Psalms 69

1. SAVE me, O God; For the waters are come in unto my soul. 2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. 3 I am weary with my crying; my throat is dried: Mine eyes fall while I wait for my God. 4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: They that would cut me off, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: Then I restored that which I took not away. 5 O God, thou knowest my foolishness; And my sins are not hid from thee. 6 Let not them that wait on thee be ashamed through me, O Lord God of hosts: Let not those that seek thee be brought to dishonour through me, O God of Israel. 7 Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; Shame hath covered my face. 8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, And an alien unto my mother’s children. 9 For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; And the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. 10 When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, That was to my reproach. 11 When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a proverb unto them. 12 They that sit in the gate talk of me; And I am the song of the drunkards. 13 But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy, Answer me in the truth of thy salvation. 14 Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: Let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. 15 Let not the waterflood overwhelm me, Neither let the deep swallow me up; And let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. 16 Answer me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: According to the multitude of thy tender mercies turn thou unto me. 17 And hide not thy face from thy servant; For I am in distress; answer me speedily. 18 Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: Ransom me because of mine enemies. 19 Thou knowest my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: Mine adversaries are all before thee. 20 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none. 21 They gave me also gall for my meat; And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. 22 Let their table before them become a snare; And when they are in peace, let it become a trap. 23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; And make their loins continually to shake. 24 Pour out thine indignation upon them, And let the fierceness of thine anger overtake them. 25 Let their habitation be desolate; Let none dwell in their tents. 26 For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; And they tell of the sorrow of those whom thou hast wounded. 27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity. And let them not come into thy righteousness. 28 Let them be blotted out of the book of life, And not be written with the righteous. 29 But I am poor and sorrowful: Let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high. 30 I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify him with thanksgiving. 31 And it shall please the LORD better than an ox,

Or a bullock that hath horns and hoofs. 32 The meek have seen it, and are glad: Ye that seek after God, let your heart live. 33 For the LORD heareth the needy, And despisceth not his prisoners. 34 Let Heaven and earth praise him, The seas, and every thing that moveth therein.

WHEN and by whom this Psalm was written we have no very certain clew to guide us. All that is certain from the general tenor of the Psalm is, that it was written under circumstances of great and unmerited suffering, by one who was persecuted for righteousness’ sake. The zeal which he had shown for the service and honor of God had provoked the hostility of bad men against him, and made him the object of their unholy mockery. In the former part of the Psalm we have the fact of this persecution detailed, in the form of a humble complaint to God, together with an earnest prayer for deliverance. In the latter part there is a marked change of feeling. The sad, humble, subdued, entreating tone in which he had spoken, turns suddenly into a strong outburst of indignant execration. In some of its features this Psalm bears much resemblance to Psalms 35 and 109. In all three Psalms there is the same deep sense of grievous wrong, of innocence unjustly persecuted, and in all alike the same burning indignation is poured in a hot lava-stream of anathemas upon the persecutors. P.

The subject of the Psalm is an ideal person, representing the whole class of righteous sufferers. The only individual in whom the various traits meet is Christ. That He is not, however, the exclusive or even the immediate subject is clear from the confession in v. 5. There is no Psalm, except the twenty-second, more distinctly applied to Him in the New Testament. A.—The whole Psalm is typico-prophetic, so far as it is the account of the history of a life and suffering, whether it be the history of a king or a prophet, fashioned by God into a prophecy in fact of Jesus the Christ, and so far as the Spirit of prophecy has even fashioned the account itself into a word of prophecy concerning the Coming One. D.

This has usually been regarded as a Messianic Psalm. No portion of the Old Testament Scriptures is more frequently quoted in the New, with the exception of Psalm 22. When Jesus drives the buyers and sellers from the Temple (John 2 : 17), His disciples are reminded

35. For God will save Zion, and build the cities of Judah; And they shall abide there, and have it in possession. 36 The seed also of his servants shall inherit it; And they that love his name shall dwell therein.

of the words of v. 9. When it is said (John 15 : 25) that the enemies of Jesus hated Him without a cause, and this is looked upon as a fulfilment of Scripture, the reference is probably to v. 4 (though it may be also to 35 : 19). To Him, and the reproach which He endured for the sake of God, Paul (Rom. 15 : 3) refers the words of this Psalm (v. 9), “The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me.” In v. 12 we have a foreshadowing of the mockery of our Lord by the soldiers in the preterium; in v. 21, the giving of the vinegar and the gall found their counterpart in the scenes of the crucifixion (Matt. 27 : 34). In John 19 : 28 there is an allusion, probably, to v. 21 of this Psalm (and to 22 : 15). The imprecation in v. 25 is said, in Acts 1 : 20, to have been fulfilled in the case of Judas Iscariot, though, as the words of the Psalm are plural, the citation is evidently made with some freedom. According to Rom. 11 : 9, 10, the rejection of Israel may best be described in the words of vs. 22, 23.

