David, according to the superscription.
Zeal, Reproach, and the Saving God Who Rebuilds Zion
God hears the reproached sufferer who bears shame for His sake, judges wicked hostility, and turns affliction into praise and Zion hope.
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God hears the reproached sufferer who bears shame for His sake, judges wicked hostility, and turns affliction into praise and Zion hope.
Psalm 69 argues that the Lord is the only saving refuge when the faithful sufferer is overwhelmed by hostility, shame, and abandonment for God's sake. Because God knows both the sufferer's sin and the enemies' injustice, the sufferer may confess honestly, pray boldly, entrust judgment to God, and anticipate praise that strengthens the humble and points toward Zion's restoration.
The worshiping community of Israel, especially the afflicted, reproached, falsely accused, and those who need language for prayer under public shame.
A Davidic lament given to the director of music, marked 'To the tune of Lilies.' The precise historical episode is not stated in the psalm, so the record should not force a single event beyond the Davidic superscription.
God hears the reproached sufferer who bears shame for His sake, judges wicked hostility, and turns affliction into praise and Zion hope.
David, according to the superscription.
The worshiping community of Israel, especially the afflicted, reproached, falsely accused, and those who need language for prayer under public shame.
A Davidic lament given to the director of music, marked 'To the tune of Lilies.' The precise historical episode is not stated in the psalm, so the record should not force a single event beyond the Davidic superscription.
- The psalm assumes public mockery, family alienation, civic derision at the gate, enemy violence, and the anguish of being reproached because of devotion to the Lord.
The psalm uses courtroom, drowning, temple, fasting, sackcloth, table, book/register, sacrifice, Zion, and inheritance imagery. These images belong to Israel's worship and covenant life and should be interpreted as poetic theology rather than flattened into literalistic detail at every point.
Psalm 69 stands in Book II of the Psalter and is one of the most significant Davidic righteous-sufferer psalms for the New Testament. Its language is applied to Jesus' zeal, rejection, reproach, passion suffering, and the judgment connected to betrayal. It also ends with Zion restoration and inheritance hope, keeping personal lament tied to the future of God's covenant people.
Psalm 69 moves from drowning distress and causeless hatred, through reproach for God-centered zeal and renewed pleas for rescue, into imprecatory judgment, thankful praise, and covenant hope for Zion and the descendants of God's servants.
Theological exposition and fulfillment
Psalm 69 forms humble, honest, Christ-aware endurance under reproach. It teaches believers to cry for rescue, confess sin, endure shame for God's sake, entrust enemies to God, praise before the full restoration is visible, and hope in the God who saves Zion.
The psalmist describes deathlike danger and causeless hostility with the images of drowning, sinking, and being overwhelmed by enemies.
He acknowledges God's full knowledge of his wrongs while pleading that his distress not shame those who trust the Lord.
His suffering is tied to zeal for God, alienation from kin, and public mockery of his mourning and humility.
The repeated rescue plea is grounded in God's favorable time, abundant steadfast love, compassion, nearness, and redeeming power.
The psalmist lays the full weight of reproach, brokenheartedness, and bitter treatment before God.
The imprecations ask the righteous Judge to turn the wicked's security into judgment and exclude them from the righteous assembly.
The afflicted sufferer anticipates salvation and vows thanksgiving that encourages the humble and needy.
The psalm closes by summoning creation to praise the God who saves Zion, rebuilds Judah, and secures inheritance for His servants' descendants.
- 1-3: The psalmist begins with a desperate cry for salvation from overwhelming danger.
- 4: The sufferer identifies unjust hostility and false liability as part of his affliction.
- 5-6: Confession before God is paired with concern that the faithful not be put to shame through his ordeal.
- 7-12: The psalmist's devotion to the Lord makes him a target of alienation, mockery, and public scorn.
- 13-18: The plea for deliverance rests on God's favor, steadfast love, compassion, and redeeming nearness.
- 19-21: The sufferer brings his shame, isolation, and bitter treatment before the God who knows.
- 22-28: The psalm asks God to judge those who compound the suffering of the one He has stricken.
- 29-33: The psalm turns toward thanksgiving, teaching that God hears the needy and receives praise from the humble.
- 34-36: The final horizon expands to cosmic praise and covenant restoration for Zion, Judah, and the descendants of God's servants.
Pastoral Entry
יָשַׁע (yasha) is a Hebrew verb for saving, delivering, helping, or giving victory. The local Hebrew artifact currently indexes about 206 H3467 occurrences. It is used with God and with human deliverers, across military danger, personal distress, national rescue, royal hope, and theological proclamation. No single English gloss or doctrinal scope governs every occurrence.
Exodus 14:30 says that the Lord saved Israel from the hand of the Egyptians at the sea. In that scene Israel's rescue depends on God's action, and the event becomes a major canonical pattern of deliverance. The passage should not be made the lexical definition of every later H3467 use or used to deny the responsive acts that follow divine rescue.
The Psalms use the verb in petitions and testimonies such as 'save me for the sake of your steadfast love' (Ps 6:4) and 'I am saved from my enemies' (Ps 18:3). These prayers join present need to confidence in God's character without promising that every rescue will arrive in the same temporal form.
Isaiah 43:3 names the Lord as Israel's Savior, and Isaiah 45:22 calls the ends of the earth to turn to God and be saved because there is no other God. The latter widens the audience while remaining grounded in Isaiah's proclamation of Israel's God rather than an Israel-independent religious principle.
Zechariah 9:9 describes Zion's coming king with a Niphal participle that can be rendered saved, victorious, or having salvation. The grammatical and translation question should remain visible; the verse must not be made to say more than its form and royal context support.
The H3467 root family is related to salvation nouns and to the Hebrew names Yeshua and Yehoshua. Matthew 1:21 connects Jesus' name with his mission to save his people from their sins. This supplies a strong canonical name-and-mission link without making every H3467 occurrence a prediction of Jesus or deriving a complete doctrine of salvation from the root alone.
For the preacher, יָשַׁע invites confidence in the God who saves and honest prayer from situations of danger or helplessness. Application should preserve divine agency, genuine human response, and each passage's particular kind of deliverance.
Sense to save, deliver, rescue
Definition A cry for decisive rescue from mortal danger.
References Psalm 69:1
Lexicon to save, deliver, rescue
Why it matters The psalm begins with salvation as the sufferer's urgent need before any explanation of enemies or shame is given.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
אֱלֹהִים is the most frequently occurring divine title in the Hebrew Bible, the local index currently counts about 2,600 occurrences from Genesis to Malachi. Its grammatical form is plural — built from a root related to power, might, or strength — yet in the vast majority of its uses it takes singular verbs and carries singular referential force. This is not a theological accident. It is one of the most significant grammatical facts in all of Scripture: the fullness, majesty, and comprehensive supremacy of the one God exceeds anything that singular human categories can contain. The plural form is not a polytheistic residue. It is the language of transcendence — what older exegetes called a plural of majesty or plural of fullness, a form that stretches to hold the inexhaustible reality of the divine Being.
אֱלֹהִים names God as the one who creates, commands, covenants, and rules. When Genesis 1 opens with אֱלֹהִים as its subject, the text is not introducing one deity among many. It is presenting the sovereign source of all reality, the one whose word brings light out of darkness, order out of chaos, and life out of nothing. Every subsequent use of the word in Scripture inherits this inaugural weight. To invoke אֱלֹהִים is to stand before the Creator.
The word also has range. It occasionally describes the gods of the nations — the powers Israel was commanded not to follow. It is used at times for magistrates or judges, beings who exercise a derived, delegated authority under God's own governance. It appears in Psalm 82 as a stark address to those who hold power and have abused it. That range does not dilute the word's primary force; it heightens it. Every other use of אֱלֹהִים is defined in relation to the one true God who created, sustains, redeems, and judges.
Where YHWH is the covenant name — the personal, particular, redemptive identity God revealed to Israel — אֱלֹהִים is the universal title. It is the name by which every nation can encounter the claim of the one God. It is the title that stands over creation before a single covenant is formed, over all human history before Israel existed, and over every power that presumes authority not received from above. The pastoral weight of אֱלֹהִים is immense: this God is not domesticated, not tribal, not regional. He is the one before whom all things exist, to whom all things answer, and in whom all meaning is grounded.
Sense God, mighty one
Definition The covenant Lord addressed as the only capable rescuer.
References Psalm 69:1
Lexicon God, mighty one
Why it matters The plea is directed vertically; the sufferer seeks rescue from God rather than taking vengeance into his own hands.
Pastoral Entry
מַיִם (mayim) is the ordinary Hebrew noun for water or waters. Its grammatical form is plural, while context determines whether English uses a singular mass noun or a plural expression. Scripture uses the same word for creation's waters, drinking water, wells, rivers, floodwaters, and water supplied in the wilderness.
Because water is necessary for life, biblical writers also use it in images of provision, cleansing, danger, judgment, and renewed creation. Isaiah 55:1 invites the thirsty to the waters as part of a free summons to receive God's covenant provision. Isaiah 44:3 places poured water beside the promise that God will pour out his Spirit, making the comparison explicit without making every occurrence of mayim a reference to the Spirit.
The canonical pattern is broad rather than mechanically symbolic. The sea can become the setting of deliverance in Exodus 14, water from the rock sustains Israel in Numbers 20, quiet waters picture the shepherd's care in Psalm 23, and Ezekiel 47 describes life spreading wherever the temple river goes. These passages should be read in their own settings before their themes are brought together.
Sense waters, floodwaters
Definition A poetic image for overwhelming danger and near-death distress.
References Psalm 69:1-2
Lexicon waters, floodwaters
Why it matters The water imagery frames the psalm's crisis as engulfing and humanly inescapable.
Pastoral Entry
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) is a broad Hebrew noun for a living creature, a person or self, life, desire or appetite, and in some settings the throat or neck. Genesis 1 uses nephesh for living creatures in the waters and on land. Genesis 2:7 says the human formed from dust and animated by God's breath became a living nephesh. The word can therefore refer to the whole living being rather than naming only an invisible component located inside a body. At the same time, no single occurrence by itself supplies a complete biblical anthropology.
Because nephesh can mean life, it appears in texts about blood and mortality. Genesis 9:4 links flesh with its life and blood, and Leviticus 17:11 says the nephesh of the flesh is in the blood within its sacrificial explanation. Ezekiel 18:4 says all lives or persons belong to God and that the nephesh who sins will die, emphasizing individual moral accountability in the chapter. These texts do not reduce a person to blood, deny hope beyond death, or permit a complete doctrine of resurrection to be drawn from one Hebrew noun.
Nephesh also expresses personal devotion and desire. Deuteronomy 6:5 calls Israel to love the Lord with all heart, all nephesh, and all might, language of comprehensive allegiance rather than a technical division into three human parts. In Psalm 42:1 the psalmist's nephesh longs for God, and in Psalm 103:1 the speaker addresses the nephesh in a summons to bless the Lord. Isaiah 53:10 and 12 use the servant's nephesh in relation to the guilt offering and the pouring out of his life to death. Across these uses, translations such as soul, self, life, person, being, or appetite must be chosen from context.
Sense life, self, inner being
Definition The threatened life of the psalmist.
References Psalm 69:1
Lexicon life, self, inner being
Why it matters The danger reaches the psalmist's whole person, not merely his circumstances.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense mire, deep place
Definition A place where there is no firm footing.
References Psalm 69:2
Lexicon mire, deep place
Why it matters The psalmist cannot stand or save himself; deliverance must come from outside his own strength.
Sense standing place, foothold
Definition Absence of a stable place to stand.
References Psalm 69:2
Lexicon standing place, foothold
Why it matters The image intensifies dependence: the sufferer has no secure ground apart from God's intervention.
Sense to be weary, exhausted
Definition Physical and emotional depletion from crying for help.
References Psalm 69:3
Lexicon to be weary, exhausted
Why it matters The lament dignifies exhausted prayer rather than treating weakness as unbelief.
Pastoral Entry
קָרָא (qārāʾ) means to call, call out, summon, name, proclaim, invite, read aloud, or cry for help. God calls created realities by name in Genesis 1, the human names animals, parents name children, messengers summon people, hosts invite guests, and public officials proclaim decisions. Naming can describe identity, memory, reputation, or authority, but the verb does not make every imposed label just or permanent.
Calling on the Lord is a major prayer use. Genesis 4:26 and 12:8 speak of calling on the Lord's name, psalmists call from distress, Jeremiah 33:3 invites prayer, and Joel 2:32 promises deliverance to those who call on the Lord within its prophetic setting. God also calls people by name or to tasks, as in Exodus 3:4 and Isaiah 43:1. A narrated call can carry divine authority, but a modern person's claim to be called is not self-authenticating and must remain open to Scripture, character, community testing, competence, and safeguarding.
The verb also names proclamation and public reading. Leviticus 23 proclaims appointed assemblies, Isaiah 61 proclaims liberty, Jonah is sent to proclaim to Nineveh, and Nehemiah 8 reads Torah aloud with explanation so the people understand. Public reading is not mere performance: access, intelligibility, truthful interpretation, and response matter. H7121's broad range should not be collapsed into one doctrine of effectual calling or used to make every title, invitation, sermon, or cry carry the same force.
Sense to call, cry out
Definition Repeated appeal to God in distress.
References Psalm 69:3
Lexicon to call, cry out
Why it matters Prayer is portrayed as persevering address even when the body and voice fail.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense without cause, freely, for nothing
Definition Hostility that lacks righteous grounds.
References Psalm 69:4
Lexicon without cause, freely, for nothing
Why it matters This term becomes a major righteous-sufferer bridge into the New Testament witness to Christ's rejection.
Pastoral Entry
ʾŌyēb is a common Old Testament word for enemy, an active participle from the verb ʾāyab (to be hostile, to treat as an enemy). The word describes someone who is actively opposed: nations that come against Israel in battle, personal adversaries who seek someone's life or ruin, and in the Psalms, the unnamed enemies who pursue, mock, and threaten the psalmist.
The prevalence of the word across the Hebrew Bible reflects a world in which real hostility — military, social, personal — is part of ordinary experience. The Psalter in particular gives ʾōyēb its most theologically rich treatment. The psalmist brings enemies before God, not as proof that God has abandoned him, but as the situation in which he calls for divine intervention.
God is asked to vindicate against enemies, to deliver from their power, and sometimes to act in judgment against them. This is not mere revenge literature. It is prayer that takes conflict seriously as the arena in which God's character is displayed: his faithfulness to the vulnerable, his power against the violent, his justice in a world of real harm. The New Testament's command to love enemies does not cancel the Old Testament's honest lament about them.
It fulfills it by locating the believer in a position of radical trust in God's justice rather than personal retaliation.
Sense enemy, adversary
Definition Those actively opposed to the psalmist.
References Psalm 69:4
Lexicon enemy, adversary
Why it matters The danger is personal, social, and judicial, not merely internal anguish.
Sense to destroy, cut off
Definition Violent hostility seeking the psalmist's ruin.
References Psalm 69:4
Lexicon to destroy, cut off
Why it matters The lament asks God to answer actual threat, not vague discomfort.
Pastoral Entry
שׁוּב (shuv) is a common Hebrew verb for turning, returning, going back, bringing back, or restoring. Many occurrences describe ordinary movement, so the verb does not mean repentance every time it appears. In covenant and prophetic settings, however, returning to the Lord becomes a rich description of repentance: people turn from wicked ways, return to God, hear His voice, and seek His mercy.
Other stem forms can describe causing someone or something to return, including God's restoration of His people. Deuteronomy 30 joins Israel's return to the Lord with God's gathering and renewal after judgment. Isaiah 55 calls the wicked to forsake a way and return to the compassionate God. Hosea and Zechariah address a covenant people whose return must be truthful rather than merely verbal.
Christian teaching can connect this movement with New Testament calls to repent and turn to God, but the Hebrew verb itself should not be collapsed into one technical doctrine. Pastoral use must also distinguish return to God from pressure to return to an unsafe person, place, leader, or institution.
Sense to return, restore
Definition The psalmist is forced to restore what he did not steal.
References Psalm 69:4
Lexicon to return, restore
Why it matters The line expresses unjust loss and false liability, intensifying the courtroom quality of the lament.
Sense folly, foolishness
Definition Acknowledged foolishness before God.
References Psalm 69:5
Lexicon folly, foolishness
Why it matters The psalm holds together real confession and real innocent suffering without flattening either side.
Sense guilt, offense
Definition The psalmist's known sins before God.
References Psalm 69:5
Lexicon guilt, offense
Why it matters Psalm 69 is not a simplistic claim of sinlessness; it is a lament in which God knows both guilt and unjust reproach.
Pastoral Entry
קָוָה (qāwāh) means to wait, hope, or expect, with a distinct gathering use in Genesis 1:9 where the waters collect. In Isaiah 5 the vineyard owner expects good fruit but receives the opposite, and Jeremiah repeatedly describes people waiting for peace or healing that does not arrive. The verb can therefore report expectation without promising fulfillment; the object, grounds, and outcome of hope matter.
Faithful waiting is directed toward God and his word. Genesis 49:18 waits for the Lord's salvation, Isaiah 25:9 celebrates the God for whom the people waited, Lamentations 3:25 calls the Lord good to those who wait for him, and Psalm 130:5 joins waiting to hope in God's word. Such waiting includes prayer, repentance, courage, obedience, and truthful lament. It is not passive denial or a timetable by which people can force God to act.
Isaiah 40:31 promises renewed strength to those who wait for the Lord, but the surrounding chapter addresses exhausted people with God's enduring word and incomparable power. The verse should not be turned into a guarantee of constant energy, healing, or success. Psalm 27:14 calls for courage while waiting, and Proverbs 20:22 redirects personal vengeance toward waiting for the Lord. Waiting on God never requires remaining in abuse, delaying emergency care, withholding evidence, or refusing prudent action.
Sense to wait, hope
Definition The posture of those waiting for the Lord.
References Psalm 69:6
Lexicon to wait, hope
Why it matters The psalmist is concerned that his suffering not shame the faithful community.
Sense Sovereign LORD, LORD of armies
Definition A title emphasizing divine rule and power over heavenly and earthly armies.
References Psalm 69:6
Lexicon Sovereign LORD, LORD of armies
Why it matters The sufferer appeals to the God whose power exceeds every hostile force.
Sense to be ashamed, humiliated
Definition Public disgrace or disappointed hope.
References Psalm 69:6
Lexicon to be ashamed, humiliated
Why it matters The psalm recognizes the communal stakes of one believer's visible distress.
Sense to be humiliated, confounded
Definition A form of public dishonor.
References Psalm 69:6
Lexicon to be humiliated, confounded
Why it matters The petition asks God to protect the faith of others through the sufferer's deliverance.
Sense reproach, scorn, insult
Definition Public shame heaped on the sufferer.
References Psalm 69:7,9,19,20
Lexicon reproach, scorn, insult
Why it matters Reproach becomes one of the psalm's central themes and is explicitly applied to Christ in Romans 15:3.
Sense on account of you, for your sake
Definition The cause of reproach is allegiance to God.
References Psalm 69:7
Lexicon on account of you, for your sake
Why it matters The psalm distinguishes suffering caused by devotion to the Lord from ordinary consequences of folly.
Sense estranged, alienated
Definition Relational separation from family or kin.
References Psalm 69:8
Lexicon estranged, alienated
Why it matters Suffering for the Lord can involve alienation from those who should have understood or supported the sufferer.
Sense zeal, ardor, jealousy
Definition Intense devotion for God's house and honor.
References Psalm 69:9
Lexicon zeal, ardor, jealousy
Why it matters Psalm 69:9 is quoted in John 2:17 to interpret Jesus' zeal for His Father's house.
Pastoral Entry
בַּיִת is one of the most mobile nouns in the Hebrew Bible. Its basic referent is a physical structure — the house where people dwell, sleep, gather, eat, and shelter. Across important covenant passages, the word extends beyond architecture into household, dynasty, and temple imagery. Almost from its first appearance the word bends toward the people inside the building, the generations they produce, the obligations they carry, and the God who dwells among them. No single English word can hold all of this: house, home, household, family, lineage, dynasty, palace, and temple all translate בַּיִת at different points, depending on what kind of belonging and what kind of space the text is naming.
At its most personal, בַּיִת names the household — the living unit of belonging that includes blood relatives, servants, resident foreigners, and dependents. When God commands Noah to enter the ark, He calls his household with him. When Joshua makes his famous declaration, he speaks not only for himself but for his house. The word carries the weight of covenant solidarity: to belong to a house is to share its fate, its identity, its obligations before God.
At its most dynastic, בַּיִת names a royal line or tribal succession. The house of David is not merely David's residence; it is a covenant promise, a lineage through which God pledges to work. The nations encounter Israel as the house of Jacob, the house of Israel, the house of Judah — household names that signal covenantal history and divine purpose, not mere geography.
At its most sacred, בַּיִת becomes the temple — the house of the Lord (בֵּית יְהוָה), the dwelling-place of God's name and presence among Israel. Here the word reaches its highest theological register: the question of where God lives, and whether His people may dwell with Him.
The pastoral richness of בַּיִת lies in this layered movement from shelter to family to dynasty to sanctuary. Scripture does not treat these as separate meanings that happen to share a word. They are concentric expansions of a single theological instinct: God is a God who builds households, holds lineages accountable, promises futures, and ultimately desires to dwell in the midst of His people.
Sense house, dwelling, temple-house
Definition The place associated with God's worship and presence.
References Psalm 69:9
Lexicon house, dwelling, temple-house
Why it matters Zeal for God's house anchors the psalm's reproach in worship-centered loyalty.
Cross-language bridge 4 links · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
אָכַל (akal) is the Hebrew verb for eating — one of the most theologically freighted acts in Scripture, appearing 815 times. The first prohibition in the Bible concerns akal (Gen 2:17: do not eat from that tree). The first sin in the Bible is akal (Gen 3:6: she took and ate). The covenant meals of the OT involve akal before YHWH. The fire that consumes sacrifices is akal. And the eschatological vision of Isaiah 25 is a great meal — akal at the table of YHWH on his holy mountain. In many of Scripture's theologically significant meals, eating is more than biological; it carries relational, moral, or covenantal weight.
Genesis 2:16-17 sets the akal frame for all of human history: 'Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat (akal tokhal), but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat (lo tokhal).' The permission is vast (every tree, freely); the prohibition is single and specific. Genesis 3:6 then gives the transgression: 'She took of its fruit and ate (vatokhal), and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate (vayokhal).' The entire fall narrative is concentrated in two instances of akal. What was eaten with permission (vayokhal, Gen 2:16) becomes the pattern for the one act of eating done without permission (vatokhal, Gen 3:6).
Deuteronomy 12 develops the theology of sacral akal — eating in the presence of YHWH at the chosen place: 'There you shall eat (akaltem) before YHWH your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, in which YHWH your God has blessed you' (Deut 12:7). The meal at the sanctuary is the redemptive reversal of the meal in the garden: eating with YHWH in the right place, of the right food, with joy — a re-ordered akal in the presence of the one who set the original akal-boundaries.
Exodus 3:2 uses akal for the fire that consumes without destroying: the bush burned with fire but 'the bush was not consumed' (lo ukal). The same verb governs the fire of holiness that purifies rather than annihilates. The Levitical fire that akal the sacrifice (Lev 9:24, fire from before YHWH came out and consumed/akal the burnt offering) is the holy akal that transforms the offering into acceptable worship.
Isaiah 25:6-8 is the eschatological akal: 'On this mountain YHWH of hosts will make for all peoples a feast (mishteh) of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine.' The akal of the end is the meal that reverses all the wrong eating of history — communion with YHWH at his table, on his mountain, for all peoples.
For the preacher, אָכַל (akal) asks: what are you eating and with whom? Every akal in the OT maps onto the primal distinction between eating in the right place, of the right thing, before YHWH, and eating the forbidden thing apart from YHWH.
Sense to eat, consume
Definition Zeal that devours or overtakes the sufferer.
References Psalm 69:9
Lexicon to eat, consume
Why it matters The psalm presents costly worship zeal, not casual religious preference.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Sense reproaches, insults
Definition Mockery aimed at God falling upon the psalmist.
References Psalm 69:9
Lexicon reproaches, insults
Why it matters Romans 15:3 uses this line to present Christ as the one who did not please Himself.
Pastoral Entry
צוֹם (ṣôm) is a fast, a period of abstaining from food in a religious setting. The Hebrew texts associate fasting with grief, danger, petition, confession, repentance, public assembly, and communal memory. Esther 4 describes widespread fasting during a threat to the Jewish people, Ezra 8:21 proclaims a fast while seeking safe passage, Nehemiah 9:1 joins fasting with confession, and Daniel 9:3 approaches God with prayer, fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. The practice can embody dependence, but it is not a mechanism for controlling God.
Isaiah 58 exposes fasting that leaves exploitation and conflict untouched. The people ask why God has not noticed their fast, and the prophet contrasts their practice with release from oppression, feeding the hungry, sheltering the poor, and clothing the naked. The chapter does not make care for neighbors a technique for earning an answer; it rejects ritual self-denial that coexists with harm. Joel 2 likewise calls for return to God with the whole heart, and Jonah 3 places Nineveh's proclaimed fast within a broader turn from violence.
Fasts may be personal or communal, spontaneous or appointed. Psalms describe bodily weakness and reproach during fasting, Jeremiah 36 situates Scripture reading during a public fast, and Zechariah 8:19 promises that remembered fasts can become joyful feasts while commanding love of truth and peace. Physical abstinence is real, so pastoral practice must account for health, medication, pregnancy, disability, age, trauma, and disordered eating. No one should be pressured to risk bodily harm or disclose private medical information to prove devotion.
Sense fast, abstaining from food
Definition Humble expression of grief and devotion.
References Psalm 69:10
Lexicon fast, abstaining from food
Why it matters Even acts of humility become grounds for mockery in a hostile community.
Pastoral Entry
שַׂק (śaq) is the Hebrew noun for a sack or coarse cloth. Leviticus can refer to an ordinary sack-like object, while narratives, poetry, and prophecy describe people wearing or spreading the material in grief, distress, humiliation, repentance, or a prophetic sign. Its precise fiber, color, and manufacture should not be asserted uniformly from the lexeme alone.
Jacob wears sackcloth while mourning Joseph; communities use it under threat; Isaiah performs a prophetic sign; Rizpah spreads it during a long vigil over exposed bodies; and Psalm 30 remembers sackcloth being replaced by joy. Nineveh's people and ruler wear it while calling for a turn from violence. Jonah says that God sees what they do, that they turn from their evil way, so the cloth is a sign within the response rather than a mechanism that compels mercy.
Isaiah 58 directly challenges a fast marked by sackcloth while exploitation continues. Outward lament or penitence can be sincere, partial, politically staged, or empty, and only its context and fruit permit responsible assessment. Scripture does not require a contemporary mourner or penitent to wear rough cloth, fast, harm the body, involve animals, or display grief publicly. Communities should make room for culturally varied, voluntary expressions without policing emotion or replacing repair, restitution, justice, nutrition, hygiene, medication, or clinical care.
Sense sackcloth, mourning garment
Definition A visible sign of grief or humiliation.
References Psalm 69:11
Lexicon sackcloth, mourning garment
Why it matters The psalmist's penitence and grief are derided rather than received with compassion.
Cross-language bridge 2 links · View in lexicon
Sense gate, public assembly place
Definition The civic place where public talk and judgment occurred.
References Psalm 69:12
Lexicon gate, public assembly place
Why it matters The mockery is public and social, not hidden or private.
Sense drinkers of strong drink
Definition Those who mock from morally degraded settings.
References Psalm 69:12
Lexicon drinkers of strong drink
Why it matters The righteous sufferer becomes a song of derision among the shameless.
Sense time of favor, favorable season
Definition The season in which God is pleased to answer.
References Psalm 69:13
Lexicon time of favor, favorable season
Why it matters The psalmist does not presume control over timing but appeals to God's gracious favor.
Pastoral Entry
חֶסֶד has a broad relational range that includes steadfast love, kindness, loyalty, mercy, and faithfulness. No single English gloss fits every occurrence. The word often describes action that sustains a relationship or fulfills a commitment, but the relationship may be covenantal, familial, political, or simply an appeal for kindness. Interpreters should not define it only as warm feeling, only as legal obligation, or only as unmerited grace.
Human חֶסֶד can involve loyalty between friends and households. Jonathan asks David to show covenant loyalty, and David later shows kindness to Mephibosheth for Jonathan’s sake. Those acts arise from promises and relational commitments, so describing them as “unconditional” or as action taken where there is no obligation misses an important part of the narrative. Ruth likewise uses חֶסֶד within family responsibility and generous faithfulness.
Divine חֶסֶד is central to Israel’s confession of the Lord’s character and deeds. Exodus 34:6-7 joins abundant steadfast love with mercy, graciousness, patience, faithfulness, forgiveness, and justice. Psalms repeatedly praise the Lord because his חֶסֶד endures forever. Lamentations 3:22-23 appeals to the Lord’s covenant mercies amid judgment, and Isaiah 54:10 speaks of steadfast love that will not depart within a promise of restoration. Each passage defines the relation between loyal love, covenant, judgment, and mercy.
For teaching, חֶסֶד helps congregations see love expressed as loyal, merciful action. It can ground hope in God’s revealed character and summon believers to faithful kindness, while the text must supply the specific promise and its recipients. The lexeme alone should not be used to promise that God will remove every consequence or that no professing believer can ever face covenant discipline.
Sense covenant love, steadfast mercy
Definition God's loyal covenant mercy toward His people.
References Psalm 69:13,16
Lexicon covenant love, steadfast mercy
Why it matters The plea rests on the abundance of God's covenant mercy, not on the sufferer's bargaining power.
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Sense truth, faithfulness, salvation
Definition God's reliable saving action.
References Psalm 69:13
Lexicon truth, faithfulness, salvation
Why it matters Deliverance is framed as an expression of God's covenant faithfulness.
Sense mire, mud, clay
Definition Sticky danger that traps the sufferer.
References Psalm 69:14
Lexicon mire, mud, clay
Why it matters The image reinforces helplessness and the need for God to pull him out.
Sense depths of waters
Definition An image of engulfing danger.
References Psalm 69:14
Lexicon depths of waters
Why it matters The psalm's rescue language repeatedly presents the crisis as deathlike drowning.
Sense flood, torrent
Definition Rushing waters that threaten to overwhelm.
References Psalm 69:15
Lexicon flood, torrent
Why it matters The flood imagery intensifies the danger beyond ordinary opposition.
Sense pit, well
Definition A place of confinement and deathlike danger.
References Psalm 69:15
Lexicon pit, well
Why it matters The plea asks that the grave-like pit not close over the sufferer.
Pastoral Entry
עָנָה (anah) is a Hebrew verb for answering, responding, or beginning a reply. Genesis 18:27 introduces Abraham's response to God, Genesis 31:31 introduces Jacob's answer to Laban, and Numbers 22:18 introduces Balaam's reply to Balak's officials. In narrative, the verb can function as a speech formula even where English idiom might simply say “said.” An answer is a communicative response, not necessarily agreement, approval, or a complete solution.
The root also enters testimony and responsive song. Exodus 20:16 forbids answering or testifying against a neighbor as a false witness, and Deuteronomy 19:16-19 sets investigation and proportionate judgment for a malicious witness. Exodus 15:21 says Miriam answered the singers with the sea-song refrain, and First Samuel 18:7 says women answered one another in song about Saul and David. These settings support testify and sing as contextual translations without making every answer legal evidence or music.
God's answering is central in prayer and revelation. Exodus 19:19 says God answered Moses with a voice, Psalm 3:4 testifies that the Lord answered from the holy hill, and Psalm 99:6 remembers God answering Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. Jonah 2:2 says God answered from the belly of Sheol. Yet Job 38:1 shows that God's answer may confront and reframe rather than provide the explanation a sufferer expected. Habakkuk 2:2 receives a written vision after waiting. Divine response is genuine and personal, but H6030 does not promise immediate timing, a desired outcome, or a particular audible form for every prayer.
Sense to answer, respond
Definition A plea for God to respond to prayer.
References Psalm 69:16
Lexicon to answer, respond
Why it matters The psalmist knows silence would be unbearable unless God turns toward him in mercy.
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Pastoral Entry
טוֹב is a broad Hebrew adjective meaning good and, by context, pleasant, desirable, beneficial, fitting, beautiful, or morally right. It can describe God, people, land, food, counsel, appearance, words, circumstances, or outcomes. No single theological definition governs every occurrence, and an interpreter must ask what is called good, by whom, and in what respect.
Genesis 1 repeatedly says God saw that his works were good and concludes that the completed creation was very good. In that setting טוֹב affirms God’s favorable evaluation of the ordered world. The text supports claims about creation’s goodness and fitness for God’s purposes, but it does not say every created thing “corresponds to God’s nature” or is saturated with an abstract substance of goodness.
Genesis 2:18 says it is “not good” for the man to be alone before the fall. That statement identifies an incompleteness God addresses by making the woman; it prevents teachers from claiming that “not-good” first entered the world through Genesis 3. The fall brings sin, curse, alienation, and death, but the lexical contrast must follow the narrative’s actual uses.
Elsewhere Psalm 34:8 invites worshipers to taste and see that the Lord is good, Micah 6:8 says God has told humanity what is good, and Jeremiah 29:11 promises the exiles a future and hope after the appointed period in Babylon. Jeremiah’s “plans for welfare/good” belongs first to that corporate exilic promise and should not become a guarantee that every hardship will soon yield a personally preferred outcome.
For teaching, טוֹב can connect creation, God’s character, ethical discernment, beneficial gifts, and fitting action while preserving its ordinary descriptive range. Human judgments of good can be mistaken, but the adjective itself does not function only as a technical declaration of God’s nature.
Sense good, beneficial, kind
Definition The moral beauty and kindness of God's steadfast love.
References Psalm 69:16
Lexicon good, beneficial, kind
Why it matters God's goodness is the ground of hope in the face of human cruelty.
Cross-language bridge 4 links · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
רַחַם (raḥam), often appearing in the plural רַחֲמִים (raḥamim), can name compassion, mercies, or the physical womb. Genesis 49 and Proverbs 30 use the anatomical sense. Genesis 43 and 1 Kings 3 describe intense human feeling, while prayers and laments appeal to God's compassion. The lexical relation among womb and compassion senses is real, but interpreters must first identify which sense the sentence actually uses.
Lamentations 3:22 confesses that the Lord's compassions do not end amid Jerusalem's devastation. Isaiah 63 asks where God's compassion seems restrained, and Daniel 9 appeals to abundant mercies rather than communal righteousness. Other texts demand human compassion: Zechariah 7:9 commands compassion, Proverbs 12:10 contrasts righteous care with cruel mercy, and Isaiah 47 condemns Babylon for showing no compassion to the elderly. The noun can therefore describe divine mercy, human tenderness, desired treatment, or culpable absence.
Literal-womb passages require particular care. They concern fertility, pregnancy, birth, maternal attachment, barrenness, or, in Judges 5:30, dehumanizing war-spoil speech about captured women. These texts do not define womanhood by pregnancy, shame infertility or pregnancy loss, or turn reproductive bodies into theological symbols without consent. The word family can enrich images of compassion, but no root claim should erase anatomy, trauma, agency, or the passage's moral setting.
Sense compassion, mercy
Definition Tender divine pity toward the distressed.
References Psalm 69:16
Lexicon compassion, mercy
Why it matters The plea appeals not merely to power but to God's compassionate character.
Pastoral Entry
פָּנִים (pānîm) commonly means face, but its constructions also express presence, surface, front, direction, and being before someone. Genesis 4:5-6 describes Cain's fallen face, Genesis 17:3 has Abram fall on his face, and First Samuel 1:18 says Hannah's face is no longer as before. These bodily and relational uses connect a visible countenance with attention, emotion, posture, and encounter without implying that every inner state can be read accurately from appearance.
Divine-presence passages require special care. Exodus 33:11 describes the Lord speaking with Moses face to face, verse 14 promises God's presence, and verse 20 says a human cannot see God's face and live. Deuteronomy 5:4 and 34:10 also use face-to-face language for covenant encounter and prophetic intimacy. The texts hold real revelation and divine transcendence together; the idiom should not be flattened either into ordinary physical sight or into an encounter with no genuine disclosure.
A shining or hidden face expresses favor, attention, judgment, or relational distance. Numbers 6:25 asks the Lord to make his face shine, Psalms 13:1 and 51:9 speak of hidden face in lament and confession, and Isaiah 59:2 links hidden face with iniquity in a prophetic accusation. Psalm 27:8 and 105:4 call worshipers to seek God's face. These images invite relationship, repentance, and hope but do not let a caregiver explain every experience of silence or suffering as punishment.
Sense face, presence, attention
Definition The desired turning of God's attention toward the sufferer.
References Psalm 69:17
Lexicon face, presence, attention
Why it matters The deepest fear is not only enemy attack but the hidden face of God in trouble.
Pastoral Entry
עֶבֶד (eved) is a Hebrew noun for a servant or slave, a dependent household worker, a royal subordinate, or a person described in service to God. Genesis 24:2 uses it for Abraham's senior household servant, while Exodus 21:2 uses it for a Hebrew enslaved man. English servant can be suitable in some relationships and dangerously soft in others. Readers must attend to ownership, freedom, vulnerability, duration, legal protection, and power rather than choosing a comforting gloss in advance.
The Hebrew Bible can use eved as an honored covenant title. Deuteronomy 34:5 calls Moses the servant of the Lord, Second Samuel 7:5 applies “my servant” to David, and Isaiah 41:8 calls Israel God's servant. Psalm 116:16 uses servant language in prayerful allegiance. The honor comes from belonging to and being commissioned by the Lord, not from a claim that all human servitude is dignified or harmless. Jeremiah 27:6 can even call Nebuchadnezzar God's servant as an instrument of judgment without endorsing the king's character or empire as morally exemplary.
Isaiah's servant language must be followed passage by passage. Israel is explicitly named as servant in Isaiah 41:8 and 49:3, while Isaiah 42:1 presents a chosen servant with a justice-bearing mission and Isaiah 52:13 through 53:11 portrays the servant's suffering, vindication, and work for many. Christian interpretation receives these songs in relation to Jesus, but the lexical noun alone does not erase Israel, make every servant text messianic, or settle every debated question about the songs' referent.
Sense servant
Definition One who belongs to and serves the Lord.
References Psalm 69:17
Lexicon servant
Why it matters The psalmist's identity is framed by service to God even in distress.
Pastoral Entry
קָרַב (qarav) means to draw near, approach, bring near, present, or offer. People approach relatives, rulers, enemies, courts, battle lines, sacred spaces, and God. Pharaoh's army approaches Israel in Exodus 14:10, Joseph's brothers approach before a threatening encounter, and Esther approaches the king under mortal risk. Nearness can mean welcome, duty, danger, or intrusion; proximity is not inherently safe or holy.
Cultic texts use H7126 for bringing people and offerings near. Priests are brought near for service, worshipers present sacrifices, and Leviticus regulates who may approach particular holy duties and how offerings are handled. The verb can therefore be translated offer when the object is a sacrifice, but ordinary approaches are not offerings. Ancient priestly restrictions, including bodily-condition rules in Leviticus 21, define a specific sanctuary role and must not be used to deny disabled people dignity, worship, leadership, employment, or communal belonging today.
Divine nearness and access appear in prayer and prophecy. Psalm 65:4 blesses the person God chooses and brings near, Psalm 69:18 asks God to draw near and redeem, Isaiah 46:13 brings righteousness near, and Jeremiah 30:21 asks who can pledge the heart to approach God. Yet Exodus 3:5 sets a boundary at holy ground, Ecclesiastes 5:1 calls for care when approaching worship, and Malachi condemns corrupt offerings. Nearness is gift and responsibility, not entitlement, coercive intimacy, or a purchase of favor.
Sense draw near, approach
Definition The requested nearness of God to the sufferer.
References Psalm 69:18
Lexicon draw near, approach
Why it matters Deliverance is relational before it is circumstantial: the sufferer asks God to come near.
Pastoral Entry
גָּאַל is one of the most theologically rich verbs in the OT. In Israelite law it named the action of the גֹּאֵל — the kinsman-redeemer — the nearest male relative obligated to buy back what a family member had lost: a field sold under economic pressure, a person sold into slavery, or the life of someone murdered (blood avenger). The institution encoded in this verb is relational before it is legal: redemption in this legal-family register is the act of someone bound by kinship obligation, stepping in to restore what you could not restore yourself.
Ruth introduces us to the institution through Boaz, the גֹּאֵל who redeems Naomi's field and marries Ruth to preserve the family line. Leviticus 25 grounds the institution in theology: the land belongs to God, Israel are his tenants, and the kinsman-redeemer mechanism exists because God does not want his people permanently dispossessed of the inheritance he gave them.
The theological transfer of this verb to God himself is the great conceptual move of the prophets. Isaiah uses גָּאַל more than any other Old Testament writer, especially for God's redemption of Israel in Exodus and restoration imagery. 'Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel' (Isa 41:14). 'I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior... your Redeemer' (Isa 43:3, 14).
'As for our Redeemer — the Lord of hosts is his name' (Isa 47:4). The application of the kinsman-redeemer category to God draws on the legal institution's relational weight: God is not presented as an external rescuer who happens to intervene, but as the covenant Redeemer who binds himself to restore his people. The NT's fulfilment of גָּאַל is christological: Galatians 3:13 uses the Greek equivalent λυτρόω — 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.'
But the deeper NT resonance of גָּאַל is in the Incarnation itself: the Son truly shares flesh and blood with those he redeems, so the redemption is not detached from real solidarity.
Sense to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer
Definition To rescue by redeeming intervention.
References Psalm 69:18
Lexicon to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer
Why it matters The psalm's rescue cry includes redemption language that reaches beyond mere escape.
Pastoral Entry
פָּדָה (padah) is a Hebrew verb for ransoming, redeeming, or securing release. Exodus 13:13 and 34:20 use it in firstborn redemption, Leviticus 27:27 addresses redemption of an unclean animal under valuation rules, and Numbers 18:15-16 specifies a redemption price for firstborn sons. These legal texts give payment and substitution concrete roles, but not every occurrence names a price, creditor, or commercial exchange.
Deuteronomy remembers God's redemption of Israel from slavery. Deuteronomy 7:8 grounds it in the Lord's love and oath, while 15:15 and 24:18 make remembered redemption a reason for generosity and justice. Micah 6:4 likewise recalls deliverance from the house of slavery. The Exodus use is liberation by divine action and covenant faithfulness; Scripture does not describe God paying Pharaoh or Satan as the owner of Israel.
Psalms and prophets extend the language to danger, guilt, exile, death, and hope. Psalm 49:7 says one human cannot ransom another's life, yet verse 15 trusts God to redeem from Sheol. Psalm 130:8 expects God to redeem Israel from iniquities, Jeremiah 31:11 speaks of redemption from a stronger hand, and Isaiah 35:10 pictures the ransomed returning with joy. Hosea 13:14 uses ransom-from-Sheol language in a difficult judgment context, so later resurrection connections should respect both its immediate setting and its canonical reuse.
Sense to ransom, redeem, rescue
Definition Deliverance from enemies through costly rescue.
References Psalm 69:18
Lexicon to ransom, redeem, rescue
Why it matters The psalm layers rescue terminology to show the depth of need and the richness of divine salvation.
Sense reproach, shame, dishonor
Definition Accumulated language of public humiliation.
References Psalm 69:19
Lexicon reproach, shame, dishonor
Why it matters The psalm carefully names the social and emotional weight of public rejection.
Sense heart broken, inner life crushed
Definition Inner collapse under reproach.
References Psalm 69:20
Lexicon heart broken, inner life crushed
Why it matters The psalm gives language for the emotional devastation of betrayal and public scorn.
Pastoral Entry
נָחַם (nāḥam) is a Hebrew verb whose range includes comforting or consoling and, in other forms and settings, being sorry, regretting, or relenting. Genesis 24:67 says Isaac was comforted after his mother's death, Genesis 50:21 describes Joseph comforting his brothers, and Isaiah 40:1 commands comfort for God's people. Exodus 32:14, by contrast, uses the verb when the Lord relents from announced disaster after Moses intercedes. These senses belong to the same lexical identity, but interpreters should not force them into one emotional definition.
The divine uses require close attention to each passage. Genesis 6:6 speaks of the Lord regretting that he had made humanity and being grieved to his heart. Exodus 32:14 presents his relenting in response to covenant-grounded intercession. Jeremiah 18:8 places relenting from announced disaster within an explicit account of a nation turning from evil, and Jonah 3:10 narrates that pattern when Nineveh turns from its way. The verb presents God's judgment and mercy as genuinely responsive in the narrative without authorizing claims that God was ignorant, mistaken, or morally unstable.
First Samuel 15 deliberately keeps a difficult tension before the reader. The Lord regrets making Saul king in verses 11 and 35, while verse 29 says Israel's Glory is not a human being who regrets or changes purpose as people do. The chapter does not permit either statement to erase the other. Numbers 23:19 likewise distinguishes God's truthfulness and constancy from human unreliability. A responsible account therefore preserves both divine responsiveness and divine faithfulness rather than resolving the range with a slogan.
Sense comforters, consolers
Definition Those expected to bring comfort but absent in the crisis.
References Psalm 69:20
Lexicon comforters, consolers
Why it matters The righteous sufferer is isolated; there is no human consolation to soften the reproach.
Sense poison, bitter plant, gall
Definition Bitter or poisonous substance given as food.
References Psalm 69:21
Lexicon poison, bitter plant, gall
Why it matters The image becomes part of the passion-resonance around the suffering of Christ.
Sense vinegar, sour wine
Definition Sour drink offered in place of true relief.
References Psalm 69:21
Lexicon vinegar, sour wine
Why it matters The Gospel passion narratives echo this line in the offering of sour wine to Jesus.
Sense table
Definition A place of provision turned into a snare in judicial reversal.
References Psalm 69:22
Lexicon table
Why it matters Romans 11 quotes this imagery to describe judicial hardening and stumbling.
Sense snare, trap
Definition A device of capture or ruin.
References Psalm 69:22
Lexicon snare, trap
Why it matters The imprecation asks that enemy security become the means of judgment.
Sense indignation, wrath
Definition Divine anger against evil.
References Psalm 69:24
Lexicon indignation, wrath
Why it matters The psalm entrusts vengeance and judgment to God rather than legitimizing private retaliation.
Sense encampment, habitation
Definition The dwelling place of the wicked under judgment.
References Psalm 69:25
Lexicon encampment, habitation
Why it matters Acts 1 uses this judgment language in connection with Judas's desolate place.
Sense book of life, register of the living
Definition Register imagery associated with belonging among the living/righteous.
References Psalm 69:28
Lexicon book of life, register of the living
Why it matters The judgment petitions include exclusion from the company of the righteous.
Pastoral Entry
צַדִּיק (tsaddiq) describes someone righteous, just, or in the right. Genesis 6:9 calls Noah righteous within his generation, Genesis 18:25 contrasts the righteous with the wicked in Abraham's appeal to the Judge of all the earth, and Genesis 20:4 uses the term in Abimelech's question about an innocent nation. The adjective is relational and evaluative; it does not require every person so described to be sinless in every respect.
Legal texts demand accurate distinction. Exodus 23:7 protects an innocent and righteous person from a false charge, Deuteronomy 25:1 directs judges to justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, and Proverbs 17:15 condemns reversing those judgments. First Kings 8:32 asks God to judge between parties. Righteous language can therefore concern a specific case, and responsible use requires evidence rather than assuming someone's general reputation settles every allegation.
Psalms, wisdom, and prophets describe a life oriented to God and neighbor. Psalm 1 contrasts the way of the righteous with the wicked, Psalm 34 says God's eyes attend to the righteous, Proverbs 29:7 links the righteous with concern for the poor, and Ezekiel 18 portrays concrete justice, fidelity, and refusal of exploitation. Isaiah 53:11 calls the servant righteous, while Jeremiah 23:5 and Zechariah 9:9 portray a righteous king. These themes support Christological reading where later texts make it, without collapsing every occurrence into imputed-righteousness terminology.
Sense righteous ones
Definition Those rightly aligned with God.
References Psalm 69:28
Lexicon righteous ones
Why it matters The final judgment contrast is not merely sufferer versus enemy but righteous versus wicked before God.
Pastoral Entry
עָנִי (ʿānî) names a person who is afflicted, poor, humble, or lowly. Torah uses the adjective in concrete economic settings. Exodus 22:25 addresses lending to the poor, Leviticus 19:10 protects gleanings for the poor and resident alien, and Deuteronomy 24:14-15 forbids exploiting a poor hired worker and requires prompt wages. The term therefore cannot be reduced to an inward attitude; many occurrences concern actual vulnerability and the obligations of neighbors, employers, courts, and the covenant community.
Prophets expose structures and practices that crush the afflicted. Isaiah 3:14-15 charges leaders with plundering the poor, Isaiah 10:2 condemns decrees that rob them of justice, Amos 8:4 confronts those who trample them, and Ezekiel 16:49 includes failure to strengthen the poor and needy in Sodom's guilt. Jeremiah 22:16 associates knowing the Lord with judging the cause of the poor and needy. Scripture does not treat their pain as useful scenery for someone else's spiritual lesson.
The Psalms give the afflicted speech, lament, hope, and assurance of God's attention. Psalm 34:6 remembers a poor person crying and being heard; Psalm 72:12 expects the king to deliver the needy who cries; Psalm 82:3 commands justice for the poor; and Psalm 140:12 trusts that the Lord maintains their cause. Some passages join lowliness with humble dependence, but H6041 itself does not declare every poor person righteous, explain why suffering occurred, or forbid receiving practical help and seeking justice.
Sense poor, afflicted, humble
Definition One lowly and distressed before God.
References Psalm 69:29,32
Lexicon poor, afflicted, humble
Why it matters The psalmist identifies himself with the afflicted who need God's saving protection.
Pastoral Entry
יְשׁוּעָה (yeshuah) is a Hebrew feminine noun for salvation, deliverance, victory, or help. It belongs to the H3467 yasha root family, which also stands behind Hebrew personal names such as Yeshua and Yehoshua. The local Hebrew index currently counts about 77 H3444 uses, with notable examples in Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and Isaiah.
Genesis 49:18 says, 'I await Your salvation, O Lord.' This earlier occurrence prevents Exodus 15:2 from being called the noun's first use, while the Song of the Sea remains a major corporate salvation song: 'The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.' Isaiah 12:2 later reuses that song language in a new prophetic setting.
Psalm 3:8 declares that salvation belongs to the Lord and asks for blessing on his people. The statement locates deliverance with God in that crisis, but the preposition should not be pressed into a metaphysical claim that human instruments or faithful responses are irrelevant.
Psalm 62:1 says that the psalmist's salvation comes from God while the soul waits in silence. The psalm contrasts trust in God with unreliable human power and wealth; it does not require the claim that every other form of creaturely help is false in every circumstance.
Isaiah 49:6 speaks of God's salvation reaching the end of the earth through the Servant's mission, and Isaiah 52:10 says that all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of Israel's God. Acts 13:47 later quotes Isaiah 49:6 within apostolic mission, providing an explicit canonical reuse without erasing the Servant passage's Israel-centered setting.
Matthew 1:21 connects the name Jesus with his mission to save his people from their sins, and Luke 2:30 calls the child God's salvation. These texts support a canonical name-and-mission connection through the shared saving root family. They do not make H3444 the direct lexical form of the name or turn every OT deliverance occurrence into a prediction of Jesus.
For the preacher, יְשׁוּעָה (yeshuah) traces divine rescue through prayer, song, national deliverance, and prophetic hope. Its scope must be governed by each passage before the wider canonical salvation theme is drawn.
Sense salvation, deliverance
Definition God's rescue that protects the afflicted sufferer.
References Psalm 69:29
Lexicon salvation, deliverance
Why it matters The psalm moves from drowning distress to salvation that sets the sufferer securely before God.
Pastoral Entry
הָלַל is the praise-word at the center of Israel's worship vocabulary — the root of Hallelujah, the verb of the Hallel psalms, the engine of Psalm 150. The Piel form (praise loudly, celebrate publicly) dominates: it is not quiet admiration but clamorous acclamation, the kind that fills a temple or a gathered congregation. Ps 113:1-3 sets the geography: 'Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord!
Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised.' The coverage is temporal (forever) and spatial (everywhere) — praise is what fills all of time and all of space when creatures are rightly oriented. The Hithpael register adds the 'boasting in' dimension: Jer 9:23-24's contrast between boasting in wisdom/strength/wealth and boasting in knowing YHWH makes הָלַל the word for what replaces prideful self-promotion.
The NT receives this via Paul's 'let him who boasts, boast in the Lord' (1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17, citing Jer 9:24 LXX). The verb's breadth — from shining to boasting to praising to raving — captures something true about genuine worship: it spills out of decorum into something larger than polite appreciation.
Sense to praise, boast in worship
Definition Verbal exaltation of God's name.
References Psalm 69:30
Lexicon to praise, boast in worship
Why it matters The lament resolves in worship, not bitterness.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
שֵׁם (šēm) is the ordinary Hebrew noun for a name or designation. It names people, children, ancestors, places, cities, objects, peoples, kings, and deities throughout the Hebrew Bible. In context, a name can also carry reputation, renown, memorial, remembered identity, authority, or the public standing associated with the one named. These extensions are real, but the word does not mean full identity, character, presence, or access in every occurrence.
Divine-name texts carry particular covenant weight. God discloses a name to Moses, places the divine name on Israel in blessing, chooses a place for the name, forbids misuse, acts for the sake of the name, and promises that the name will be known and honored. Calling on the Lord's name is covenantal invocation, not a technique in which pronunciation compels divine action. English titles, Hebrew forms, translation conventions, and uncertain historical pronunciation must not become tests of salvation or spiritual access.
Human naming can welcome, remember, rename, stigmatize, erase, or seek honor. Babel seeks a name against dispersion; Abram receives a new name within covenant promise; Absalom erects a monument to preserve his name; Isaiah promises faithful outsiders a lasting name. These texts require attention to agency and power. Scripture does not authorize mocking names, exposing private identities, forced renaming, reputational attack, or using a divine-name claim to control another person.
Sense name, reputation, revealed identity
Definition God's revealed character and reputation.
References Psalm 69:30
Lexicon name, reputation, revealed identity
Why it matters Praise is directed to who God has made Himself known to be.
Sense thanksgiving, praise offering
Definition Grateful confession of God's goodness.
References Psalm 69:30
Lexicon thanksgiving, praise offering
Why it matters Thanksgiving becomes the worship response that pleases the Lord more than merely external sacrifice.
Sense ox, bull
Definition Sacrificial animal imagery.
References Psalm 69:31
Lexicon ox, bull
Why it matters The psalm places heartfelt praise above merely external sacrificial performance.
Pastoral Entry
עָנָו (ʿānāw) describes a person who is humble, meek, or lowly. Numbers 12:3 applies it to Moses within a conflict about his leadership. His meekness does not erase authority, speech, or courage; the narrative shows a servant who does not secure his place through self-exaltation while God addresses the challenge. The adjective therefore should not be equated with weakness, timidity, or a demand that harmed people remain silent.
The Psalms join lowliness with dependence on God. Psalm 25:9 says God guides the humble in justice and teaches them his way. Psalm 37:11 promises that the meek will inherit the land, while Psalms 147:6 and 149:4 speak of the Lord sustaining and adorning the humble. These texts describe people who receive God's help and instruction, not a technique for earning favor through self-denigration.
Prophetic settings preserve the social dimension. Isaiah 11:4 connects just judgment with the poor or meek of the earth, Isaiah 61:1 announces good news to the humble, and Amos 2:7 condemns trampling them. Zephaniah 2:3 calls the humble to seek the Lord, righteousness, and humility. H6035 can describe disposition, vulnerable station, or both; context must decide, and neither dimension should cancel the other.
Sense humble, meek, afflicted faithful
Definition The lowly who respond to God's deliverance with gladness.
References Psalm 69:32
Lexicon humble, meek, afflicted faithful
Why it matters The rescued sufferer's praise strengthens the humble community.
Sense those who seek God
Definition The faithful who pursue the Lord.
References Psalm 69:32
Lexicon those who seek God
Why it matters The psalm speaks encouragement to seekers who need their hearts revived by God's deliverance.
Sense let your heart live
Definition Renewal and encouragement of inner life.
References Psalm 69:32
Lexicon let your heart live
Why it matters God's answer to the afflicted becomes life-giving encouragement to the worshiping community.
Sense needy, poor
Definition Those lacking strength, resources, or social power.
References Psalm 69:33
Lexicon needy, poor
Why it matters The Lord's hearing of the needy contrasts with human rejection of the sufferer.
Sense prisoners, captives
Definition Those bound or captive who belong to God.
References Psalm 69:33
Lexicon prisoners, captives
Why it matters The final praise horizon includes God's care for captives and the socially powerless.
Sense heaven and earth
Definition The whole created order summoned to praise.
References Psalm 69:34
Lexicon heaven and earth
Why it matters The psalm expands from personal lament to cosmic praise.
Sense Zion, the LORD's chosen city
Definition The city associated with God's dwelling, kingship, and covenant purposes.
References Psalm 69:35
Lexicon Zion, the LORD's chosen city
Why it matters The psalm's final hope is not merely private rescue but God's saving work for Zion and Judah.
Cross-language bridge 2 links · View in lexicon
Sense cities of Judah
Definition The covenant land and people in restored settlement.
References Psalm 69:35
Lexicon cities of Judah
Why it matters The final movement ties personal deliverance to the preservation and restoration of God's covenant people.
Pastoral Entry
YARASH, H3423, often speaks of taking possession, inheriting, or dispossessing. It is a land word, but it is never merely real estate language. In the Torah and Former Prophets, Israel receives land because the Lord gives it, and possession often includes the removal of peoples under divine judgment. That makes the word weighty and easy to mishandle. It must be read under covenant promise, holy judgment, and obedience, not as a blank authorization for human conquest.
The Psalms and Prophets widen the inheritance theme toward the righteous dwelling securely and God's people possessing what he promises. The word teaches gift, responsibility, judgment, and hope together.
Sense to inherit, possess
Definition Receiving and dwelling in the promised place.
References Psalm 69:36
Lexicon to inherit, possess
Why it matters The ending looks toward lasting covenant inheritance for the descendants of God's servants.
Sense those who love His name
Definition The faithful who cherish God's revealed identity.
References Psalm 69:36
Lexicon those who love His name
Why it matters The psalm ends by identifying the inheriting community as those who love the Lord's name.
Lexicon data: MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML (CC0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (CC BY 4.0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon (CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible Data (CC BY 4.0) · Full details
| v.10 | H5307נָפַלQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.13 | H7878Qal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH3427יָשַׁבQal · ParticipleH8354שָׁתָהQal · Participle |
| v.15 | H2883טָבַעQal · CohortativeH5337נָצַלNiphal · Cohortative |
| v.16 | H332Qal · Imperfect · Jussive |
| v.17 | H6437פָּנָהQal · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.18 | H5641סָתַרHiphil · Imperfect · JussiveH6887צָרַרQal · Perfect · IndicativeH4118מַהֵרPiel · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.2 | H935בּוֹאQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.20 | H3045יָדַעQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.21 | H7665שָׁבַרQal · Perfect · IndicativeH4672מָצָאQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.23 | H1961הָיָהQal · Imperfect · Jussive |
| v.24 | H2821חָשַׁךְQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH4571מָעַדHiphil · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.25 | H8210שָׁפַךְQal · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.26 | H1961הָיָהQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH8074שָׁמֵםNiphal · ParticipleH1961הָיָהQal · Imperfect · JussiveH3427יָשַׁבQal · Participle |
| v.27 | H5221נָכָהHiphil · Perfect · IndicativeH7291רָדַףQal · Perfect · IndicativeH5608סָפַרPiel · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.28 | H935בּוֹאQal · Imperfect · Jussive |
| v.29 | H4229מָחָהNiphal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH3789כָּתַבNiphal · Imperfect · Jussive |
| v.3 | H2883טָבַעQal · Perfect · IndicativeH935בּוֹאQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.31 | H1984הָלַלPiel · Cohortative |
| v.32 | H7160קָרַןHiphil · ParticipleH6536פָּרַסHiphil · Participle |
| v.33 | H7200רָאָהQal · Perfect · IndicativeH8055שָׂמַחQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH1875דָּרַשׁQal · Participle |
| v.34 | H8085שָׁמַעQal · ParticipleH959בָּזָהQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.35 | H7430רָמַשׂQal · Participle |
| v.36 | H3467יָשַׁעHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.37 | H7931שָׁכַןQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.4 | H3021יָגַעQal · Perfect · IndicativeH2787חָרַרNiphal · Perfect · IndicativeH3615כָּלָהQal · Perfect · IndicativeH3176יָחַלPiel · Participle |
| v.5 | H7231רָבַבQal · Perfect · IndicativeH6105עָצַםQal · Perfect · IndicativeH1497גָּזַלQal · Perfect · IndicativeH7725שׁוּבHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortative |
| v.6 | H3045יָדַעQal · Perfect · IndicativeH3582כָּחַדNiphal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.7 | H954בּוּשׁQal · Imperfect · JussiveH3637כָּלַםNiphal · Imperfect · Jussive |
| v.8 | H5375נָשָׂאQal · Perfect · IndicativeH3680כָּסָהPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.9 | H2114זוּרHophal · Participle passiveH1961הָיָהQal · Perfect · Indicative |
Aspect in Hebrew is grammatical form, not tense. Perfect = completed action; Imperfect = incomplete/ongoing. Stem modifies action type (Qal=simple, Niphal=passive, Piel=intensive).
Morphology: OSHB WLC (Open Scriptures, CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible TEHMC (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0)
Theological Argument
Psalm 69 argues that the Lord is the only saving refuge when the faithful sufferer is overwhelmed by hostility, shame, and abandonment for God's sake. Because God knows both the sufferer's sin and the enemies' injustice, the sufferer may confess honestly, pray boldly, entrust judgment to God, and anticipate praise that strengthens the humble and points toward Zion's restoration.
The theological logic moves from desperate need to covenant appeal, from reproach to divine judgment, from affliction to praise, and from personal rescue to corporate restoration.
- 1.Human danger can become deathlike and engulfing.
- 2.The sufferer can be both genuinely repentant before God and genuinely wronged by enemies.
- 3.Zeal for God's honor may bring reproach from people.
- 4.Prayer rests on God's covenant character, not the sufferer's emotional strength.
- 5.Judgment belongs to God and may rightly be sought when wickedness compounds suffering.
- 6.True deliverance produces public worship and strengthens the lowly.
- 7.The LORD's saving work reaches beyond the individual into Zion, inheritance, and creation-wide praise.
Theological Focus
- God as Savior of the overwhelmed and afflicted
- Righteous suffering under causeless hatred
- Confession and innocence held together under divine knowledge
- Zeal for God's house and the cost of worship fidelity
- Reproach borne for God's sake
- God's steadfast love, compassion, nearness, redemption, and faithful salvation
- Divine judgment against malicious enemies
- Praise and thanksgiving as acceptable worship
- God's hearing of the needy and prisoners
- Zion restoration and covenant inheritance
- Righteous suffering
- Penitent honesty
- Temple zeal
- Covenant mercy
- Judgment and reversal
- Praise beyond sacrifice
- Zion hope
- Divine omniscience
- Human sin and honest confession
- Steadfast love
- Divine judgment
- Christ's humiliation and reproach
- Acceptable worship
- God's care for the needy
- Zion restoration
- Canonical fulfillment
Theological Themes
The psalm gives a canonical language for suffering that is caused by fidelity to God and compounded by public shame.
