Psalms 69:22 - Meaning and Application

These words of judgment are not David’s personal prayers against his enemies. They are prophecies about the ruin of Christ’s persecutors, especially the Jewish nation. Jesus himself foretold that judgment with tears, and it came about forty years after his death. The first two verses of this section are directly applied by the apostle to God’s judgment on unbelieving Jews (Rom 11:9, Rom 11:10), so the rest should be understood the same way.

The rejection of the Jews for rejecting Christ showed God’s justice in a clear way. It also gave a preview of the judgment God will one day bring on all who stubbornly refuse the faith. At the same time, it remains a strong proof that Christianity is true. One early objection to the gospel was that it set aside the ceremonial law, meaning the Old Testament system of sacrifices and rituals. God answered that objection by removing that system in a striking way, through the destruction of the temple and the collapse of those who clung to Moses’ law against the gospel of Christ.

The judgments here do not refer to every individual who took part in Christ’s death. Some who had a hand in it later repented and found mercy (Act 2:23; Act 3:14, Act 3:15). The warning is aimed at those who defended that sin by stubborn unbelief, rejected Christ’s gospel, and kept up a bitter hatred against his followers (Th1 2:15, Th1 2:16). For such people, the psalm says, “Let their table become a snare” (Psa 69:22).

This can mean the altar of the Lord, called his table and theirs because they shared in the sacrifices. What should have brought them peace became a trap instead. Their attachment to the altar helped keep them in unbelief and hardened their prejudice against Christ, the true altar. It may also refer to their ordinary food and comforts. They gave Christ gall and vinegar, and so their own food and drink would become bitter to them in judgment. When life’s supports and pleasures turn into tools for sin, our table becomes a snare. That is one reason we should never feed ourselves without fear (Jde 1:12).

The psalm also says, “Let their eyes be darkened, so they cannot see” (Psa 69:23). This is a judicial blindness, a judgment in which God hands people over to the darkness they chose. Their sin was that they would not see the light and loved darkness instead. Their punishment was that they would no longer see the glory of God in Christ, because they were left to their own hard hearts and Satan was allowed to blind their minds (Co2 4:4). This was foretold in Isaiah (Isa 6:10), and Christ confirmed it (Mat 13:14, Mat 13:15; Joh 12:40).

The psalm also speaks of a fear that never brings peace, a terror that shakes the conscience but does not heal it. This is different from the gracious fear that leads a person to repentance, like Paul’s fear and astonishment when he met Christ (Act 9:6). Here the meaning is ongoing dread, confusion, and despair. The Jews experienced something like this in their desperate decisions when the Romans came against them. Their inner fear kept growing, and nothing gave them rest.

Another judgment is, “Pour out your indignation on them” (Psa 69:24). Those who reject the great salvation God offers may rightly fear his wrath. If they will not submit to the Son whom God loves, they will become a people under his anger. Jesus said that the wrath of God remains on the one who does not believe in him (Joh 3:36). Salvation itself does not save those who refuse to be ruled by it. Here we see both the goodness and the severity of God.

The psalm then says, “Let their habitation be desolate” (Psa 69:25). This was fulfilled when the Romans destroyed their land, and Zion was plowed like a field (Mic 3:12). The temple, the house they were especially proud of, was left desolate (Mat 23:38). The words also add, “Let no one dwell in their tents.” That came true in Judah and Jerusalem, where the land remained largely uninhabited for a long time after the Jews were scattered. Peter also applies these words especially to Judas (Act 1:20). Since Judas was a suicide, his estate would likely have been taken away, so his home became desolate and no close relative remained there.

Finally, the psalm says, “Add iniquity to their iniquity” (Psa 69:27). That is, let them keep sinking deeper into sin. People who are evil, if left to themselves, do not improve, they get worse. They add one sin to another, and even rebellion on top of sin (Job 34:37). Paul says the Jews kept filling up the measure of their sins (Th1 2:16). The same Hebrew word can also mean punishment, so the line may mean, “Add punishment to their guilt.” If people insist on sinning, God will certainly bring them to account.

Yet sinners who have multiplied their offenses can still find mercy, because God multiplies forgiveness through the righteousness of the Mediator, that is, Christ, who stands between God and man. That is why the psalm adds, “Let them not come into your righteousness” (Psa 69:27). This does not mean God refuses to receive anyone who comes to him in faith. Rather, those who refuse to come will never enter that righteousness. They do not know God’s righteousness, and they try to build their own instead. Because they will not submit to God’s righteousness (Rom 10:3), they are left to the result they have chosen: they shall not come into his righteousness (Phi 3:9).

Let no one expect any benefit from this unless they are willing and glad to depend on it.

Sixth, they should be cut off from every hope of happiness (Psalm 69:28). “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be allowed to live any longer, since the longer they live, the more harm they do.” Many unbelieving Jews fell by sword and famine, while none of those who had embraced the Christian faith perished among them. As a nation, they were blotted out and no longer remained a people.

Many understand this as their rejection from God’s covenant and from all its privileges. That covenant is called the book of the living. In other words, “Let the Jewish nation itself, Israel according to the flesh, now be cut off from the covenant promise it has long enjoyed. Let it become clear that they were never written in the Lamb’s book of life, but that they are rejected silver, because the Lord has rejected them. Let them not be counted with the righteous. Let them have no place in the gathering of the saints when all are assembled in the general company of those whose names are written in heaven” (Psalm 1:5).

Second, the psalm also shows the sin that brings these terrible judgments (Psalm 69:26): “They persecute the one you have struck, and talk to the grief of those you have wounded.”

Christ was the one whom God had struck, for “it was the Lord’s will to crush him,” and he was considered stricken, struck by God, and afflicted. So people hid their faces from him (Isaiah 53:3, Isaiah 53:4, Isaiah 53:10). They hunted him with rage that reached up to heaven. They cried, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Compare this with Peter’s words (Acts 2:23). Though he was handed over by God’s plan and foreknowledge, it was by wicked hands that they crucified and killed him. They also added to his grief when he hung on the cross, saying, “He trusted in God; let God rescue him.” Nothing could have been more painful.

The suffering saints were also God’s wounded ones, wounded in his cause and for his sake. Yet they were persecuted and mocked in their pain. For such things, wrath came on their persecutors to the full (1 Thessalonians 2:16), and see also (Matthew 23:34), and the verses that follow. More generally, this teaches us that nothing provokes God more than mocking those he has already struck, or adding pain to people who are already suffering. Then it is fitting to say, “Add sin to sin” (Zechariah 1:15).

Those with a wounded spirit, who are troubled and afraid about their spiritual condition, must be treated very gently. Care must be taken not to speak to their grief or make the heart of the righteous sad.

Third, the psalmist shows how he sees his own condition in the middle of all this (Psalm 69:29): “But I am poor and sorrowful.” That is the worst part of his situation under outward suffering, yet he is still counted among the righteous and not under God’s anger like they are. It is better to be poor and sorrowful with God’s blessing than rich and joyful under his curse.

Those who come into God’s righteousness will soon see an end to their poverty and sorrow, and his salvation will lift them high. That is what David asks for here (Isaiah 61:10). This can also be applied to Christ. In his humiliation, he was poor and sorrowful, a man of sorrows who had nowhere to lay his head. But God greatly exalted him. The salvation worked for him, and the salvation worked through him, set him far above all rulers and powers.