Psalms 69: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

A person in deep trouble calls out to God, describing himself as sinking in floodwater and worn out from crying for help. He says he is hated without cause, cut off from his own family, and mocked by the whole town because of his devotion to God's house, and he asks God to answer him and to turn his enemies' own table into a trap. The prayer ends with praise: he will thank God in song, which pleases the LORD more than an ox, and he states that God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah for his servants' descendants.

Claim by Claim

1. 69:1
   • The speaker asks God to save him.
   • The speaker says the waters have come up to his soul/neck.
2. 69:2
   • The speaker says he sinks in deep mire.
   • The speaker says there is no place to stand in the mire.
   • The speaker says he has come into deep waters.
   • The speaker says the flood sweeps over him.
3. 69:3
   • The speaker says he is weary from his crying out.
   • The speaker says his throat is parched.
   • The speaker says his eyes fail.
   • The speaker says his eyes fail while he waits for his God.
4. 69:4
   • The speaker says those who hate him without cause are more numerous than the hairs of his head.
   • The speaker says those who would destroy him are mighty.
   • The speaker says those who are his enemies are so falsely, without justification.
   • The speaker says he must restore what he did not steal.
5. 69:5
   • The speaker says God knows his foolishness.
   • The speaker says his guilt is not hidden from God.
6. 69:6
   • The speaker asks that those who wait on the Lord GOD of hosts not be put to shame because of him.
   • The speaker asks that those who seek God not be humiliated because of him.
   • The speaker addresses God as the God of Israel.
7. 69:7
   • The speaker says he has borne reproach for God's sake.
   • The speaker says shame has covered his face.
8. 69:8
   • The speaker says he has become a stranger to his brothers.
   • The speaker says he has become a foreigner to his mother's sons.
9. 69:9
   • The speaker says zeal for God's house has consumed him.
   • The speaker says the reproaches of those who reproach God have fallen on him.
10. 69:10
    • The speaker says he wept and afflicted his soul with fasting.
    • The speaker says his weeping and fasting became a reproach to him.
11. 69:11
    • The speaker says he made sackcloth his clothing.
    • The speaker says he became a byword to them.
12. 69:12
    • The speaker says those who sit in the gate talk against him.
    • The speaker says he is the song of drunkards.
13. 69:13
    • The speaker says his prayer is to the LORD.
    • The speaker asks that his prayer come at a time of favor.
    • The speaker asks God to answer him in the abundance of His steadfast love.
    • The speaker asks to be answered in the faithfulness of God's salvation.
14. 69:14
    • The speaker asks to be delivered from the mire.
    • The speaker asks not to sink.
    • The speaker asks to be delivered from those who hate him.
    • The speaker asks to be delivered out of the deep waters.
15. 69:15
    • The speaker asks that the flood of water not sweep over him.
    • The speaker asks that the deep not swallow him up.
    • The speaker asks that the pit not close its mouth over him.
16. 69:16
    • The speaker asks the LORD to answer him.
    • The speaker says God's steadfast love is good.
    • The speaker asks God to turn to him according to the abundance of His compassion.
17. 69:17
    • The speaker asks God not to hide His face from His servant.
    • The speaker says he is in distress.
    • The speaker asks God to answer him quickly.
18. 69:18
    • The speaker asks God to draw near to his soul.
    • The speaker asks God to redeem him.
    • The speaker asks God to ransom him because of his enemies.
19. 69:19
    • The speaker says God knows his reproach.
    • The speaker says God knows his shame and his dishonor.
    • The speaker says all his adversaries are before God.
20. 69:20
    • The speaker says reproach has broken his heart.
    • The speaker says he is sick with despair.
    • The speaker says he looked for someone to show pity and there was none.
    • The speaker says he looked for comforters and found none.
21. 69:21
    • The speaker says they gave him poison for his food.
    • The speaker says in his thirst they gave him vinegar to drink.
22. 69:22
    • The speaker asks that their table become a snare before them.
    • The speaker asks that what should have been for their well-being become a trap.
23. 69:23
    • The speaker asks that their eyes be darkened so they cannot see.
    • The speaker asks that their loins shake continually.
24. 69:24
    • The speaker asks God to pour out His indignation on them.
    • The speaker asks that God's burning anger overtake them.
25. 69:25
    • The speaker asks that their encampment be desolate.
    • The speaker asks that no one dwell in their tents.
26. 69:26
    • The speaker says they persecute the one God has struck.
    • The speaker says they recount the pain of those God has wounded.
27. 69:27
    • The speaker asks God to add iniquity to their iniquity.
    • The speaker asks that they not come into God's righteousness.
28. 69:28
    • The speaker asks that they be blotted out of the book of the living.
    • The speaker asks that they not be written with the righteous.
29. 69:29
    • The speaker says he is afflicted and in pain.
    • The speaker asks that God's salvation set him on high.
30. 69:30
    • The speaker says he will praise the name of God with a song.
    • The speaker says he will magnify God with thanksgiving.
31. 69:31
    • The speaker says this will please the LORD more than an ox.
    • The speaker says this will please the LORD more than a bull with horns and hooves.
32. 69:32
    • The speaker says the humble will see this and be glad.
    • The speaker says the hearts of those who seek God will live.
33. 69:33
    • The speaker says the LORD hears the needy.
    • The speaker says the LORD does not despise His prisoners.
34. 69:34
    • The speaker calls on heaven and earth to praise God.
    • The speaker calls on the seas to praise God.
    • The speaker calls on everything that moves in the seas to praise God.
35. 69:35
    • The speaker says God will save Zion.
    • The speaker says God will build the cities of Judah.
    • The speaker says they will dwell there.
    • The speaker says they will possess it.
36. 69:36
    • The speaker says the offspring of God's servants will inherit it.
    • The speaker says those who love God's name will dwell in it.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

