Psalms 69:14

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, (Note: Original…

David penned this psalm when he was in affliction; and in it, I. He complains of the great distress and trouble he was in and earnestly begs of God to relieve and succour him (v. 1-21). II. He imprecates the judgments of God upon his persecutors (Psa 69:22-29). III. He concludes with the voice of joy and praise, in an assurance that God would help and succour him, and would do well for the church (Psa 69:30-36). Now, in this, David was a type of Christ, and divers passages in this psalm are applied to Christ in the new Testament and are said to have their accomplishment in him (Psa 69:4, Psa 69:9, Psa 69:21), and Psa 69:22 refers to the enemies of Christ. So that (like the twenty-second psalm) it begins with the humiliation and ends with the exaltation of Christ, one branch of which was the destruction of the Jewish nation for persecuting him, which the imprecations here are predictions of. In singing this psalm we must have an eye to the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that followed, not forgetting the sufferings of Christians too, and the glory that shall follow them; for it may lead us to think of the ruin reserved for the persecutors and the rest reserved for the persecuted. To the chief musician upon Shoshannim. A psalm of David.