Psalm 69
To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim,
A Psalm of David.
This psalm is much like the 22nd, representing at once the troubles of David and of David’s Lord, and the glories which followed. We have in it, (1.) Bitter complaints of long and sore troubles; of the malice and multitude of enemies; of the unkindness of friends; of general contempt: and these mingled with candid acknowledgments of guilt, and with supplications for God’s gracious audience and merciful deliverance, ver. 1-13. (2.) Pleas insisted on, in these supplications, viz. the mercy and truth of God; the psalmist’s own great distress; the insolence and cruelty of his enemies; and the unkindness of his friends, ver. 14-21. (3.) Predictions of the ruin of David’s, and especially of Christ’s Jewish enemies; importing that their sacrifices and their common food should be cursed to them; that they should be plagued with judicial blindness and wrathful disquiet; that they should be rendered public monuments of the vengeance of God, having their church and state quite unhinged, and their land desolated; and, in fine, that their ruin should be increasing, and their recovery almost impossible, ver. 22-28. (4.) Under a deep sense of his poverty and distress, David, and his divine Son, celebrate the high praises of God, and call others to praise him for the deliverances of Israel; but chiefly for the erection of the gospel church, and for the certain, though still future recalling of the Jews into the same, ver. 29-36.
While I sing, let me behold my Redeemer, charged in law with my sins, and bearing the punishment thereof. Let me learn with patience to run the race of holy obedience and of necessary trials set before me, looking to Jesus as my pattern, and as the author and finisher of my faith. While I behold the tremendous severity of God’s judgments against his ancient people, for rejecting and murdering his Son, let me not be high -minded, but fear. Let me behold the grace of our Lord Jesus, who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor; that we through his poverty might be made rich. And let me be a living and lively member of that church which is founded in his blood, and blessed in him with all spiritual blessings.