes the speaker’s urgency audible rather than leaving the appeal as a bare request for a decision.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēr: Awake or alert.
עֵר
This form shares the root’s sense of waking into awareness.
hēʿîr: To rouse or awaken.
הֵעִיר
This causative form makes explicit the action requested by “stir up.”
THE PATTERN
A plea for judgment gives a contested claim to the one who can hear and adjudicate it.
Arise, O LORD, in the burning of your anger, and lift yourself up because of the overflowing of my pressing ones, and rouse for me to the judgment you have commanded.Judge me, O God, and contend for my cause against a nation that holds no faithful love. Slip me free from the man of the deceitful bow and of crookedness.And will God not set his own chosen straight, the ones who cry out to him day and night, though he is slow to heat with them?THE THREAD
Arise, O LORD, in the burning of your anger, and lift yourself up because of the overflowing of my pressing ones, and rouse for me to the judgment you have commanded.Psalm 7:6 joins the same awakening root with מִשְׁפָּט (mishpāṭ, judgment), so both roots return together. The shared wording presents the speaker’s cause as a claim brought before God for adjudication.
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