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Messianic Prophecies

Psalms 35:19

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Psalms 35:19

Don’t let those who are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me; neither let those who hate me without a cause wink their eyes.

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I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother. I bowed down mourning, as one who mourns his mother.

But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease.

Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.

Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my soul from their destruction, my precious life from the lions.

I will give you thanks in the great assembly. I will praise you among many people.

Don’t let those who are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me; neither let those who hate me without a cause wink their eyes.

For they don’t speak peace, but they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.

Yes, they opened their mouth wide against me. They said, “Aha! Aha! Our eye has seen it!”

You have seen it, Yahweh. Don’t keep silent. Lord, don’t be far from me.

Wake up! Rise up to defend me, my God! My Lord, contend for me!

Vindicate me, Yahweh my God, according to your righteousness. Don’t let them gloat over me.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading holds that the phrase expresses the psalmist's conviction of undeserved persecution and could be claimed by any unjustly hated innocent. It reads John 15:25 as a rhetorical citation connecting Jesus' situation to a scriptural precedent rather than a predictive-fulfillment claim in the strict sense. Critics note the phrase's currency in later Jewish thought, where the abstracted idiom sin'at chinnam ('causeless hatred') became a major concept (for example b. Yoma 9b linking it to the Second Temple's destruction), indicating a general category of experience. On this view the citation characterizes Jesus' circumstance rather than proving it was foretold.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The messianic-fulfillment reading rests on the Johannine Jesus explicitly citing the phrase 'hated without cause' (Psalm 35:19; the same phrase also appears in Psalm 69:4) in John 15:25, introduced with a fulfillment formula referring to 'their law.' Proponents treat this as dominical testimony that the psalm speaks to Jesus, carrying the weight of his own authority rather than a mere illustration. They argue that the fulfillment formula signals genuine prophetic content, and that Jesus' distancing reference to 'their law' asserts an authority over the scriptural tradition fitting the subject of prophecy.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • John 15:25 Direct quotation

    John 15:25 quotes the 'they hated me without a cause' clause with an explicit fulfillment formula ('to fulfill the word written in their law'); source is Psalm 35:19 or Psalm 69:4, which share the phrase.