Psalms 69:26-36

26 for persecuting someone you had already stricken, for adding to the pain of those you wounded.

27 Add guilt to their guilt, don't let them enter your righteousness.

28 Erase them from the book of life, let them not be written with the righteous.

29 Meanwhile, I am afflicted and hurting; God, let your saving power raise me up.

30 I will praise God's name with a song and extol him with thanksgiving.

31 This will please ADONAI more than a bull, with its horns and hoofs.

32 The afflicted will see it and rejoice; you seeking after God, let your heart revive.

33 For ADONAI pays attention to the needy and doesn't scorn his captive people.

34 Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and whatever moves in them.

35 For God will save Tziyon, he will build the cities of Y'hudah. [His people] will settle there and possess it.

36 The descendants of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will live there.

Psalms 69:26-36 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.