Psalm 69:17

Psalm 69 is one of the longest and most heartfelt laments in the Psalter. It opens with a cry from deep waters and deep mire (Psalm 69:1–6), where the psalmist says, “I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me,” and confesses that God knows his foolishness and his sins. A long account of his suffering follows (Psalm 69:7–21): reproach borne for God’s sake, estrangement from his own family, and a zeal for God’s house that has eaten him up. Then come his prayers against his enemies (Psalm 69:22–28), and the psalm ends with a vow of praise and confidence in God (Psalm 69:29–36).

Our verses stand at the turning point near the end of that long middle section. Verse 13 opens with “But as for me”, setting the psalmist’s prayer over against the mockery he has just described, and through verse 18 he asks God to hear, deliver, turn and redeem. In verses 19 to 21 he spreads out before God everything he has suffered.

The psalm is traditionally given to David. Its setting has been sought in his flight from Saul and in Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15), and some have placed it later, in or after the exile. Its words fit any time when a righteous man suffers unjustly for God’s sake, and they fit Christ most fully of all, as the New Testament shows.

“But as for me” sets the psalmist apart from his enemies and from his own despair. Everything around him is against him, and he turns to the LORD. His prayer, tᵉphillâh, is a word for intercession and supplication, and by implication a hymn. He calls on God by two names in this one verse: “O LORD”, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of Israel’s God, and “O God”, ʼĕlôhîym, the God of power and majesty.

Verse 14 takes up the picture the psalm opened with. “Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink.” The mire, ṭîyṭ, is mud or clay, from a root that apparently meant to be sticky. It is ground that holds a man fast the harder he struggles. To sink, ṭâbaʻ, is to go down into it and drown. “Deliver” is nâtsal, to snatch away, and so to rescue. The one God snatches away is the psalmist himself, and the dangers he is taken from are named after “out of” and “from”: the mire, the people who hate him, and the deep waters.

The verb comes back in the middle of the verse, “let me be delivered from them that hate me”, and there the cause behind the pictures comes into view. His enemies stand between the mud and the water, and the shape of the verse shows them as part of one danger that surrounds him. Other psalms speak of enemies who hate the righteous and fight against him without a cause (Psalm 35:19, Psalm 109:3). “The deep waters” are literally the depths of waters: maʻămâq, a deep place, joined to mayim, water.

Verse 15 takes the danger further in three pictures, each worse than the one before. “Let not the waterflood overflow me”: the KJV’s “waterflood” joins mayim with shibbôl, a flowing stream (the same word also means an ear of grain). The verb shâṭaph means to gush or inundate, to overflow and sweep away with force, and it can also mean to rinse with water. Here it is the torrent rolling over a man’s head. “Neither let the deep swallow me up”: this deep is mᵉtsôwlâh, a deep place of water or mud, the bottom, so it shares the English word “deep” with verse 14 while standing for a different Hebrew word. Bâlaʻ means to swallow, swallow up or destroy. “And let not the pit shut her mouth upon me”: the pit, bᵉʼêr, is a pit or a well. ʼÂṭar means to close up or shut, and peh is the mouth. The pit is pictured with a mouth that closes over the one who has fallen in, like a well sealed over a man at the bottom. So the psalmist fears being overflowed, then swallowed, then shut in.

“Hear me, O LORD” is ʻânâh again. The same verb stands behind “hear me” in verses 13, 16 and 17, so that through the whole prayer the psalmist is asking God to answer.

“For thy lovingkindness is good.” Lovingkindness here is cheçed, the same word the KJV rendered “mercy” in verse 13, and good is ṭôwb, good in the widest sense. The reason the psalmist gives is God’s own character. He asks to be heard because God’s steadfast love is good, and that ground holds firm whatever the one praying is worth. This is how the LORD proclaimed his name to Moses: “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6–7). Jeremiah’s lament says the same in its darkest hour: “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

“Turn unto me.” Pânâh means to turn, and by implication to face or look. The word for face in the next verse is described in the lexicon as “the part that turns”, so asking God to turn toward him and asking him to keep his face uncovered are one request. The psalmist wants God’s favourable attention and his saving presence. Another psalm prays, “Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (Psalm 80:3).

“According to the multitude of thy tender mercies.” Rôb, abundance, comes back from verse 13. Tender mercies is racham, compassion, a plural word which by extension also means the womb. The picture is of the deep, protective love a mother has for her child. The psalmist asks God to act in keeping with the whole abundance of that compassion, which is never used up.

“And hide not thy face from thy servant.” To hide, çâthar, is to hide by covering or to conceal, and it can mean simply to be hidden or absent. The face, pânîym, is plural in form but always used as a singular, and its senses of presence, surface and front all grow out of the face itself. God’s face stands for his presence, his favour and his direct attention. When he hides it, his help is withdrawn from view. When he makes it shine, he blesses, as in the priestly blessing: “The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee” (Numbers 6:25). David prays the same request elsewhere: “Hide not thy face far from me” (Psalm 27:9).

“Thy servant” is ʻebed, a servant or bondman. The psalmist calls on the bond between a master and the one who belongs to him, a bond of loyalty and service on one side and care on the other. The same appeal closes another urgent psalm: “for I am thy servant” (Psalm 143:12).

“For I am in trouble.” The word under “trouble” is tsârar, to cramp or press hard, to be in distress or affliction. It covers physical danger, public disgrace and anguish of heart all at once. The same word stands under “adversaries” in verse 19, so the psalmist’s trouble and the people pressing him are named with one word.

