Psalms 69:20-30

20 Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness, and I looked for some to take pity, but there was no one, and for comforters, but I found none.

21 They also gave me gall for my food; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

22 Let their table become a snare before them, and that which should have been for their prosperity, let it become a stumbling block.

23 Let their eyes be darkened that they see not and make their loins continually to shake.

24 Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

25 Let their palace be desolate, and let no one dwell in their tents.

26 For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten, and they boast that thou hast slain their enemies.

27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity, and let them not come into thy righteousness.

28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous.

29 But I am poor and sorrowful; let thy saving health, O God, set me up on high.

30 I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify him with praises.

Psalms 69:20-30 Meaning and Commentary

To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, [A Psalm] of David. Of the word "shoshannim," See Gill on "Ps 45:1," title. The Targum renders it, "concerning the removal of the sanhedrim;" which was about the time of Christ's death. The Talmudists {t} say, that forty years before the destruction of the temple, the sanhedrim removed, they removed from the paved chamber, &c. But it can hardly be thought that David prophesied of this affair; nor of the captivity of the people of Israel, as the Targum, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Arama, and R. Obadiah interpret it: and so Jarchi takes the word "shoshannim" to signify lilies, and applies it to the Israelites, who are as a lily among thorns. But not a body of people, but a single person, is spoken of, and in sorrowful and suffering circumstances; and, if the Jews were not blind, they might see that they are the enemies of the person designed, and the evil men from whom he suffered so much. And indeed what is said of him cannot be said of them, nor of any other person whatever but the Messiah: and that the psalm belongs to Christ, and to the times of the Gospel, is abundantly evident from the citations out of it in the New Testament; as

Psalm 69:4 in John 15:25;
Psalm 69:9 in John 2:17;
Psalm 69:21 in Matthew 27:34;
Psalm 69:22 in Romans 11:9;
Psalm 69:25 in Acts 1:16.

The inscription of the psalm in the Syriac version is, "'a psalm' of David, according to the letter, when Shemuah (Sheba), the son of Bichri, blew a trumpet, and the people ceased from following after him (David); but the prophecy is said concerning those things which the Messiah suffered, and concerning the rejection of the Jews." And Aben Ezra interprets Psalm 69:36 of the days of David, or of the days of the Messiah.

{t} T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 8. 2. & Roshhashanah, fol. 31. 1, 2.