The psalmist does not claim absolute sinlessness but brings both guilt and injustice before the God who knows all.
Zeal for God's house reveals a worship-centered burden that later the Gospel applies to Christ.
The appeal rests on the Lord's steadfast love, compassion, and saving faithfulness.
The wicked who exploit the sufferer are handed over to God's justice rather than personal vengeance.
Thanksgiving that magnifies God's name is said to please the Lord more than external offerings detached from heart response.
The individual lament ends in corporate restoration and inherited dwelling for God's servants.
Covenant Significance
Psalm 69 is covenantally significant because the sufferer appeals to the Lord's steadfast love, bears reproach for loyalty to God's house, entrusts judgment to the covenant Judge, and looks for the salvation of Zion and the inheritance of God's servants. It does not reduce covenant faithfulness to private piety; it connects personal affliction to worship, community, judgment, restoration, and inheritance.
- Covenant mercy - The plea appeals to God's abundant steadfast love and faithful salvation.
- Covenant worship - Zeal for God's house and thanksgiving that pleases the Lord frame worship as heart-level devotion.
- Covenant judgment - The imprecations ask God to judge those who oppose and exploit His afflicted servant.
- Covenant people - The psalmist is concerned for those who hope in God and ends with the descendants of God's servants inheriting Zion.
- Covenant restoration - The final verses anticipate God saving Zion and rebuilding Judah's cities.
Canonical Connections
Both psalms move through intense suffering, public shame, divine appeal, and a final expansion into praise beyond the individual sufferer.
Psalm 35 shares the causeless-hatred righteous-sufferer pattern also present in Psalm 69:4.
Psalm 40 shares the movement from obedience and public witness into renewed distress and urgent plea for help.
Both psalms contain confession language and teach that God desires heart-level worship beyond empty sacrificial performance.
Psalm 102 similarly joins afflicted prayer with Zion restoration and future praise from God's people.
Isaiah's servant-shaped hope, comfort for prisoners, and Zion restoration resonate with Psalm 69's afflicted servant and final restoration horizon.
The reproached, rejected sufferer whose affliction becomes bound to salvation anticipates the fuller servant-suffering pattern fulfilled in Christ.
John cites Psalm 69:9 to interpret Jesus' zeal for His Father's house.
Jesus identifies His rejection as fulfilling the scriptural pattern of being hated without cause, a line strongly associated with Psalm 69:4 and Psalm 35:19.
The passion narrative's sour wine scene corresponds to Psalm 69:21 as Jesus completes the Scriptures in His suffering.
Paul quotes Psalm 69:22-23 to describe judicial hardening and stumbling.
Paul quotes Psalm 69:9 to present Christ as the one who bore reproaches rather than pleasing Himself.
Peter cites Psalm 69:25 in connection with Judas and the desolation of the betrayer's place.
Psalm 69's praise-and-thanksgiving emphasis coheres with the new-covenant call to offer a sacrifice of praise and do good.
The final Zion-restoration horizon reaches its consummate shape in the renewed creation and the dwelling of God with His people.
Cross References
Through him, then, let’s offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.
But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
After this, Jesus, seeing that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I am thirsty.” Now a vessel full of vinegar was set there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop, and held it at his...
His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will eat me up.”
One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are...
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to...
Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
they gave him sour wine to drink mixed with gall. When he had tasted it, he would not drink.
Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying, “You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” Likewise the chief priests also mocking,...
They sang a new song, saying, “You are worthy to take the book and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood out of every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made us kings and priests to our God,...
David says, “Let their table be made a snare, a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution to them. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see. Always keep their backs bent.”
For even Christ didn’t please himself. But, as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. You will be cursed in...
I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn’t hide my face from shame and spitting.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace...
He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand. You see indeed, but don’t perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their...
The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those who are bound, to proclaim the year...
“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem to be a delight, and her people a...
Yahweh, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded. You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day. Everyone mocks me. For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, “Violence and destruction!” because...
For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The...
Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.
Canon-Wide Connections
Cross-reference data: OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Psalm 69 clarifies the gospel by preparing the reader for a righteous sufferer who bears reproach for God's sake and is answered by God. In Christ, the deepest pattern of the psalm reaches fulfillment: Jesus is hated without cause, consumed with zeal for His Father's house, bears reproach, suffers bitter treatment at the cross, and through His death and resurrection secures salvation, praise, and hope for the humble who seek God.
- The gospel answers helplessness - The psalm's drowning imagery exposes the need for salvation that cannot be self-produced.
- The gospel is honest about sin - The psalmist's confession shows that rescue does not require denial of guilt before God.
- The gospel centers on the reproached righteous sufferer - The New Testament applies Psalm 69's reproach and zeal to Christ's obedient suffering.
- The gospel includes judgment - The psalm's imprecations remind readers that salvation and judgment are not opposites in God's righteous rule.
- The gospel produces praise - God's deliverance turns afflicted prayer into thanksgiving that encourages the humble.
- The gospel opens Zion hope toward consummation - The final restoration language anticipates God's ultimate dwelling with His redeemed people.
- Do not preach Psalm 69 as mere emotional catharsis · it is a text about salvation, reproach, worship, judgment, and covenant hope.
- Do not treat the imprecations as permission for personal vindictiveness · they are appeals to God's righteous judgment.
- Do not bypass the psalm's confession language when applying the righteous-sufferer motif.
- Do not separate Christ's reproach from His cross and resurrection victory.
Through him, then, let’s offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.
But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
After this, Jesus, seeing that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I am thirsty.” Now a vessel full of vinegar was set there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop, and held it at his...
His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will eat me up.”
One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are...
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to...
Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
they gave him sour wine to drink mixed with gall. When he had tasted it, he would not drink.
Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying, “You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” Likewise the chief priests also mocking,...
They sang a new song, saying, “You are worthy to take the book and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood out of every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made us kings and priests to our God,...
David says, “Let their table be made a snare, a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution to them. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see. Always keep their backs bent.”
For even Christ didn’t please himself. But, as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Primary Emphasis
Psalm 69 contributes substantially to the canonical portrait of Christ as the righteous Davidic sufferer who is hated without cause, consumed with zeal for His Father's house, bears reproaches that belong to God, is treated with bitter scorn in His passion, and whose betrayer's desolation is interpreted through the psalm. The New Testament does not erase David's lament but sees in it a Spirit-given pattern that reaches its fullest righteous-sufferer expression in Jesus.
Chapter Contribution
Psalm 69 argues that the Lord is the only saving refuge when the faithful sufferer is overwhelmed by hostility, shame, and abandonment for God's sake. Because God knows both the sufferer's sin and the enemies' injustice, the sufferer may confess honestly, pray boldly, entrust judgment to God, and anticipate praise that strengthens the humble and points toward Zion's restoration.
Trace servant identity, obedient mission, and suffering service across Scripture.
Trace remnant preservation, covenant continuity, and mercy under judgment across Scripture.
Track judgment as covenant accountability, divine justice, and eschatological reckoning.
The believer’s life impacts the faith of others, calling for careful concern for the community of God’s people.
God’s steadfast love is the foundation for prayer and hope in the midst of suffering.
God will restore His people and establish them securely according to His promises.
God alone is the one who saves and rescues those who call upon Him in distress.
God will judge the wicked with perfect righteousness, ensuring that evil does not go unpunished.
God draws near to those who cry out to Him, especially in their distress.
God rescues and lifts up the afflicted, demonstrating His saving power.
There is a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, culminating in inclusion or exclusion from life with God.
God hears and honors those who are lowly and seek Him.
God fully knows the heart, including both sin and sincerity, and nothing is hidden from Him.
The imagery of drowning underscores humanity’s inability to rescue itself from overwhelming trials.
The righteous may experience deep loneliness and lack of human comfort, driving them to rely solely on God.
The faithful align themselves so closely with God that insults against Him become personal suffering.
Persistent rebellion against God can result in spiritual blindness and hardened hearts.
Those who live in righteousness often face unjust opposition and hatred.
Those who oppose God and harm His people will face consequences proportionate to their actions.
The faithful may endure intense suffering not as a result of personal wrongdoing but because of their alignment with God.
The suffering described anticipates the Messiah who would endure reproach and humiliation for others.
Devotion to God can result in rejection, shame, and persecution from others.
Heartfelt praise and thanksgiving are more pleasing to God than mere external sacrifices.
God knows the psalmist's folly, guilt, reproach, shame, and enemies; nothing is hidden from Him.
The psalmist confesses known wrong while also maintaining that enemy hatred is without cause.
The psalm presents suffering that comes because of devotion to God and His house.
The appeal for deliverance is grounded in the Lord's abundant covenant love and compassion.
The psalm asks God to bring judicial reversal upon malicious enemies who compound suffering.
The New Testament applies key lines from Psalm 69 to Christ's zeal, rejection, reproach, and passion suffering.
Praise and thanksgiving that magnify God's name please the Lord more than mere external sacrifice.
The Lord hears the needy and does not despise His captive people.
The psalm ends with God saving Zion, rebuilding Judah's cities, and securing inheritance for His servants' descendants.
The psalm functions as a major Davidic righteous-sufferer text that the New Testament repeatedly uses in relation to Christ and apostolic theology.
Theological exposition and fulfillment
- Psalm 69 forms humble, honest, Christ-aware endurance under reproach. It teaches believers to cry for rescue, confess sin, endure shame for God's sake, entrust enemies to God, praise before the full restoration is visible, and hope in the God who saves Zion.
Psalm 69 forms humble, honest, Christ-aware endurance under reproach. It teaches believers to cry for rescue, confess sin, endure shame for God's sake, entrust enemies to God, praise before the full restoration is visible, and hope in the God who saves Zion.
- Psalm 69 warns against mocking the afflicted, opposing God-centered zeal, compounding the suffering of those God has wounded, trusting in social power over divine judgment, and practicing worship without a heart that praises and thanks the Lord.
- Psalm 69 is only about David's private emotions. - The psalm is deeply personal, but it is also liturgical, covenantal, judicial, Zion-oriented, and repeatedly used in the New Testament to interpret Christ and apostolic theology.
- The psalmist claims complete personal sinlessness. - Verse 5 confesses that God knows his folly and guilt, while verse 4 still maintains that the particular hatred and false liability are unjust.
- The imprecations authorize personal revenge. - The psalm addresses God as Judge and entrusts reversal to Him rather than legitimizing self-directed vengeance.
- The New Testament quotations mean every line is a direct prediction of Jesus in the same way. - The psalm first functions as a Davidic lament, then becomes a Spirit-given righteous-sufferer pattern fulfilled climactically in Christ where the New Testament applies it.
- Praise pleasing God more than sacrifice means sacrifice is irrelevant in the Old Testament. - The point is not anti-sacrificial rebellion but the superiority of genuine thanksgiving and heart-level worship over external offering without true devotion.
- Zion restoration can be spiritualized away without remainder. - The psalm's final hope uses concrete covenant language of Zion, Judah's cities, dwelling, inheritance, servants, descendants, and love for God's name.
- Where do I feel as though the waters have come up to my neck, and have I brought that honestly to the Lord?
- Can I confess real sin before God without surrendering to false accusations people place on me?
- Have I ever experienced reproach because of zeal for God's honor, worship, or truth?
- Do I care whether my suffering strengthens or unsettles others who hope in the Lord?
- Am I grounding my prayers in God's steadfast love and compassion or in my own sense of worthiness?
- Where am I tempted to answer malice with revenge rather than entrusting judgment to God?
- Do my experiences of rescue become thanksgiving that encourages the humble?
- How does Christ's bearing of reproach reshape my endurance under shame?
- Do I treat public worship and God's house with the seriousness that Psalm 69 and John 2 require?
- Does my hope stop with private relief, or does it stretch toward God's restoration of His people and final dwelling with them?
- Preaching - Preach the psalm as a full movement from drowning lament to Zion hope, not merely as a list of messianic proof texts. Let the congregation feel the waters, the reproach, the judgment appeal, and the final praise.
- Counseling the falsely accused - Psalm 69 helps sufferers name false hostility while still standing honestly before the God who knows everything.
- Counseling shame - The psalm gives language for reproach, disgrace, brokenheartedness, and lack of comfort without treating those experiences as spiritual failure.
- Discipleship under opposition - Use the psalm to train believers that zeal for God's honor may bring scorn, but that Christ has borne reproach before them and for them.
- Prayer formation - Teach believers to pray from God's steadfast love, compassion, nearness, redemption, and faithful salvation.
- Anger and justice - Use the imprecatory section to teach the difference between sinful retaliation and entrusting evil to God's righteous judgment.
