The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"waters... unto my soul," Hebrew mayim ad-nafesh (מַיִם עַד־נָפֶשׁ). The psalm opens in drowning distress: "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul." The water has risen to the neck, to the life itself; this is not danger at a distance but a man going under.

"deep mire," yeven metzulah (יְוֵן מְצוּלָה). Feel the particular horror of the image. It is not just drowning but drowning in mud, the ooze at the bottom that grips and swallows whatever sinks into it.

"no standing," ein mo'omad (אֵין מָעֳמָד). A man in deep water can at least swim; a man sinking in mire has nothing solid to push against, and the more he struggles the deeper he goes. That is the psalm's picture of overwhelming suffering: not merely trouble, but the loss of every place to stand.

"floods overflow me," shibbolet shetafatni (שִׁבֹּלֶת שְׁטָפָתְנִי). The current itself has taken him. And notice what the sinking man is doing even as he goes under: "mine eyes fail while I wait for my God." He is drowning, but he is drowning looking up.

"hate me without a cause," son'ai chinnam (שֹׂנְאַי חִנָּם). Here is the note that lifts this psalm above David toward a greater Sufferer. He is hated for no reason at all, and the haters are "more than the hairs of mine head."

"restored that which I took not away," lo-gazalti az ashiv (לֹא־גָזַלְתִּי אָז אָשִׁיב). He must pay for what he never stole. That is the very shape of the cross, an innocent One hated without cause, restoring what He never took, bearing a debt that was not His; David felt a shadow of it, and One would feel it in full.

Explanation

Feel the particular horror of the image David chooses. It is not just danger; it is drowning, and worse, drowning in "deep mire, where there is no standing." A man in deep water can at least swim; but a man sinking in mire has nothing solid to push against, no footing, no bottom, the more he struggles the deeper he goes. That is the psalm's picture of overwhelming suffering: not merely trouble, but the loss of every place to stand, the terror of having nothing firm beneath you. Many a sufferer knows exactly this, the sense that the ground itself has given way. And yet notice what the sinking man is doing even as he goes under: "mine eyes fail while I wait for my God." His eyes are straining upward, watching for God, until they can barely see; he is drowning, but he is drowning looking up. Faith in the deep mire does not always feel God's hand; sometimes it can only keep its failing eyes fixed on heaven and wait. Then comes the note that lifts this psalm above David toward a greater Sufferer: "They that hate me without a cause," and, "I restored that which I took not away", he is hated for no reason and made to pay a debt he never incurred. That is the very shape of the cross, an innocent One hated without cause, restoring what He never stole, bearing a debt that was not His. David felt a shadow of it; One would feel it in full.

Gospel Focus

"They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head", the Lord Jesus took these very words upon His lips as fulfilled in Himself: "they hated me without a cause" (John 15:25, quoting this psalm and Psalm 35:19). Psalm 69 is one of the most quoted psalms in the New Testament, and it is applied throughout to the passion of Christ, the Sufferer hated for no fault, sinking in the deep waters of the world's hatred and the weight of our sin. He is the innocent One who "restored that which he took not away," bearing a debt He never owed, for "he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21); the sinless Saviour paid what He never stole, our debt of sin. And He went into deeper waters than David ever knew, into the floods of God's judgment against sin, crying, "Save me, O God," yet, like David, waiting on His God even as the waters closed over Him. Because Christ went down into those depths for us and rose again, the believer overwhelmed by his own deep waters is not alone: his Saviour has been there first, and holds him. When you sink in the mire where there is no standing, keep your failing eyes on the God who saved His own Son out of the deepest flood, and who will draw you out too.

Word Study

"zeal," Hebrew qin'at (קִנְאַת), jealous zeal, burning devotion. The first of two things that mark this Sufferer. Most of us keep our devotion to God carefully rationed, never letting it cost too much; here is a jealousy for God's glory without limit, that gives itself entirely.

"thine house," beitekha (בֵּיתֶךָ). The object of the zeal is God's own dwelling and, with it, God's honour. His passion is not for a cause of his own but for the place where God's name is set.