“Hear me speedily.” Mahêr means hurrying, and so in a hurry, at once, quickly or soon. His need is urgent, and he asks God to answer now. Psalm 143 prays in the same words, “Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth” (Psalm 143:7).

“Draw nigh unto my soul.” Qârab means to approach or come near. The soul, nephesh, is properly a breathing creature, and here it is the psalmist’s whole self, his very life. He asks God to come near to him in his distress and act for him. James gives the promise that answers this: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8).

“And redeem it.” Gâʼal means to redeem by the law of kinship: to be the next of kin, and as such to buy back a relative’s property, marry his widow, or set him free from slavery or danger. The one who did this was the go’el, the kinsman-redeemer. The psalmist asks God to take that place for him, to act as his nearest kinsman and buy back his life.

“Deliver me because of mine enemies.” This “deliver” is pâdâh, to sever, to ransom, and so to release or preserve. It shares the English word with verse 14 while standing for a different Hebrew word, and both of this verse’s verbs belong to buying back and setting free. “Enemies” is ʼôyêb, the active participle of a verb meaning to be hostile, and the ordinary word for an enemy. His enemies are the cause of his danger and shame, so he asks God to rescue him from them. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19).

“Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour.” To know, yâdaʻ, is properly to find out by seeing, and it is used very widely. God has seen everything the psalmist has suffered. He names it with three words. Reproach, cherpâh, is contumely, disgrace and rebuke, the scorn heaped on him by others. Shame, bôsheth, is shame both as the feeling and as the condition, and also its cause. Dishonour, kᵉlimmâh, is disgrace and confusion. Together they describe a man stripped of his dignity outwardly and inwardly. In Israel a person’s honour and good name were bound up with his place in the community, and public disgrace could cost him his standing, his reputation and even his livelihood.

“Mine adversaries are all before thee.” Adversaries is tsârar again, those who press him hard. “Before thee” has the ring of a law court, as if the psalmist sets his case and his accusers in front of the Judge. God has seen every one of them and every taunt they have spoken. The psalmist has no need to avenge himself, because God knows the way of the righteous (Psalm 1:6) and has said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Another psalm says that God keeps even his people’s tears: “put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” (Psalm 56:8).

“Reproach hath broken my heart.” Reproach is cherpâh, the same word as in verse 19, and here it is pictured as a blow that breaks. Shâbar means to burst, break or shatter, and the heart, lêb, stands for the feelings, the will and even the mind. The disgrace has crushed the psalmist inside. The same verb is used of the broken heart that God mends: “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). A broken heart is one God can bind up.

“And I am full of heaviness.” Nûwsh means to be sick, and figuratively to be distressed, and “be full of heaviness” is the KJV’s own rendering of it. He is sick at heart with grief.

“And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” To look for, qâvâh, is properly to bind together, and figuratively to expect or wait for. The verb behind “take pity”, nûwd, means to nod or waver, and it is used of shaking the head in sympathy. Comforters translates nâcham, which properly means to sigh or breathe strongly, and so to be sorry and to console. Ancient life was lived in community, and a sufferer could expect family, friends and neighbours to stand by him. The psalmist waited for someone to shake his head in sympathy and sit with him in his grief, and he found no one. Job knew that loneliness: “My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God” (Job 16:20).

This verse shows that faithful people can know pain this deep, and that when human comfort fails, God remains. “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18). He is “the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4), so those he comforts become the comforters others are looking for.

“They gave me also gall for my meat.” To give, nâthan, is used very widely (to give, put, set or make), and here the givers are the psalmist’s enemies, so their gift is cruelty. Gall, rôʼsh, is a poisonous plant, probably the poppy, and the word is used for poison and bitterness generally. It is paired elsewhere with wormwood, as in “a root that beareth gall and wormwood” (Deuteronomy 29:18) and “the wormwood and the gall” (Lamentations 3:19). “Meat” in the KJV means food, bârûwth. Where a sufferer needed nourishment, he was handed poison.

“And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Thirst is tsâmâʼ, and vinegar is chômets, sour wine. It was a cheap, common drink for the poor, often mixed with water, and given to a man parched with thirst in place of water it mocked his need. To give drink, shâqâh, is the ordinary word for supplying a drink. In Israel giving food and water to the weary was a sacred duty of hospitality, so this verse turns hospitality upside down. Another psalm of the righteous sufferer speaks of that same dry agony, “my tongue cleaveth to my jaws” (Psalm 22:14–15).

These verses give us words for the times when trouble is deep. The psalmist brings God his mud and his floods, his broken heart and his enemies’ cruelty, and he names each one plainly. Every request rests on who God is: his steadfast love, his abundant compassion and the sureness of his salvation. That ground stays firm however weak the one praying feels, because it is God’s own character.

They also show us a God who sees. “Thou hast known my reproach” is true of every disgrace his people carry, including the ones that nobody else knows about, and the people who cause it are all before him. Judgment belongs to him, and he is near to the broken in heart when every human comforter has gone.

And they bring us to Christ. The man who looked for comforters and found none, and was given vinegar for his thirst, is the Son of God, who prayed this prayer to the end and was heard. He went down into the deep waters and came up again, and those who belong to him will come up with him. When a believer prays “hear me speedily”, he prays to the Father who raised Jesus from the dead, beside a high priest who has felt it all.