(12) To the spoiling of my soul.--Literally, desolation to my soul. We may paraphrase,

"They rewarded me evil for good,

Which to me was desolation."

Verse 12. - They rewarded me evil for good (comp. ver. 13). Among those who slandered him were persons with whose troubles he had sympathized, and for whom he had prayed with fasting when they were sick. His worst persecutor, Saul, admitted the charge here made. "Thou art more righteous than I," he said; "for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil" (1 Samuel 24:17). To the spoiling of my soul; or, the desolating of my soul. The result of his enemies' machinations against him was to make him a fugitive and a wanderer, to separate him from the friend whom he tenderly loved, from his wife, his parents, and the greater part of his acquaintance.

35:11-16 Call a man ungrateful, and you can call him no worse: this was the character of David's enemies. Herein he was a type of Christ. David shows how tenderly he had behaved towards them in afflictions. We ought to mourn for the sins of those who do not mourn for themselves. We shall not lose by the good offices we do to any, how ungrateful soever they may be. Let us learn to possess our souls in patience and meekness like David, or rather after Christ's example.They rewarded me evil for good,.... For the good David did in killing Goliath, and slaying his ten thousands of the Philistines, and thereby saving his king and country, Saul and his courtiers envied him, and sought to slay him: so our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the good he did to the Jews, by healing their bodies of diseases, and preaching the Gospel to them for the benefit of their souls, was rewarded with reproaches and persecutions, and at last with the shameful death of the cross; and in like manner are his people used; but this is an evil that shall not go unpunished; see Proverbs 17:13. It is added,

to the spoiling of my soul; or "to the bereaving of it" (t); causing it to be fatherless; that is, to the bereaving it of its joy, peace, and comfort; so fatherless is put for comfortless, John 14:18; or to the taking away of his soul, which being separated from the body, its companion is left alone, as one that is fatherless.

(t) "orbitatem", Montanus, Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth.