Psalms 35:4 - Exposition

Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul. It appears from this that David's life is being sought, which only happened at two periods in his career:

The psalm therefore belongs to one or other of those periods, most probably to the former (see the introductory paragraph, and note the resemblance between this passage and 1 Samuel 20:1 ; 1 Samuel 22:23 ). Let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt. Imprecations closely resembling these occur frequently in the Davidical psalms (see Psalms 35:26 ; Psalms 40:14 ; Psalms 70:2 ; Psalms 71:13 ), and amount to a sort of commonplace, to be used whenever the machinations of his enemies against him are the subject that occupies his thought.