Psalm 69 - Part 1 - An Urgent Plea for Help in Trouble

 

Psalm 69  King James Version

Psalm 69:1-2 Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.  I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

The cry of David sounds similar to that of Jonah the prophet who got himself into trouble because of his disobedience to the Lord. God had called Jonah to warn the city of Nineveh of its impending doom if they repented not. But Jonah ran from the presence of the Lord and took a ship in the opposite direction.

Jonah ends up getting thrown off the ship he took and swallowed by a whale. Here are some of the cries that are recorded in Jonah’s book. Most of them were cries from David’s own mouth and recorded in the Psalms.

Jonah 2:1-2 Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly. And said, I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and You heard my voice.

Jonah, being a man of God, a prophet, was familiar with the scriptures. The above verses sound similar to Psalm 18:4-6.

Psalm 18:4-6 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me. In my distress I called unto the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears.

Jonah continues praying or reciting scripture.

Jonah 2:3 For You have cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

The above cry sounds like something from Psalm 42:7. “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of thy water-sprouts (waterfalls): all thy waves and billows have gone over me.”

Next recorded in Jonah 2:4 is, “Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward they holy temple.”

Psalm 31:22 has the same idea of being cast out of the Lord’s sight or feeling a lack of God’s help. “For I said in my haste, I am cut off (cast out) from before Your eyes (out of your sight); nevertheless, You heard the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee.

Jonah continues, “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet have You brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God,” Jonah 2:5-6.

An aside note here on the above verse which mentions mountains in the ocean: the first recorded sea mountain was discovered by a Swedish deep-sea dredging operation on July 2, 1869. The Soviets discovered the Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic Ocean in 1948, proving the Arctic basin was divided by underwater mountains. 

Of course, sailors in antiquity had noticed that some parts of the ocean were shallower than others. However, it wasn’t until the 1950s that the American and Soviets began to map the floor of the oceans and confirmed the existence of massive interconnected mountain ranges across the ocean floors.

The question is how did Jonah, writing between 790-750 BC, know about the mountains on the ocean floor? The fact that he did seems to point to a hidden knowledge, which the Bible refers to as the Holy Spirit. In 2 Timothy 3:16a we find Apostle Paul giving the answer: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.”  

Apostle Peter confirms Paul’s affirmation. “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Peter 1:20-21. Therefore, the Holy Spirit inspired Jonah to write what he did and gave him knowledge that he himself could not have known.

In Jonah 2:5, Jonah could be remembering Psalm 18:5 or Psalm 116:3 which says, “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got hold of me: I found trouble and sorrow.” Jonah in his predicament calls out to the Lord as does David in Psalm 18:6 and the author of Psalm 116:4. "Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul."

We can remember, also, that Jonah is a foreshadowing of Jesus. Jonah was three days and nights in the whale’s belly, while Jesus was three days and nights in the heart of the earth, Matthew 12:40. Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane may have been meditating or experiencing the anguish of heart that David expresses in the Psalm 69.  

In time of emotional stress and anxiety, we must, like David and Jonah after him, and Jesus, cry out to the Lord for help. However, David, at this point in the psalm, is still overwhelmed with emotion and the feeling of being forsaken. His faith is still battling and he has not seen the light of day yet.

Psalm 69:3 I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: my eyes fail while I wait for my God.

David is in great distress of soul and spiritual turmoil while waiting on God to respond to his cry. The Psalm could aptly apply to Jesus who may have used it as one of His prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember Jesus sweat blood because He was in so much torment of soul and spirit. “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground,” Luke 22:44.

Psalm 69:4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: they that would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.

David feels overwhelmed by the number of enemies he has. Jesus, also, had innumerable enemies, both physical and spiritual.

Psalm 69:5 O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from thee.

David frequently confesses his sins and short-coming to God in his songs of prayer and praise. Elsewhere in the scripture we find the idea of God being all-knowing and ever-present throughout His creation. Theologically it is called Omniscient, and Omnipresent.

Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.

