Salmi 69:27 Commento

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.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 69 To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, A Psalm of David. Of the word "shoshannim", See Gill on Psa 45:1, title. The Targum renders it, "concerning the removal of the sanhedrim;'' which was about the time of Christ's death. The Talmudists (t) say, that forty years before the destruction of the temple, the sanhedrim removed, they removed from the paved chamber, &c. But it can hardly be thought that David prophesied of this affair; nor of the captivity of the people of Israel, as the Targum, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Arama, and R. Obadiah interpret it: and so Jarchi takes the word "shoshannim" to signify lilies, and applies it to the Israelites, who are as a lily among thorns. But not a body of people, but a single person, is spoken of, and in sorrowful and suffering circumstances; and, if the Jews were not blind, they might see that they are the enemies of the person designed, and the evil men from whom he suffered so much. And indeed what is said of him cannot be said of them, nor of any other person whatever but the Messiah: and that the psalm belongs to Christ, and to the times of the Gospel, is abundantly evident from the citations out of it in the New Testament; as Psa 69:4 in Joh 15:25; Psa 69:9 in Joh 2:17; Psa 69:21 in Mat 27:34; Psa 69:22 in Rom 11:9; Psa 69:25 in Act 1:16. The inscription of the psalm in the Syriac version is, ""a psalm" of David, according to the letter, when Shemuah (Sheba), the son of Bichri, blew a trumpet, and the people ceased from following after him (David); but the prophecy is said concerning those things which the Messiah suffered, and concerning the rejection of the Jews.'' And Aben Ezra interprets Psa 69:36 of the days of David, or of the days of the Messiah. (t) T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 8. 2. & Roshhashanah, fol. 31. 1, 2.

Add iniquity to their iniquity,.... Let them alone in sin; suffer them to go on in it; lay no restraints upon them; put no stop in providence in their way; let them proceed from one evil to another, till they fall into ruin: to their natural and acquired hardness of heart, give them up to a judicial hardness; that they may do things that are not convenient, and be damned. Suffer them not to stop at the crucifixion of the Messiah; let them go on to persecute his apostles and followers; to show the utmost spite and malice against the Christian religion; to embrace false Christs, and blaspheme the true one; to believe the greatest lies and absurdities, and commit the foulest of actions; as seditions, rapines, murders, &c. as they did while Jerusalem was besieged; that they may fill up the measure of their sins, and wrath may come upon them to the uttermost, Th1 2:15. The word rendered "iniquity", sometimes signifies "punishment", as in Gen 4:13; and, according to this sense of it, the words may be differently rendered, and admit a different meaning; either, "give punishment for their iniquity" (m); so Kimchi; that is, punish them according to their deserts, as their sins and iniquities require: or, "add punishment to their punishment" (n); to their present temporal punishment before imprecated, relating to their table mercies, their persons, and their habitations, add future and everlasting punishment; let them be punished with everlasting destruction, soul and body, in hell; and let them not come into thy righteousness; meaning, not his strict justice or righteous judgment; into that they would certainly come; nor was it the will of the Messiah they should escape it: but either the goodness, grace, and mercy of God, which is sometimes desired by righteousness, as in Psa 31:1; and the sense is, let them have no share in pardoning grace now, nor obtain mercy in the last day; but be condemned when they are judged, Psa 109:7. Or rather, the righteousness of Christ, which is called the righteousness of God, that is, the Father; because he approves and accepts of it, and imputes it to his people without works: and seeing the Jews sought for justification by their own works, and went about to establish their own righteousness, and submitted not to Christ's, but despised and rejected it; it was but just that they should be excluded from all benefit and advantage by it, as is here imprecated. The Targum is, "and let them not be worthy to come into the congregation of shy righteous ones;'' neither here, nor at the last judgment; see Psa 1:5. (m) "da punitionem iniquitatis", Pagninus; "appone illis poenam pro iniquitate", Muis. (n) So Junius & Tremellius.