It will be observed that many of these quotations are made generally, by way of illustration and application, rather than as prophecies which have received fulfilment. Enough, however, remains to justify the Messianic sense of the Psalm, provided our interpretation be fair and sober. The broad principle laid down in the introduction to the twenty-second Psalm applies here. The history of prophets and holy men of old is a typical history. They were, it may be said, representative men, suffering and hoping, not for themselves only, but for the nation whom they represented. In their sufferings they were feeble and transient images of the Great Sufferer who by His sufferings accomplished man’s redemption; their hopes could never be fully realized but in the issue of His work, nor their aspirations be truly uttered save by His mouth. But confessions of sinfulness and imprecations of vengeance, mingling with these better hopes and aspirations, are a beacon to guide us in our interpretation. They teach us that the Psalm is not a prediction; that the Psalmist does not put himself in the place of the Messiah to come. They show us that here, as indeed in all Scripture, two streams, the human and the Divine, flow on in the same channel. They seem destined to remind us that if prophets and minstrels of old were types of the Great Teacher of the Church, yet that they were so only in some respects, and not altogether. They bear witness to the imperfection of those by whom God spake in time past unto the fathers, in many portions and in many ways, even while they point to Him who is the living Word, the perfect revelation of the Father.

1-4. These contain the cry for help, and the description of the Psalmist’s miserable condition.

4. Without cause,** as in 35 : 19 ; 38 : 19. To this passage, probably, allusion is made by our Lord (John 15 : 25). The manner of citation plainly shows how we are to understand the words “that it might be fulfilled.” What was true, in some sense, even of the suffering Israelite under the law, was still more true of Him in whom was no sin, and whom, therefore, His enemies did indeed hate without cause.

5. Then follows the appeal to God from the unrighteousness of men. The manner in which this appeal is made is, however, unusual. Generally speaking, under such circumstances, we find a strong assertion of the integrity and innocence of the sufferer, and a complaint that he suffers unjustly; here, on the contrary, we find him appealing to God’s knowledge of his foolishness and his sins. He does not attempt to assert that he is innocent, but only that his enemies are unjust and malicious in their attacks. And then he urges his appeal for mercy on the ground that others who trust in God will be put to shame, if His servant is left to perish. P.

When we feel that we have been foolish we are not, therefore, to cease from prayer, but rather to be more eager and fervent in it. They who have seen their sins in the light of God’s omniscience are able to appeal to that omniscience in proof of their piety. He who can say, “Thou knowest my foolishness,” is the only man who can add, “But Thou knowest that I love thee.” S.

God is full of compassion to the sinner, whose worst of sin He knows. It is not pity merely that comes from Him, but sympathy; and how wide the difference between these the struggling heart understands. Our comfort does not begin in forgetting our sins, but in remembering them, and in bringing them all under the view of His mercy, which is as wide and wakeful as His omniscience. “O God! Thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from Thee.” Our confidence is sustained by thinking that as His knowledge of us is far larger than our own, as He is greater than our hearts, and sees secret sins we overlook, and past sins we forget, so His mercy is exalted above our conception, “as high as heaven is above the earth,” and ready to put our sins away “as far as east is from the west.” Ker.

6. The heaped-up Divine names are so many appeals to God’s honor, to the truth of His covenant relationship. The one praying here is indeed a sinner; but what men are doing to him is not justified thereby; he suffers it for the Lord’s sake, it is the Lord Himself that is reviled in his person. Upon this he in v. 7 bases his prayer. D.

9. Hath consumed,** literally, “eaten.” Similar expressions with respect to the prophets will be found (Jer. 6 : 11 ; 15 : 17 ; Ezek. 3 : 14). This, which was true in various imperfect degrees of these servants of God of old, was in a far higher sense true of the only begotten Son, who could say, I seek not Mine own glory. Hence, when He purged the Temple, the disciples could not help thinking of these words of the Psalm, as finding their best application in Him (John 2 : 17). P.