69:1

Deep water and drowning are the standard Hebrew images for danger that has gone past a person's power to survive; the picture is not a literal flood. The word rendered "neck" (the King James has "soul") is the Hebrew word for the throat or the life-breath, so the line means the water has reached the point where the next breath is impossible.

69:2

Deep mud pulls your feet down and holds them. He feels stuck like that.

69:3

Eyes that "fail" are eyes worn out from straining at the horizon, watching for help that has not come. It is the look of someone who has been staring down an empty road for too long.

69:4

The last line describes a legal penalty: he is forced to make restitution for property he never took. Israelite law required a thief to repay what he had stolen, sometimes several times over, so to "pay back what you never stole" is to be treated in public as a convicted thief.

69:5

"Foolishness" here translates a Hebrew word for moral wrongdoing, the willful stupidity of doing wrong, not a lack of intelligence. The psalm makes no attempt to square this admission with the claim in verse 4 that his enemies hate him without cause; both stand side by side.

69:6

"Hosts" is an old word for armies, so the title means something like "commander of the heavenly armies." In this line the King James prints two different words: "Lord" is the ordinary Hebrew word for master, while "GOD" in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud. Elsewhere in the psalm that same name is printed "LORD" in capitals.

69:7

"Reproach" means public insult and disgrace. In this culture a person's standing in the community was a real asset, close to what a reputation and a credit rating are together, so losing it in front of everyone was a genuine injury and not just hurt feelings.

69:8

In a household where a man might have several wives, "my mother's sons" meant full brothers, the closest family a person had. Saying he is a foreigner to them means the estrangement reaches the innermost circle of his kin, not just distant relatives.

69:9

"Your house" means the temple in Jerusalem, God's household in the sense of a king's residence. The verb translated "eaten me up" means burned up or consumed, the way fire consumes fuel.

69:10

Going without food was a public act of grief or self-humbling, often accompanied by visible signs so that others knew what was happening. The complaint is that neighbors read this public display as evidence against him rather than as devotion.