- Worship - Psalm 69:30-31 can correct externalism by showing that praise and thanksgiving from the heart please God more than religious performance.
- Mission and hope - The final Zion restoration horizon encourages the church to connect personal deliverance with God's wider plan to gather and dwell with His redeemed people.
C.F. Keil & F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–91) — public domain
The Biblical World
Chapter At A Glance
Psalm 69 moves from drowning distress and causeless hatred, through reproach for God-centered zeal and renewed pleas for rescue, into imprecatory judgment, thankful praise, and covenant hope for Zion and the descendants of God's servants.
Psalm 69 is covenantally significant because the sufferer appeals to the Lord's steadfast love, bears reproach for loyalty to God's house, entrusts judgment to the covenant Judge, and looks for the salvation of Zion and the inheritance of God's servants. It does not reduce covenant faithfulness to private piety; it connects personal affliction to worship, community, judgment, restoration, and inheritance.
Psalm 69 clarifies the gospel by preparing the reader for a righteous sufferer who bears reproach for God's sake and is answered by God. In Christ, the deepest pattern of the psalm reaches fulfillment: Jesus is hated without cause, consumed with zeal for His Father's house, bears reproach, suffers bitter treatment at the cross, and through His death and resurrection secures salvation, praise, and hope for the humble who seek God.
Focus Points
- God as Savior of the overwhelmed and afflicted
- Righteous suffering under causeless hatred
- Confession and innocence held together under divine knowledge
- Zeal for God's house and the cost of worship fidelity
- Reproach borne for God's sake
- God's steadfast love, compassion, nearness, redemption, and faithful salvation
- Divine judgment against malicious enemies
- Praise and thanksgiving as acceptable worship
- God's hearing of the needy and prisoners
- Zion restoration and covenant inheritance
- Righteous suffering
- Penitent honesty
- Temple zeal
- Covenant mercy
- Judgment and reversal
- Praise beyond sacrifice
- Zion hope
- Divine omniscience
- Human sin and honest confession
- Steadfast love
- Divine judgment
- Christ's humiliation and reproach
- Acceptable worship
- God's care for the needy
- Zion restoration
- Canonical fulfillment
Biblical Theology
- Messianic Fulfillment Trace the messianic fulfillment thread from promise-bearing anticipation to explicit recognition that Jesus fulfills what Scripture prepared. Trace thread →
- Suffering Servant Trace the suffering servant thread from prophetic servant expectation to Christ's sin-bearing obedience, shame-bearing endurance, and saving suffering. Trace thread →
- Zion Restoration Trace the Zion restoration thread from prophetic hope and refuge to the heavenly Zion where God's gathered people draw near through Christ. Trace thread →
- Divine Presence Trace the divine presence thread from covenant nearness and holy manifestation to God's abiding presence with His people through Christ. Trace thread →
- Covenant Lawsuit Trace the covenant lawsuit thread where God summons His covenant people, exposes breach, announces judgment, and preserves the way of return. Trace thread →
- Christ-Centered Preaching Christ-centered preaching is the faithful proclamation of Scripture in a way that is governed by the person and work of Jesus Christ and ordered by the gospel. It does not force Jesus artificially into every passage, but reads every text within the redemptive purpose of God that culminates in Christ. This kind of preaching refuses both moralistic reduction and personality-driven performance. It seeks to herald God's Word with exegetical integrity, gospel clarity, and pastoral urgency so that hearers encounter the living Christ in the truth of Scripture.
- Gospel and Suffering The gospel and suffering belong together because the crucified and risen Christ saves His people not only from sin's guilt, but also teaches them how to endure affliction in union with Him. Suffering is not itself the gospel, yet the gospel gives suffering its truest interpretation by revealing God's holiness, Christ's cross, resurrection hope, and the promise that present affliction will not have the final word. Christian suffering is therefore neither meaningless pain nor automatic evidence of divine displeasure. Where the gospel is central, the church learns to suffer honestly, endure faithfully, comfort wisely, and hope stubbornly in the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Gospel and Perseverance The gospel of Jesus Christ not only saves sinners but secures and sustains them to the end. Through union with Christ and the preserving work of God, those who truly belong to Christ continue in faith, repentance, and obedience. Perseverance therefore reveals the enduring power of the cross and resurrection in the life of the believer. The same grace that begins salvation also carries believers forward until the final day of redemption.
Passages
Chapter opening: Psalms 69:1-4
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:1-13 Out of deep distress, the work of his foes, the complaining one cries for help; he thinks upon his sins, which is sufferings bring to his remembrance, but he is also distinctly conscious that he is an object of scorn and hostility for God’s sake, and from His mercy he looks for help in accordance with His promises. The waters are said to rush in unto the soul (עד־נפשׁ), when they so press upon the imperilled one that the soul, i.
e. , the life of the body, more especially the breath, is threatened; cf. Jon 2:6; Jer 4:10. Waters are also a figure of calamities that come on like a flood and drag one into their vortex, Psa 18:17; Psa 32:6; Psa 124:5, cf. Psa 66:12; Psa 88:8, Psa 88:18; here, however, the figure is cut off in such a way that it conveys the impression of reality expressed in a poetical form, as in Ps 40, and much the same as in Jonah’s psalm.
The soft, yielding morass is called יון, and the eddying deep מצוּלה. The Nomen Hophal . מעמד signifies properly a being placed, then a standing-place, or firm standing (lxx ὑπόστασις), like מטּה, that which is stretched out, extension, Isa 8:8. שׁבּלת (Ephraimitish סבּלת) is a streaming, a flood, from שׁבל, Arab. sbl , to stream, flow (cf. note on Psa 58:9 ).
בּוא בּ, to fall into, as in Psa 66:12, and שׁטף with an accusative, to overflow, as in Psa 124:4. The complaining one is nearly drowned in consequence of his sinking down, for he has long cried in vain for help: he is wearied by continual crying (יגע בּ, as in Psa 6:7, Jer 45:3), his throat is parched (נחר from חרר; lxx and Jerome: it is become hoarse), his eyes have failed (Jer 14:6) him, who waits upon his God.
The participle מיחל, equal to a relative clause, is, as in 18:51, 1Ki 14:6, attached to the suffix of the preceding noun (Hitzig). Distinct from this use of the participle without the article is the adverbially qualifying participle in Gen 3:8; Sol 5:2, cf. חי, 2Sa 12:21; 2Sa 18:14. There is no necessity for the correction of the text מיּחל (lxx apo' τοῦ elpi'zein me).
Concerning the accentuation of רבּוּ vid. , on Psa 38:20. Apart from the words “more than the hairs of my head” (Psa 40:13), the complaint of the multitude of groundless enemies is just the same as in Psa 38:20; Psa 35:19, cf. Psa 109:3, both in substance and expression. Instead of מצמיתי, my destroyers, the Syriac version has the reading מעצמותי (more numerous than my bones), which is approved by Hupfeld; but to reckon the multitude of the enemy by the number of one’s own bones is both devoid of taste and unheard of.
Moreover the reading of our text finds support, if it need any, in Lam 3:52. The words, “what I have not taken away, I must then restore,” are intended by way of example, and perhaps, as also in Jer 15:10, as a proverbial expression: that which I have not done wrong, I must suffer for (cf. Jer 15:10, and the similar complaint in Psa 35:11). One is tempted to take אז in the sense of “nevertheless” (Ewald), a meaning, however, which it is by no means intended to convey.
In this passage it takes the place of זאת (cf. οὕτως for ταῦτα, Mat 7:12), inasmuch as it gives prominence to the restitution desired, as an inference from a false assumption: then, although I took it not away, stole it not. The transition from the bewailing of suffering to a confession of sin is like Psa 40:13. In the undeserved persecution which he endures at the hand of man, he is obliged nevertheless to recognise well-merited chastisement from the side of God.
And whilst by אתּה ידעתּ (cf. Psa 40:10, Jer 15:15; Jer 17:16; Jer 18:23, and on ל as an exponent of the object, Jer 16:16; Jer 40:2) he does not acknowledge himself to be a sinner after the standard of his own shortsightedness, but of the divine omniscience, he at the same time commends his sinful need, which with self-accusing modesty he calls אוּלת (Psa 38:6) and אשׁמות (2Ch 28:10), to the mercy of the omniscient One.
Should he, the sinner, be abandoned by God to destruction, then all those who are faithful in their intentions towards the Lord would be brought to shame and confusion in him, inasmuch as they would be taunted with this example. קויך designates the godly from the side of the πίστις, and מבקשׁיךa from the side of the ἀγάπη. The multiplied names of God are so many appeals to God’s honour, to the truthfulness of His covenant relationship.
The person praying here is, it is true, a sinner, but that is no justification of the conduct of men towards him; he is suffering for the Lord’s sake, and it is the Lord Himself who is reviled in him. It is upon this he bases his prayer in Psa 69:8. עליך, for thy sake, as in Psa 44:23; Jer 15:15. The reproach that he has to bear, and ignominy that has covered his face and made it quite unrecognisable (Psa 44:16, cf.
Psa 83:17), have totally estranged (Psa 38:12, cf. Psa 88:9, Job 19:13-15; Jer 12:6) from him even his own brethren (אחי, parallel word בּני אמּי, as in Psa 50:20; cf. on the other hand, Gen 49:8, where the interchange designedly takes another form of expression); for the glow of his zeal (קנאהּ from קנא, according to the Arabic, to be a deep or bright red) for the house of Jahve, viz.
, for the sanctity of the sanctuary and of the congregation gathered about it (which is never directly called “the house of Jahve” in the Old Testament, vid. , Köhler on Zec 9:8, but here, as in Num 12:7; Hos 8:1, is so called in conjunction with the sanctuary), as also for the honour of His who sits enthroned therein, consumes him, like a fire burning in his bones which incessantly breaks forth and rages all through him (Jer 20:9; Jer 23:9), and therefore all the malice of those who are estranged from God is concentrated upon and against him.
He now goes on to describe how sorrow for the sad condition of the house of God has brought noting but reproach to him (cf. Psa 109:24.) It is doubtful whether נפשׁי is an alternating subject to ואבכּה ( fut. consec . without being apocopated), cf. Jer 13:17, or a more minutely defining accusative as in Isa 26:9 (vid. , on Psa 3:5), or whether, together with בּצּום, it forms a circumstantial clause ( et flevi dum in jejunio esset anima mea ), or even whether it is intended to be taken as an accusative of the object in a pregnant construction (= בּכה ושׁפך נפשׁו, Psa 42:5; 1Sa 1:15): I wept away my soul in fasting.
Among all these possible renderings, the last is the least probable, and the first, according to Psa 44:3; 83:19, by far the most probable, and also that which is assumed by the accentuation. The reading of the lxx ואענּה, καὶ συνέκαψα (Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher), is a very natural (Psa 35:13) exchange of the poetically bold expression for one less choice and less expressive (since ענּה נפשׁ is a phrase of the Pentateuch equivalent to צוּם).
The garb of mourning, like the fasting, is an expression of sorrow for public distresses, not, as in Psa 35:13, of personal condolence; concerning ואתּנה, vid. , on Psa 3:6. On account of this mourning, reproach after reproach comes upon him, and they fling gibes and raillery at him; everywhere, both in the gate, the place where the judges sit and where business is transacted, and also at carousals, he is jeered at and traduced (Lam 3:14, cf.
Lam 5:14; Job 30:9). שׂיח בּ signifies in itself fabulari de... without any bad secondary meaning (cf. Pro 6:22, confabulabitur tecum ); here it is construed first with a personal and then a neuter subject (cf. Amo 8:3), for in Psa 69:13 neither הייתי (Job 30:9; Lam 3:14) nor אני (Lam 3:63) is to be supplied. Psa 69:14 tells us how he acts in the face of such hatred and scorn; ואני, as in Psa 109:4, sarcasmis hostium suam opponit in precibus constantiam (Geier).
As for himself, his prayer is directed towards Jahve at the present time, when his affliction as a witness for God gives him the assurance that He will be well-pleased to accept it (עת רצון = בעת רצון, Isa 49:8). It is addressed to Him who is at the same time Jahve and Elohim , - the revealed One in connection with the history of redemption, and the absolute One in His exaltation above the world, - on the ground of the greatness and fulness of His mercy: may He then answer him with or in the truth of His salvation, i.
e. , the infallibility with which His purpose of mercy verifies itself in accordance with the promises given. Thus is Psa 69:14 to be explained in accordance with the accentuation. According to Isa 49:8, it looks as though עת רצון must be drawn to ענני (Hitzig), but Psa 32:6 sets us right on this point; and the fact that ברב־חסדך is joined to Psa 69:14 also finds support from Psa 5:8.
But the repetition of the divine name perplexes one, and it may be asked whether or not the accent that divides the verse into its two parts might not more properly stand beside רצון, as in Psa 32:6 beside מצא; so that Psa 69:14 runs: Elohim, by virtue of the greatness of Thy mercy hear me, by virtue of the truth of Thy salvation.