16. For Thy lovingkindness is good.** By the greatness of Thy love have pity upon Thine afflicted. It is always a stay to the soul to dwell upon the pre-eminence and excellence of the Lord’s mercy. It has furnished sad souls much good cheer to take to pieces that grand old Saxon word, which is here used in our version, “lovingkindness.” Its composition is of two most sweet and fragrant things, fitted to inspire strength into the fainting, and make desolate hearts sing for joy. S.

19. The second principal division of the Psalm opens with a renewed appeal to God. (Compare vs. 5 and 13.) There is a repetition of what had been said already (vs. 4, 7, 9, etc.), together with the additional aggravation mentioned in v. 21. Thou knowest. In the certainty that all his sorrows, fears, sicknesses, reproach, sufferings, are known to God, the Psalmist again finds his consolation. P.

20. Broken my heart.** If ever human heart was riven and ruptured by the mere amount of mental agony that was endured, it would surely be that of our Redeemer, when, during those dark and dreadful hours on the cross, He, “being made a curse for us,” “bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows,” and suffered for sin the malediction of God and man, “full of anguish,” and now “exceeding sorrowful even unto death.” There are theological as well as medical arguments in favor of the opinion that Christ, in reality, died from a ruptured or broken heart. If the various wondrous prophecies and minute predictions in Psalms 22 and 69, regarding the circumstances connected with Christ’s death, be justly held as literally true, such as, “They pierced My hands and My feet,” “They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture,” etc., why should we regard as merely metaphorical and not as literally true also this declaration, “Reproach hath broken my heart.” Sir J. Y. Simpson.

21. Vinegar**, or, “sour wine.” Matthew, who never forgets the foreshadowings of the Old Testament, alludes, there can be no doubt, to this verse of the Psalm, when he mentions, in his narrative of the crucifixion, that the Roman soldiers offered our Lord “vinegar mingled with gall.” P.

22. The imprecations in this verse and those following it are revolting only when considered as the expression of malignant selfishness. If uttered by God they shock no reader’s sensibilities, nor should they when considered as the language of an ideal person representing the whole class of righteous sufferers, and particularly Him who, though He prayed for His murderers while dying, had before applied the words of this very passage to the unbelieving Jews (Matt. 23:38), as Paul did afterward (Rom. 11:9, 10). The general doctrine of providential retribution, far from being confined to the Old Testament, is distinctly taught in many of our Saviour’s parables. (See Matt. 21:41; 22:7; 24:51.) A.

We are familiar with the comments that are often made on inspired words like these. “What a spirit,” men say, “is here! How unlike the mild, tender, charitable spirit of our Master, Christ! How unfit to be repeated by Christians who have been taught in the school of Christ!” This, and the like of this, is what is said, and it proceeds upon two leading mistakes. The first is that the New Testament was meant somehow to abrogate the Old. The second is that God’s love is in some kind of way the antagonist of His justice; that He cannot be really just without ceasing to love; that He cannot love without trifling with His instinct of justice. Let us remember that, in the verse before us, we are listening, not to David, but to the perfectly righteous Being in whose person David sings. Here we have a sentence which has nothing to do with human passion, which is based on the most certain laws which govern the moral world. The sentence is a penal judgment uttered against those who have been sinners against the light vouchsafed to them. God does under certain circumstances make the very blessings which He bestows instruments of punishment. A time comes when long unfaithfulness provokes this sentence on a nation, a Church, a soul. By the figure of “a table” is meant a supply of necessary nourishment, whether of soul or body. The table which God prepared before David in the presence of his enemies was the food which sustained his physical life, the grace which sustained the life of his spirit. The table which is spread out before associations of men—before nations, before churches—is the sum total of material, moral, mental, and spiritual nourishment which God sets before them in the course of their history. The table becomes a snare when the blessings which God gives become sources of corruption and of demoralization, when that which was intended to raise and to invigorate does really, through the faithlessness or perverseness of the man or the society, serve only to weaken or depress. This is exactly what happened to the great majority of the Jewish people in the days of our Lord and His apostles. One by one the spiritual senses which should have led Israel to recognize the Christ were numbed or destroyed. A perverse insensibility to the voice of God made God’s best gifts the instruments of Israel’s ruin. H. P. L.