Jesus said that whatsoever is done in secret shall be made known in public. In Number 32:23 we read, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed. Nevertheless, “if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and cleanse us of all unrighteousness,” 1 John 1:9. “He that covers his sin shall not prosper: but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy,” Proverbs 28:13.

Psalm 69:6 Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.

David is compassionately praying that his life, his problems, do not become a stumbling block to other believers. Jesus, also, before His passion, prayed for His disciples that God would keep them from the evil, John 17:15b. He specifically told Peter that He had prayed for him. He told Peter to not lose faith, and that when he was "converted, strengthen your brethren," Luke 22:32b.

Psalm 69:7-9 Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.

Because of David’s love for God, he bears reproach. As David is a protype of Christ, the verse could also be seen prophetically as pertaining to Jesus. Jesus bore reproach because of His love of God, and love for mankind. The section, “the zeal of thine house has eaten me up,” is quoting in John 2:17 as referring to Jesus and His zeal in cleansing the temple of the money-changers and merchants.

Psalm 69:10-12 When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.

“They that sit in the gate,” refers to the leaders or elders of the community who we see throughout scripture sitting at the gates of the city to pass judgment or witness business transactions.

Psalm 69:13-15 But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.  Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

David is more encouraged now. We could imagine Jesus using these verses in prayer to His Father while he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. End of part one. Go to Part 2.

Read More

Psalm 69 - Parte 2 - An Urgent Pleas for Help in Trouble

Dennis Edwards - To go Back to Part 1

Psalm 69:16-18 Hear me, O Lord; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily. Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of my enemies.

The Holy Spirit is moving David in prayer and leaving us an example of how to intercede in prayer to God in our moments of despair and desperation.

Psalm 69:19-20 You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: my adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

Jesus in the Garden looked to his disciples to be with Him in prayer, but their eyes were heavy and they fell asleep. On the cross, Jesus may have had the same experience. God had to let Jesus die the death of a sinner, so that He would be a compassionate High Priest that had been touched with the feelings of our infirmities, being tempted in all things, like we, yet without sin, Hebrews 4:15.

Apostle Paul quotes from verse 20 in his letters to the Romans saying we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves, “For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me,” Romans 15:3.

Psalm 69:21 They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

The above verse is considered prophetic of Christ. In Matthew 27:47-48 we find, “Some of them that stood there, when they heard that (when Jesus had cried out: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me from Psalm 22, a prophecy of His crucifixion), (they) said, This man calls for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar (sour wine which numbed the pain of crucifixion), and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink.”

In John's Gospel we find the same event. 

"After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, (the scripture in Psalm 69:21), said, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar (sour wine), and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop (a branch), and put it to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed the head and gave up the ghost," John 19:28-30.

The next section of the Psalm could be prophetic of what would happen to the enemies of Christ. Jesus had prayed that God pardon the Roman guards who were doing their job in crucifying Him. However, the next section of David’s prayer could be the Messiah’s own prayer against the unrepentant reprobates, the Scribes and Pharisees who hated Him.

Psalm 69:22-25 Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.

In 70AD, around 40 years after his death, Titus and the Roman legions destroy the temple and Jerusalem. The Jewish leadership lost their position and their homeland as a result of their condemnation of their own Messiah. If mankind doesn't repent and fall at Jesus' feet, they have a fearful looking to of judgment.

Psalm 69:26 For they persecute Him whom You have smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom You have wounded.

In Isaiah 53:4 we find, “Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” Jesus carried our griefs and sorrows on the cross. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Our chastisement came upon Him and through His stripes we are saved.

David, as Jesus’ protype, seems to be putting into the mouth of Jesus a prayer of condemnation against His enemies.

Psalm 69:27-28 Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.

In Revelation 20:11-15 we find the description of the Great White Throne Judgment that occurs after the Millennium period. At that time, those who were not raised at the first resurrection/rapture event will be judged.

“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Both David and Jesus prayed that God righteously judge the wicked for their wickedness. You can read of Jesus' sentiment in Matthew 23 or John 8.

