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Psalm 69

Prayer for Deliverance from Persecution

To the leader: according to Lilies. Of David.

Save me, O God,

for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire,

where there is no foothold;

I have come into deep waters,

and the flood sweeps over me.

I am weary with my crying;

my throat is parched.

My eyes grow dim

with waiting for my God.

More in number than the hairs of my head

are those who hate me without cause;

many are those who would destroy me,

my enemies who accuse me falsely.

What I did not steal

must I now restore?

O God, you know my folly;

the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me,

O Lord G od of hosts;

do not let those who seek you be dishonored because of me,

O God of Israel.

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach,

that shame has covered my face.

I have become a stranger to my kindred,

an alien to my mother’s children.

It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;

the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

When I humbled my soul with fasting,

they insulted me for doing so.

When I made sackcloth my clothing,

I became a byword to them.

I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate,

and the drunkards make songs about me.

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O L ord.

At an acceptable time, O God,

in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.

With your faithful help ¹⁴rescue me

from sinking in the mire;

let me be delivered from my enemies

and from the deep waters.

Do not let the flood sweep over me,

or the deep swallow me up,

or the Pit close its mouth over me.

Answer me, O L ord, for your steadfast love is good;

according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.

Do not hide your face from your servant,

for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.

Draw near to me, redeem me,

set me free because of my enemies.

You know the insults I receive,

and my shame and dishonor;

my foes are all known to you.

Insults have broken my heart,

so that I am in despair.

I looked for pity, but there was none;

and for comforters, but I found none.

They gave me poison for food,

and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Let their table be a trap for them,

a snare for their allies.

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,

and make their loins tremble continually.

Pour out your indignation upon them,

and let your burning anger overtake them.

May their camp be a desolation;

let no one live in their tents.

For they persecute those whom you have struck down,

and those whom you have wounded, they attack still more.

Add guilt to their guilt;

may they have no acquittal from you.

Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;

let them not be enrolled among the righteous.

But I am lowly and in pain;

let your salvation, O God, protect me.

I will praise the name of God with a song;

I will magnify him with thanksgiving.

This will please the L ord more than an ox

or a bull with horns and hoofs.

Let the oppressed see it and be glad;

you who seek God, let your hearts revive.

For the L ord hears the needy,

and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

Let heaven and earth praise him,

the seas and everything that moves in them.

For God will save Zion

and rebuild the cities of Judah;

and his servants shall live there and possess it;

the children of his servants shall inherit it,

and those who love his name shall live in it.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

21. And they put gall into my meat. Here he again repeats that his enemies carry their cruelty towards him to the utmost extent in their power. He speaks metaphorically when he describes them as mingling gall or poison with his meat, ⁸⁵⁸⁵ The word ראש, rosh, here denominated gall, is thought by Celsius, Michaelis, Boothroyd, and others, to be hemlock According to Dr Adam Clarke and Williams, it refers to bitters in general, and particularly those of a deleterious nature. Bochart, from a comparison of this passage with John 19:29, thinks that ראש, rosh, is the same herb as the Evangelist calls ὑσσωπος, “hyssop;” a species of which growing in Judea, he proves from Isaac Ben Orman, an Arabian writer, to be so bitter, as not to be eatable. Theophylact expressly tells us that the hyssop was added as being deleterious or poisonous; and ‘Nonnus’ paraphrase is, “one gave the deadly acid mixed with hyssop.” See Parkhurst on ראש. The word occurs in Deuteronomy 29:18; 32:33; and is, in the latter place, rendered poison In Hosea 10:4, it is rendered hemlock; and in Amos 6:12, it is put in apposition with a word there translated hemlock, although the same word is also rendered wormwood
Vinegar, we conceive, here means sour wine, such as was given to slaves or prisoners in the East. Persons in better circumstances used lemons or pomegranates to give their drink a grateful acidity. It was therefore a great insult offered to a royal personage to give him in his thirst the refreshment of a slave or of a wretched prisoner; and David employs this figure to express the insults which were offered to him by his enemies. See Harmer’s Observations, volume 2, pp. 158, 159. and vinegar with his drink; even as it is said in Jeremiah,

“Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood,
and give them water of gall to drink.” (Jeremiah 9:15)

But still the Apostle John justly declares that this Scripture was fulfilled when the soldiers gave Christ vinegar to drink upon the cross, (John 19:28-30;) for it was requisite that whatever cruelty the reprobate exercise towards the members of Christ, should by a visible sign be represented in Christ himself. We have stated on the same principle, in our remarks upon Psalm 22:18, that when the soldiers parted the garments of Christ among them, that verse was appropriately quoted, “They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots;” although David’s object was to express by figurative language that he was robbed, and that all his goods were violently taken from him, and made a prey of by his enemies. The natural sense must, however, be retained; which is, that the holy prophet had no relief afforded him; and that he was in a condition similar to that of a man who, already too much afflicted, found, as an additional aggravation of his distress, that his meat was poisoned, and his drink rendered nauseous by the bitter ingredients with which it had been mingled.

⁸⁵ The word ראש, rosh, here denominated gall, is thought by Celsius, Michaelis, Boothroyd, and others, to be hemlock According to Dr Adam Clarke and Williams, it refers to bitters in general, and particularly those of a deleterious nature. Bochart, from a comparison of this passage with John 19:29, thinks that ראש, rosh, is the same herb as the Evangelist calls ὑσσωπος, “hyssop;” a species of which growing in Judea, he proves from Isaac Ben Orman, an Arabian writer, to be so bitter, as not to be eatable. Theophylact expressly tells us that the hyssop was added as being deleterious or poisonous; and ‘Nonnus’ paraphrase is, “one gave the deadly acid mixed with hyssop.” See Parkhurst on ראש. The word occurs in Deuteronomy 29:18; 32:33; and is, in the latter place, rendered poison In Hosea 10:4, it is rendered hemlock; and in Amos 6:12, it is put in apposition with a word there translated hemlock, although the same word is also rendered wormwood Vinegar, we conceive, here means sour wine, such as was given to slaves or prisoners in the East. Persons in better circumstances used lemons or pomegranates to give their drink a grateful acidity. It was therefore a great insult offered to a royal personage to give him in his thirst the refreshment of a slave or of a wretched prisoner; and David employs this figure to express the insults which were offered to him by his enemies. See Harmer’s Observations, volume 2, pp. 158, 159.