What Does Psalm 35:26 Mean?
Let them be shamed and exposed together, those who rejoice at my harm; let them be clothed with shame and disgrace, those who swell against me.
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
Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.THE KEY
The verse turns their delight in your injury into the garment it asks them to wear: shame.
THE MEANING
When others rejoice at your hurt, this verse gives voice to the demand that their cruelty be exposed as shame and dishonor. Their effort to magnify themselves over you is pictured as a covering of disgrace.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that delighting in your injury makes someone greater: the verse asks that their self-exaltation be answered with shame.
THE ROOT
יִלְבְּשׁוּ
yilbeshū
GROWS FROM
לבש
to put on, wear
“clothed with shame” in this verse is yilbeshū. The Hebrew verb is active: they wear shame and dishonor. The image makes disgrace more than a passing feeling; it becomes the visible covering they put on.
ALSO GROWS
lavash: to put on, wear
לָבַשׁ
This verb form makes the verse’s clothing image explicit: shame is what they are asked to wear.
malbush: garment, clothing
מַלְבּוּשׁ
This noun from the same root shows how the verse pictures disgrace as a covering.
THE PATTERN
Delight in another’s suffering and self-exaltation are exposed as postures that invite disgrace.
Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker, and he who is glad at calamities does not come away clear.And do not gaze upon the day of your brother, the day he became a foreigner. Do not rejoice over the children of Judah on the day they lost their way. Do not make your mouth large in the day of the narrow place.For everyone who lifts himself will be brought low; and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.THE THREAD
I will exult greatly in the LORD; my living soul shall leap in my God; for he has clothed me in garments of deliverance, he has wrapped me in the robe of alignment, as a bridegroom dons a headdress, and as a bride binds on her jewels.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root לבש (lavash, “put on, wear”) for being clothed with the garments of deliverance. The shared image places the shame these rejoicers wear beside the covering of deliverance and alignment.
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