Psalm 69:29 But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.

In contrast to the wicked who gloat over their wickedness, David is humble and broken and dependent of God for his salvation. He is poor and sorrowful, “not rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing,” Revelation 3:17.

In Isaiah 53:3, we see that Jesus was "a man of sorrows." "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities," "and the Lord, (God the Father), has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all," Isaiah 53:5 & 6. 

The prophecy continues, "Yet it pleased the Lord (God the Father) to bruise Him (God the Son); He (God the Father) has put Him (God the Son) to grief; when You (God the Father) shall make His (God the Son's) soul an offering for sin, He (God the Father) shall prolong His (God the Son's) days, and the pleasure of the Lord (God the Father) shall prosper in His (God the Son's) hands, Isaiah 53:10.

"He (God the Father) shall see the travail of His (God the Son's) soul, and shall be satisfied: by His (God the Son's) knowledge shall My righteous servant (God the Son) justify many; for He (God the Son) shall bear their iniquities," Isaiah 53:11.

Jesus bore our iniquities on the cross. Therefore, God the Father has set Him on high for He is "the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world," John 1:29.  "For You are worthy ... for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every kindred and tongue, and people, and nation," Revelation 5:9.

"Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father," Philippians 2:9-11.

It is Jesus who God has set on high. He is the way, the truth, and the life, John 14:6. He is the door to eternal life with the Father, John 10:7. There is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved, Acts 4:12. 

Psalm 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.

God has told us that He dwells, or His presence inhabits, the praises of His people, Psalm 22:3. He has told us to enter into His presence with thanksgiving and praise, Psalm 100:4. Praise and thanksgiving glorify God.

Psalm 69:31 This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs.

Here we see right in the mouth of David some thousand years before Christ, the truth that God is more pleased with the condition of our heart, our attitude towards Him and others, than the outward display of sacrifices and offerings.

Jesus said in John 5:24, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,” John 4:24.

Psalm 69:32-33 The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God. For the Lord hears the poor, and despises not his prisoners.

When the humble and poor see the judgment of the wicked they will rejoice.

Psalm 69:34 Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and everything that moves therein.

Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for You have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created.”

Psalm 69:35-36 For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.

Here’s one of the verses that the Christian Zionists or the Jewish Zionists use to claim that have right to all the land promised to the descendants of Abraham from the Nile to the Euphrates. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration the Jewish people have returned to Palestine and rebuilt the cities of Judah. In 1948 they became a nation in one day. 

They believe it is their God given right to possess the land. The Zionists believe that they can use any and every means possible to fulfil that right, even breaking God’s laws in the process. The manner in which the Jewish immigrants have displaced the former occupiers of Palestine and cruelly treated them has displeased God and the international community.

Psalm 69:36 The seed also of His servants shall inherit it: and they that love His name shall dwell therein.

Is the above verse talking about the Millennium period after the present dispensation? The Zionist will use the verse as further Biblical proof for their right to inheritance of the land. But are they really His servants? Are they following His precepts? Have they accepted His Son, the anointed Messiah foretold of in their Scriptures? Do they love the name of Jesus?  Apostle Paul and Charles Spurgeon all agree that there is only one Israel: those that believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Galatians 4:26,28-29 “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. … There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Romans 8:17 “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”

Philippians 1:29 “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”

It’s not only believing, but speaking out for Jesus on matters of truth and love. Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels,” Mark 9:38.

Belief means drinking in Jesus’ words and spirit so that they become one with us. If we believe, we will stand up and be counted. We’ll stand up for truth. We’ll stand up against injustice. We’ll stand up in the power of love for the truth of the Gospel in all we do and speak. As Apostle Paul admonished his disciples, “that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,” Acts 14:22b. If we stand up for Jesus, for truth, for love, “we shall suffer persecution.” 

2 Timothy 3:12 "Yea, and all that will godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."

It is part and parcel of an Ambassador's commission. Jesus said so.

"The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me," John 15:20-21.

Read More