(5) As chaff.--Comp. Psalm 1:4, and see Note. There can be little doubt that the "angel of Jehovah" in this and the following verse is (comp. Psalm 104:4) a personification of the "hurricane" itself, which drives before it all obstacles, and overwhelms even whole armies in dangerous places.

Verse 5. - Let them be as chaff before the wind (comp. Psalm 1:4; Isaiah 17:13; Isaiah 29:5; Hosea 13:3). Chaff is the type of whatever is light, vain, futile, and worthless; chaff driven before the wind represents the confused rout of a beaten army flying without any resistance before an enemy. And let the angel of the Lord chase them; rather, smite them. The angel of the Lord, who protects the righteous (Psalm 34:7), is called on to complete the discomfiture of the wicked ones, who are David's enemies.

35:1-10 It is no new thing for the most righteous men, and the most righteous cause, to meet with enemies. This is a fruit of the old enmity in the seed of the serpent against the Seed of the woman. David in his afflictions, Christ in his sufferings, the church under persecution, and the Christian in the hour temptation, all beseech the Almighty to appear in their behalf, and to vindicate their cause. We are apt to justify uneasiness at the injuries men do us, by our never having given them cause to use us so ill; but this should make us easy, for then we may the more expect that God will plead our cause. David prayed to God to manifest himself in his trial. Let me have inward comfort under all outward troubles, to support my soul. If God, by his Spirit, witness to our spirits that he is our salvation, we need desire no more to make us happy. If God is our Friend, no matter who is our enemy. By the Spirit of prophecy, David foretells the just judgments of God that would come upon his enemies for their great wickedness. These are predictions, they look forward, and show the doom of the enemies of Christ and his kingdom. We must not desire or pray for the ruin of any enemies, except our lusts and the evil spirits that would compass our destruction. A traveller benighted in a bad road, is an expressive emblem of a sinner walking in the slippery and dangerous ways of temptation. But David having committed his cause to God, did not doubt of his own deliverance. The bones are the strongest parts of the body. The psalmist here proposes to serve and glorify God with all his strength. If such language may be applied to outward salvation, how much more will it apply to heavenly things in Christ Jesus!Let them be as chaff before the wind,.... As they are; see Psalm 1:4;

and let the angel of the Lord chase them; either a good angel, who is the Lord's, his creature that ministers unto him, and is ready to obey his orders; and who, as he encamps about the saints and protects them, so he is able to destroy their enemies; as one angel in a night destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt, and another the whole army of the Assyrians, Exodus 12:29; an angel of the Lord, who is swift to fly, and so to chase and overtake, and able to execute whatever is the will of the Lord; or else an evil angel, who is the Lord's, being made by him, though not made evil by him; and who is under his restraints, and can do nothing but by his permission; and who sometimes is employed by the Lord, as the executioner of his wrath upon wicked men; is suffered to distress and torture their consciences in this life, and hereafter drag them into everlasting burnings, prepared for the devil and his angels.