24. Pour out Thine indignation upon them.** What can be too severe a penalty for those who reject the incarnate God, and refuse to obey the commands of His mercy? God’s indignation is no trifle; the anger of a holy, just, omnipotent, and infinite Being is above all things to be dreaded; even a drop of it consumes, but to have it poured upon us is inconceivably dreadful. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy, but what shall be the “sorer punishment” reserved for those who have trodden under foot the Son of God?

25. What occurs on a large scale to families and nations is often fulfilled in individuals, as was conspicuously the case with Judas, to whom Peter referred this prophecy (Acts 1:20), “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, let this habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein.” S.

26. The reason for the imprecation is given, because of the unpitying cruelty which delighted in adding to the pain and affliction of one whom God had already brought low. His very suffering might have moved them to compassion. P.—These curses are strictly and exactly retributive, and as such inevitable consequences of Divine justice. The wicked are to suffer above all things for their unpitying cruelty. It is observable that sufferings which are inflicted by God, and indications of His displeasure, are here represented by the Psalmist as calling for compassion and tender sympathy on the part of man. Thus 2 Chr. 28 : 9 ; Job 19 : 21 ; Isa. 53 : 4.

27. The Psalmist does not pray that they should remain in a state of unconversion, not becoming righteous, but that, being unconverted, they should not be dealt with as righteous, suffered to prosper and to escape punishment. Cook.

28. Book of life,** or, “of the living,” called in Ex. 32 : 32, “the Book of God.” The figure is borrowed from the civil lists or register in which the names of citizens were enrolled. To be blotted out of this denotes exclusion from all the blessings and privileges of the theocracy, and therefore from all hope of salvation, as is evident from the next clause : “Let them not be written with the righteous ;” the righteous being the true Israelites, as in Hab. 2 : 4. This is the most terrible imprecation of all, though but the necessary consequence of that obstinate impenitence before supposed. P.—The book of life, in the human point of view, has names written in it who have a name to live, but are dead, being in it only by external call, or in their own estimation, and in that of others. But, in the Divine point of view, it contains only those who are elected finally to life. The former may be blotted out, as was Judas ; but the latter never. Fausset.

29. The Psalm closes with joyful hopes and vows of thanksgiving for God’s mercy, in this respect resembling Psalm 22. In this joy and thanksgiving all other righteous sufferers shall share. And finally Zion and the cities of Judah shall be rebuilt, amid the universal jubilee of all creation. But as for me, placing himself emphatically in contrast to those who had been the object of his imprecation. P.

“But I am poor and sorrowful, that is the worst of my case ; under outward afflictions, yet written among the righteous, and not under

God’s indignation, as they are.” It is better to be poor and sorrowful, with the blessing of God, than rich and jovial and under His curse. For they who come into God’s righteousness shall soon see an end of their poverty and sorrow, and His salvation shall set them up on high. H.

30. “Offer unto God thanksgiving” is the everlasting rubric of the true directory of worship. The depths of grief into which the suppliant had been plunged gave him all the richer an experience of Divine power and grace in his salvation, and so qualified him to sing more sweetly “the song of loves.” Such music is ever most acceptable to the infinite Jehovah. S.—From David learn to give thanks in everything. Every furrow in the Book of Psalms is sown with seeds of thanksgiving. Jeremy Taylor.—The crown of all the elements of the Christian character is thankfulness. This is the summit of all, and is to be diffused through all. All our progressive fruitfulness and insight, as well as our perseverance and unruffled meekness in suffering, should have a breath of thankfulness breathed through them. A. M.

33. This joyful certainty of his own deliverance, this joyful hope that others afflicted like himself will rejoice together with him, rests upon the known character of God, upon the universal experience of His goodness. 34. In remembrance of this he calls upon the universe to praise God. P.

35. For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah, and they shall dwell in them and possess them. He who is thus faithful to the individual believer must be faithful to the whole Church. It is characteristic of the ancient saints to regard every personal mercy as a pledge of greater favors to the body of God’s people. This is peculiarly appropriate in such a case as this, where the words are those of an ideal person representing a whole class, and that a class including, as its most conspicuous member, the Messiah Himself.

36. As temporal and spiritual blessings were inseparably blended in the old dispensation, the promise of perpetual possession and abode in Palestine is merely the costume in which that of everlasting favor to the Church is clothed in the Old Testament. A.