Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

35:4-8 Let Them Be Ashamed. The faithful pray that the schemes of the pursuers would fail, and that the pursuers themselves would suffer disappointment and humiliation, and finally destruction. There are many reasons that such a prayer is proper for God's people to pray. First of all, it is realistic; God's protection of the faithful means that he must thwart the schemes of those who would harm them. Second, it is just, since the pursuers devise evil (v. 4), and without cause they hid their net for me (v. 7). (Observe the repetition of "without cause," in vv. 7, 19.) Third, it takes God at his word (cf. v. 5 with 1:4). Finally, from all of this it is plain that the prayer is not a vindictive response to personal injury but an appeal based on faith.