Why so? "For Him whom You have smitten they have themselves persecuted, and upon the pain of my wounds they have added" [Psalm 69:27]. How then have they sinned if they have persecuted one by God smitten? What sin is ascribed to their mind? Malice. For the thing was done in Christ which was to be. To suffer indeed He had come, and He punished him through whom He suffered. For Judas the traitor was punished, and Christ was crucified: but us He redeemed by His blood, and He punished him in the matter of his price. For he threw down the price of silver, for which by him the Lord had been sold; [Matthew 27:5] and he knew not the price wherewith he had himself by the Lord been redeemed. This thing was done in the case of Judas. But when we see that there is a sort of measure of requital in all men, and that not any one can be suffered to rage more than he has received power to do: how have they "added," or what is that smiting of the Lord? Without doubt He is speaking in the person of him from whom He had received a body, from whom He had taken unto Him flesh, that is in the person of mankind, of Adam himself who was smitten with the first death because of his sin. [Genesis 3:6] Mortal therefore here are men born, as born with their punishment: to this punishment they add, whosoever do persecute men. For now here man would not have had to die, unless God had smitten him. Why then do you, O man, rage more than this? Is it little for a man that some time he is to die? Each one of us therefore bears his punishment: to this punishment they would add that persecute us. This punishment is the smiting of the Lord. For the Lord smote man with the sentence: "What day you shall have touched it," He says, "with death you shall die." [Genesis 2:17] Out of this death He had taken upon Him flesh, and our old man has been crucified together with Him. [Romans 6:6] By the voice of that man He has said these words, "Him whom You have smitten they have themselves persecuted, and upon the pain of My wounds they have added." Upon what pain of wounds? Upon the pain of sins they have themselves added. For sins He has called His wounds. But do not look to the Head, consider the Body; according to the voice whereof has been said by the Same in that Psalm, wherein He showed there was His voice, because in the first verse thereof He cried from the Cross, "God, My God, look upon Me, why have You forsaken Me?" There in continuation He says, "Afar from My safety are the words of Mine offenses."...

It is evident that those things do not happen in the church without causing great sadness to the saints and the faithful; may he console us who foretold all these things and who warned us not to grow cold because of the prevalence of iniquity but to persevere to the end that we may be saved. As far as I am concerned, if there is in me the smallest spark of the charity of Christ, "Who of you is weak, and I am not weak; who is scandalized and I am not on fire?" Do not increase my sufferings, therefore, by falling either into false suspicions or into the sins of others; do not, I beg of you, make me say of you, "And they have added to the grief of my wounds." For those who take pleasure in these sorrows of ours, of whom it was long ago foretold in the person of the body of Christ, "They that sat in the gate, spoke against me; and they that drank wine made me their song," are much more readily borne with; indeed, we have learned to pray for them and to wish them well. But, for what other purpose do they sit there, and what else do they aim at, except, when some bishop or cleric or monk or nun has fallen, that they may believe, assert and contend that all are like that—although it cannot be proved of all? Yet, when some married woman has been found to be an adulteress, they do not cast off their wives or accuse their mothers; but, when it is a case of those who profess a sacred calling, if some false charge has been rumored about or some true one has been published, they take it up, go to work on it, toss it about, so as to have it universally believed. Therefore, of those who take sweetness for their evil tongues from our sorrows, it is easy to compare them with those dogs, if, perchance, we are to take in an adverse sense, those who licked the sores of the beggar who lay before the rich man's gate and who bore hard and humiliating things until he came to rest in Abraham's bosom.

Upon Shoshannim--(See on Psa 45:1, title). Mingling the language of prayer and complaint, the sufferer, whose condition is here set forth, pleads for God's help as one suffering in His cause, implores the divine retribution on his malicious enemies, and, viewing his deliverance as sure, promises praise by himself, and others, to whom God will extend like blessings. This Psalm is referred to seven times in the New Testament as prophetical of Christ and the gospel times. Although the character in which the Psalmist appears to some in Psa 69:5 is that of a sinner, yet his condition as a sufferer innocent of alleged crimes sustains the typical character of the composition, and it may be therefore regarded throughout, as the twenty-second, as typically expressive of the feelings of our Saviour in the flesh. (Psa. 69:1-36) (Compare Psa 40:2). come in unto my soul--literally, "come even to my soul," endanger my life by drowning (Jon 2:5).

iniquity--or, "punishment of iniquity" (Psa 40:12). come . . . righteousness--partake of its benefits.