69:11

Sackcloth was coarse, dark cloth woven from goat hair, the material of grain sacks, worn next to the skin as a sign of mourning or distress. It was deliberately uncomfortable and unmistakable, so wearing it announced a person's grief to everyone who saw him.

69:12

The open space just inside a city gate was where elders heard legal cases, where business was settled and where public opinion was formed. "Those who sit in the gate" are therefore the respectable decision-makers of the town. The verse pairs them with drunks to say that he is talked about at both ends of society at once.

69:13

"A time when you will accept me" translates a phrase meaning a season of favor, the moment when a petitioner is received rather than turned away, as a subject waits for the hour when a king is willing to hear requests.

69:15

"The pit" is a standing Hebrew term for the grave and the realm of the dead. It is pictured here as a creature with a mouth that closes over its prey, and once shut it does not open again.

69:16

"Faithful love" translates the Hebrew word hesed, which covers loyalty, kindness and steady commitment together, the sort of dependable good will owed within a lasting relationship rather than a passing feeling.

69:17

To "hide the face" is court language. A king who turned his face away from a petitioner was refusing to acknowledge him; a face turned toward someone signaled attention and favor.

69:18

"Set me free" and "buy me back" translate two legal terms for rescue by payment. One is the duty of the nearest male relative, who was expected to buy a family member out of slavery or debt and to recover lost family property; the other is the price paid to release a captive. The speaker is asking God to act as that relative.

69:21

"Gall" refers to a bitter, poisonous plant, used as a byword for anything foul-tasting. The "vinegar" is sour wine, the cheap drink of laborers and soldiers, thin enough to be worthless for real thirst. Food and drink were what a host owed a guest, so poisoning them is a deliberate reversal of hospitality.

69:22

Sharing a table meant safety and welcome; a guest at your table was under your protection. The curse asks that the one place a person should be safest turn into the ambush. Verses 22 through 28 are a formal curse, a recognized kind of prayer in which the speaker hands his case over to God rather than taking revenge himself.

69:23

The Hebrew of the second line refers to the loins or hips, the seat of a person's physical strength. Backs bent and shaking is a picture of strength failing, whether from terror, illness or the stagger of someone carrying too much weight.

69:25

"Tents" is used for dwellings in general, a survival from Israel's nomadic past. An empty settlement with no one left to live in it was the standard picture of a family line wiped out.

69:26

The claim is that God had already brought suffering on the psalmist, and his enemies, instead of holding back, piled on and made entertainment out of it. "They talk to the grief of" means they discuss and gossip about the pain of people who are already wounded.

69:27

"Your goodness" here translates the word for righteousness, which in this kind of prayer means God's action in setting a case right, the verdict of acquittal and the rescue that follows. The request is that these people be left outside that verdict.

69:28

The "book of the living" pictures the register a city kept of its living citizens; a person's name was struck off it when he died. To be blotted out of it is to be removed from the roll of the living community.

69:29

A high place means a safe place. Enemies could not climb up to reach you there.

69:31

Cattle were the most expensive offering an Israelite could bring to the temple. "Horns and hooves" specifies a fully grown, unblemished animal of the kind the law required, the description marks it as the costliest possible gift, which makes the comparison with a song sharper.

69:32

Humble people are people who do not brag or think they are better than others.

69:33

"Locked up" translates a word for prisoners or captives, which covered both those held in confinement and those carried off as spoils of war. It could apply to a debtor seized by a creditor as easily as to a population deported by an enemy.

69:35

Zion was originally the fortified hill in Jerusalem; the name came to stand for the whole city and its people. Judah was the southern Israelite kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital. Talk of rebuilding its ruined cities suggests a time of national disaster or exile, which is why many readers think these closing verses were added to an older prayer.

69:36

"Seed" is the standard King James word for descendants, children and grandchildren down the line. Inheriting the land is legal language: the family holds the property permanently and passes it on.