"eaten me up," akhalatni (אֲכָלָתְנִי), consumed, devoured me. The word is strong, "to eat, devour." His burning devotion has not merely occupied him but consumed him, eaten him alive; this is a zeal that costs everything and burns up the one who holds it.

"reproaches," cherpot (חֶרְפוֹת). The second mark, and it is a burden carried rather than a fire within. Earlier the psalm explained it: "for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face" (v7).

"of them that reproached thee," chorfeikha (חוֹרְפֶיךָ). Read that slowly. The insults were aimed at God, not at the Sufferer. His suffering is not for his own cause but God's; he is wounded in God's quarrel.

"fallen upon me," naflu alai (נָפְלוּ עָלָי). And yet they landed on him. He has stepped into the line of fire meant for God, so identifying with God's honour that to attack God is to attack him, and he willingly takes the blows.

Explanation

This single verse names two things about the Sufferer that belong together, and both are matters of standing in God's place. The first: "the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." The word is strong, akhal, "to eat, devour"; his burning devotion to God's house and honour has not merely occupied him but consumed him, eaten him alive. This is a zeal that costs everything, a jealousy for God's glory so intense that it burns up the one who holds it. Most of us keep our devotion to God carefully rationed, never letting it cost too much; here is a zeal without limit, that gives itself entirely. The second: "the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." Read that slowly. The insults were aimed at God, "them that reproached thee", but they landed on the Sufferer, "fallen upon me." He has stepped into the line of fire meant for God; the abuse the wicked hurled at heaven struck him instead. He so identifies with God's honour that to attack God is to attack him, and he willingly takes the blows. Notice how the earlier verse (v7) explained it: "for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face." His suffering is not for his own cause but God's; he is wounded in God's quarrel. Here is the mark of the truest servant of God: a consuming zeal for God's honour, and a willingness to catch, in his own body, the reproaches meant for God.

Gospel Focus

"For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up", the New Testament applies both halves of this verse directly to Jesus Christ. When He drove the money-changers from the temple, "his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (John 2:17); His consuming passion for His Father's house was the very zeal this psalm foretold, and it would in the end devour Him, for that cleansing of the temple set His enemies against Him toward the cross. And the second half Paul applies to Christ as well: "For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me" (Romans 15:3). The insults aimed at God fell upon Jesus; He bore, in His own person, all the reproach of a world in rebellion against God, and He bore it "for thy sake," in the Father's cause, and for ours. This is the heart of the gospel: the sinless Son stepped into the line of fire meant for God and for sinners, and took the blows. He was consumed by zeal for God's glory and covered with the shame that was ours. So behold your Saviour: devoured by holy zeal, buried under the reproaches of the ungodly, bearing for God's sake and yours what He never deserved, that we who deserved the reproach might be clothed in His honour.

Word Study

"reproach hath broken my heart," Hebrew cherpah shavrah libbi (חֶרְפָּה שָׁבְרָה לִבִּי). Here the Sufferer's anguish reaches its depth. The reproaches that "fell upon" him in verse 9 have now done their work inward; what began as insult ends as a broken heart.

"full of heaviness," va'anushah (וָאָנוּשָׁה), sick, desperately ill. The grief is not a mood but a sickness. He is desperately ill with sorrow, worn down to the point where the body itself gives way.

"take pity," lanud (לָנוּד), to show sympathy. "I looked for some to take pity, but there was none." It is one thing to suffer; it is another to suffer while scanning the crowd for a single sympathetic face and meeting only indifference and mockery.

"comforters," menachamim (מְנַחֲמִים). Not one is found. The loneliness is total: no one to pity, no one to comfort, abandoned in the pain.

"gall," rosh (רֹאשׁ), a bitter, poisonous herb. The second stroke is crueller still. When a suffering man is starving you might give him food; these enemies give him poison instead, so that the hand which should have brought relief brings bitterness.

"for my meat," bevaruti (בְּבָרוּתִי), for my food. It is offered as a meal, in the very form that ought to have been mercy. This is the perversion of all kindness, cruelty dressed up as hospitality.

"vinegar," chometz (חֹמֶץ). "And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Here is the wonder: David, writing a thousand years before Rome ever crucified anyone, records the exact detail that would be acted out at Golgotha. This is not poetry that happens to fit; it is prophecy.