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:14-21 In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Ps 55:24, cf. בור, Psa 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place.
The combination “from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters” shows that “the depths of the waters” is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus = claudus , scil.
manu ) its mouth (i. e. , its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. “Let not the water-flood overflow me” is intended to say, since it has, according to Psa 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The “answer me” in Psa 69:17 is based upon the plea that God’s loving-kindness is טּוב, i.
e. , good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psa 109:21), better than all besides (Psa 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psa 69:17 cf. Psa 51:3, Lam 3:32. In Psa 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psa 102:3; Psa 143:7; Gen 19:22; Est 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psa 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psa 79:8).
קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah , Deu 15:9, קרבה (in Baer, is imperat. Kal ; cf. the fulfilment in Lam 3:57. The reason assigned, “because of mine enemies,” as in Psa 5:9; Psa 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psa 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.
The accumulation of synonyms in Psa 69:20 is Jeremiah’s custom, Jer 13:14; Jer 21:5, Jer 21:7; Jer 32:37, and is found also in Ps 31 (Psa 31:10) and Ps 44 (Psa 44:4, Psa 44:17, Psa 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psa 51:19, Jer 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah.
Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e. g. , Psa 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. “To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink” is a Jeremianic (Jer 8:14; Jer 9:14; Jer 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one.
ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.
e. , for the quenching of it, Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae , after which Luther renders: “they give me gall to eat. ” The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lam 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are ).
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
Psa 69:22-36 The description of the suffering has reached its climax in Psa 69:22, at which the wrath of the persecuted one flames up and bursts forth in imprecations. The first imprecation joins itself upon Psa 69:22. They have given the sufferer gall and vinegar; therefore their table, which was abundantly supplied, is to be turned into a snare to them, from which they shall not be able to escape, and that לפניהם, in the very midst of their banqueting, whilst the table stands spread out before them (Eze 23:41).
שׁלומים (collateral form of שׁלמים) is the name given to them as being carnally secure; the word signifies the peaceable or secure in a good (Psa 55:21) and in a bad sense. Destruction is to overtake them suddenly, “when they say: Peace and safety” (1Th 5:3). The lxx erroneously renders: καὶ εἰς ἀνταπόδοσιν = וּלשׁלּוּמים. The association of ideas in Psa 69:24 is transparent.
With their eyes they have feasted themselves upon the sufferer, and in the strength of their loins they have ill-treated him. These eyes with their bloodthirsty malignant looks are to grow blind. These loins full of defiant self-confidence are to shake (המעד, imperat. Hiph . like הרחק, Job 13:21, from המעיד, for which in Eze 29:7, and perhaps also in Dan 11:14, we find העמיד).
Further: God is to pour out His wrath upon them (Psa 79:6; Hos 5:10; Jer 10:25), i. e. , let loose against them the cosmical forces of destruction existing originally in His nature. זעמּך has the Dagesh in order to distinguish it in pronunciation from זעמך. In Psa 69:26 טירה (from טוּר, to encircle) is a designation of an encamping or dwelling-place (lxx ἔπαυλις) taken from the circular encampments (Arabic ṣı̂rât , ṣirât , and dwâr , duâr ) of the nomads (Gen 25:16).
The laying waste and desolation of his own house is the most fearful of all misfortunes to the Semite ( Job , note to Psa 18:15). The poet derives the justification of such fearful imprecations from the fact that they persecute him, who is besides smitten of God. God has smitten him on account of his sins, and that by having placed him in the midst of a time in which he must be consumed with zeal and solicitude for the house of God.
The suffering decreed for him by God is therefore at one and the same time suffering as a chastisement and as a witnessing for God; and they heighten this suffering by every means in their power, not manifesting any pity for him or any indulgence, but imputing to him sins that he has not committed, and requiting him with deadly hatred for benefits for which they owed him thanks. There are also some others, although but few, who share this martyrdom with him.
The psalmist calls them, as he looks up to Jahve, חלליך, Thy fatally smitten ones; they are those to whom God has appointed that they should bear within themselves a pierced or wounded heart (vid. , Psa 109:22, cf. Jer 8:18) in the face of such a godless age. Of the deep grief (אל, as in Psa 2:7) of these do they tell, viz. , with self-righteous, self-blinded mockery (cf.
the Talmudic phrase ספר בלשׁון הרע or ספר לשׁון הרע, of evil report or slander). The lxx and Syriac render יוסיפוּ (προσέθηκαν): they add to the anguish; the Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome follow the traditional text. Let God therefore, by the complete withdrawal of His grace, suffer them to fall from one sin into another - this is the meaning of the da culpam super culpam eorum - in order that accumulated judgment may correspond to the accumulated guilt (Jer 16:18).
Let the entrance into God’s righteousness, i. e. , His justifying and sanctifying grace, be denied to them for ever. Let them be blotted out of ספר חיּים (Exo 32:32, cf. Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1), that is to say, struck out of the list of the living, and that of the living in this present world; for it is only in the New Testament that we meet with the Book of Life as a list of the names of the heirs of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
According to the conception both of the Old and of the New Testament the צדיקים are the heirs of life. Therefore Psa 69:29 wishes that they may not be written by the side of the righteous, who, according to Hab 2:4, “live,” i. e. , are preserved, by their faith. With ואני the poet contrasts himself, as in Ps 40:18, with those deserving of execration. They are now on high, but in order to be brought low; he is miserable and full of poignant pain, but in order to be exalted; God’s salvation will remove him from his enemies on to a height that is too steep for them (Psa 59:2; Psa 91:14).
Then will he praise (הלּל) and magnify (גּדּל) the Name of God with song and thankful confession. And such spiritual תּודה, such thank-offering of the heart, is more pleasing to God than an ox, a bullock, i. e. , a young ox (= פּר השּׁור, an ox-bullock, Jdg 6:25, according to Ges. §113), one having horns and a cloven hoof (Ges. §53, 2). The attributives do not denote the rough material animal nature (Hengstenberg), but their legal qualifications for being sacrificed.
מקרין is the name for the young ox as not being under three years old (cf. 1Sa 1:24, lxx ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι); מפריס as belonging to the clean four-footed animals, viz. , those that are cloven-footed and chew the cud, Lev. 11. Even the most stately, full-grown, clean animal that may be offered as a sacrifice stands in the sight of Jahve very far below the sacrifice of grateful praise coming from the heart.
When now the patient sufferers (ענוים) united with the poet by community of affliction shall see how he offers the sacrifice of thankful confession, they will rejoice. ראוּ is a hypothetical preterite; it is neither וראוּ ( perf. consec .) , nor יראוּ (Psa 40:4; Psa 52:8; Psa 107:42; Job 22:19). The declaration conveying information to be expected in Psa 69:33 after the Waw apodoseos changes into an apostrophe of the “seekers of Elohim:” their heart shall revive, for, as they have suffered in company with him who is now delivered, they shall now also refresh themselves with him.
We are at once reminded of Psa 22:27, where this is as it were the exhortation of the entertainer at the thank-offering meal. It would be rash to read שׁמע in Psa 69:23, after Psa 22:25, instead of שׁמע (Olshausen); the one object in that passage is here generalized: Jahve is attentive to the needy, and doth not despise His bound ones (Psa 107:10), but, on the contrary, He takes an interest in them and helps them.
Starting from this proposition, which is the clear gain of that which has been experienced, the view of the poet widens into the prophetic prospect of the bringing back of Israel out of the Exile into the Land of Promise. In the face of this fact of redemption of the future he calls upon (cf. Isa 44:23) all created things to give praise to God, who will bring about the salvation of Zion, will build again the cities of Judah, and restore the land, freed from its desolation, to the young God-fearing generation, the children of the servants of God among the exiles.
The feminine suffixes refer to ערי (cf. Jer 2:15; Jer 22:6 Chethîb ). The tenor of Isa 65:9 is similar. If the Psalm were written by David, the closing turn from Psa 69:23 onwards might be more difficult of comprehension than Psa 14:7; 51:20f. If, however, it is by Jeremiah, then we do not need to persuade ourselves that it is to be understood not of restoration and re-peopling, but of continuance and completion (Hofmann and Kurtz).
Jeremiah lived to experience the catastrophe he foretold; but the nearer it came to the time, the more comforting were the words with which he predicted the termination of the Exile and the restoration of Israel. Jer 34:7 shows us how natural to him, and to him in particular, was the distinction between Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. The predictions in Jer 32:1, which sound so in accord with Psa 69:36.
, belong to the time of the second siege. Jerusalem was not yet fallen; the strong places of the land, however, already lay in ruins.
This short Psalm, placed after Ps 69 on account of the kindred nature of its contents (cf. more especially v. 6 with Psa 69:30), is, with but few deviations, a repetition of Psa 40:14. This portion of the second half of Ps 40 is detached from it and converted into the Elohimic style. Concerning להזכּיר, at the presentation of the memorial portion of the mincha , vid.
, Psa 38:1. It is obvious that David himself is not the author of the Psalm in this stunted form. The לדוד is moreover justified, if he composed the original Psalm which is here modified and appropriated to a special liturgical use. Psa 70:1-3 We see at once at the very beginning, in the omission of the רצה (Psa 40:14), that what we have here before us is a fragment of Ps 40, and perhaps a fragment that only accidentally came to have an independent existence.
The להצּילני, which was under the government of רצה, now belongs to הוּשׁה, and the construction is without example elsewhere. In Psa 70:3 (= Psa 40:15) יחד and לספּותהּ are given up entirely; the original is more full-toned and soaring. Instead of ישׁמּוּ, torpescant , Psa 70:4 has ישׁוּבוּ, recedant (as in Ps 6:11, cf. Psa 9:18), which is all the more flat for coming after יסגו אחור.
In Psa 70:4 , after ויאמרים the לי, which cannot here (cf. on the contrary, Psa 35:21) be dispensed with, is wanting.
This short Psalm, placed after Ps 69 on account of the kindred nature of its contents (cf. more especially v. 6 with Psa 69:30), is, with but few deviations, a repetition of Psa 40:14. This portion of the second half of Ps 40 is detached from it and converted into the Elohimic style. Concerning להזכּיר, at the presentation of the memorial portion of the mincha , vid.
, Psa 38:1. It is obvious that David himself is not the author of the Psalm in this stunted form. The לדוד is moreover justified, if he composed the original Psalm which is here modified and appropriated to a special liturgical use. Psa 70:1-3 We see at once at the very beginning, in the omission of the רצה (Psa 40:14), that what we have here before us is a fragment of Ps 40, and perhaps a fragment that only accidentally came to have an independent existence.
The להצּילני, which was under the government of רצה, now belongs to הוּשׁה, and the construction is without example elsewhere. In Psa 70:3 (= Psa 40:15) יחד and לספּותהּ are given up entirely; the original is more full-toned and soaring. Instead of ישׁמּוּ, torpescant , Psa 70:4 has ישׁוּבוּ, recedant (as in Ps 6:11, cf. Psa 9:18), which is all the more flat for coming after יסגו אחור.
In Psa 70:4 , after ויאמרים the לי, which cannot here (cf. on the contrary, Psa 35:21) be dispensed with, is wanting.
This short Psalm, placed after Ps 69 on account of the kindred nature of its contents (cf. more especially v. 6 with Psa 69:30), is, with but few deviations, a repetition of Psa 40:14. This portion of the second half of Ps 40 is detached from it and converted into the Elohimic style. Concerning להזכּיר, at the presentation of the memorial portion of the mincha , vid.
, Psa 38:1. It is obvious that David himself is not the author of the Psalm in this stunted form. The לדוד is moreover justified, if he composed the original Psalm which is here modified and appropriated to a special liturgical use. Psa 70:1-3 We see at once at the very beginning, in the omission of the רצה (Psa 40:14), that what we have here before us is a fragment of Ps 40, and perhaps a fragment that only accidentally came to have an independent existence.
The להצּילני, which was under the government of רצה, now belongs to הוּשׁה, and the construction is without example elsewhere. In Psa 70:3 (= Psa 40:15) יחד and לספּותהּ are given up entirely; the original is more full-toned and soaring. Instead of ישׁמּוּ, torpescant , Psa 70:4 has ישׁוּבוּ, recedant (as in Ps 6:11, cf. Psa 9:18), which is all the more flat for coming after יסגו אחור.
In Psa 70:4 , after ויאמרים the לי, which cannot here (cf. on the contrary, Psa 35:21) be dispensed with, is wanting.
Psa 70:4-5 ויאמרו instead of יאמרו is unimportant. But since the divine name Jahve is now for once chosen side by side with Elohim , it certainly had a strong claim to be retained in Psa 70:5 . Instead of תּשׁועתך we have ישׁועתך here; instead of עזרתי, here עזרי. And instead of אדני יחשׁב לי we have here אלהים חוּשׁה־לּי - the hope is turned into petition: make haste unto me , is an innovation in expression that is caused by the taking over of the לי.