Explanation

Two strokes of anguish fall here, and both would be fulfilled with startling precision at the cross. The first is the loneliness. "Reproach hath broken my heart... I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." It is one thing to suffer; it is another to suffer while looking around for a single sympathetic face and finding none, no one to pity, no one to comfort, abandoned in the pain. The Sufferer scans the crowd for one kind eye and meets only indifference and mockery. The second stroke is crueler still, and heartbreakingly specific. When a suffering man is starving, you might give him food; when he is dying of thirst, you give him water. But these enemies do the opposite: "They gave me also gall for my meat", poison for food, "and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." At the very point of his deepest need, they answer with cruelty; the hand that should have brought relief brings bitterness. It is the perversion of all mercy, the anti-hospitality of hell. And here is the wonder: David, writing a thousand years before Rome ever crucified anyone, records the exact detail that would be acted out at Golgotha. This is not poetry that happens to fit; it is prophecy. The broken heart, the absent comforters, and above all the gall and the vinegar, were written into Scripture long in advance, waiting for the day the true Sufferer would drink them.

Gospel Focus

"They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink", this was fulfilled to the letter at the cross of Jesus Christ. As He hung dying, "they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall" (Matthew 27:34), the very gall of this psalm; and later, "Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst," and "they filled a spunge with vinegar... and put it to his mouth" (John 19:28-29). The Gospel writers point straight back to Psalm 69: the gall and the vinegar were prophecy, and Jesus, "that the scripture might be fulfilled," drank them. And the broken heart was His too, "Reproach hath broken my heart," for He was "a man of sorrows" who "looked for... comforters, but... found none", forsaken even by His friends, who "all... forsook him, and fled" (Matthew 26:56). He endured the total loneliness of the cross, no pity, no comfort, that we might never be comfortless. Behold the love of Christ: given gall and vinegar for our sake, His heart broken by reproach that was ours, dying alone that we might be brought home. The suffering Saviour of Psalm 69 is the Lord Jesus, and every detail of His passion was written centuries before, that we might know the cross was no accident but the eternal plan of God to save us.

Explanation

Here the psalm makes its hardest turn, and an honest reader flinches: how can inspired Scripture pray, "Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not," "Pour out thine indignation upon them," and "let them be blotted out of the book of the living"? Is that Christian? Three things unlock it. First, this is not private revenge but a judicial appeal. The Sufferer never lifts his own hand; he lays the whole matter before the Judge of all the earth, which is the very opposite of personal vengeance -- "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19). To hand our wrongs over to God is precisely to renounce settling them ourselves. Second, these are not curses hurled at the merely inconvenient, but the righteous sentence upon settled, God-hating impenitence. The middle verse names the crime: they "persecute him whom thou hast smitten" -- they trample the very One whom God Himself has appointed to suffer. This is the deliberate rejection of God's mercy in the person of His Christ, and against such hardness the curse is simply justice spoken aloud. Third, and most striking, the New Testament reads these verses in exactly this way. Paul takes verses 22 and 23 and applies them to the judicial blindness that fell on those who rejected the Messiah -- "Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see" (Romans 11:10); and Peter takes verse 25 and applies it to Judas, the friend who betrayed the Lord -- "Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein" (Acts 1:20). The apostles, writing by the Spirit, did not treat these words as sub-Christian venom to be apologised for; they treated them as the true verdict of God upon those who finally spurn His Son.

Gospel Focus

The imprecations of Psalm 69 are terrible, but they are aimed, not scattered: they fall upon impenitent rejection of the Messiah, never upon the sinner who will yet repent. And here the gospel shines against the dark. The same Sufferer whose enemies are cursed in this psalm prayed from His cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). The curse and the cross stand together: judgment is real and just for those who to the end reject God's mercy, yet that mercy is held out even to the hands that drove the nails. The dividing line is not birth or nation but the answer of the heart -- to be found written "with the righteous" or blotted out. Every reader stands where Judas and the dying thief once stood: one hardened to the last, one who turned and heard, "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Psalm 69 warns us not to be found among those who persecute the One God has smitten, but to flee to Him while the book of life is still open. The Christ who was given gall and vinegar still receives all who come.