(To the chief Musician. Upon Shoshannim. [A Psalm] of David.) Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto [my] soul.
Psalm 69 begins with a drowning man's cry, and the New Testament hands the words to Jesus. What is this water — the hatred of men, the judgment of God, or both? And did God answer the One who prayed the words?
A note on wording: the ESV reads "the waters have come up to my neck." The older translation the writers below use says the waters come "into my soul."
The psalm names an enmity with no cause behind it, and it does not stop at the suffering. It follows through to what God does about the people who caused it.
Psalm 69 is about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bore the reproach of Jehovah without flinching, facing those who hated Him without a cause. "Save me, O God," He cried, "for the waters have come into my soul." Jehovah heard and answered, as the latter part of the psalm shows. God will punish the ungodly generation that rejected and crucified their Messiah. His repayment will be righteous and overwhelming.
Psalm 69 sits closest to Psalm 22, and readers often blur the two. One commentator draws the line between them. In Psalm 69 the Sufferer is not forsaken. He still prays, and He can speak of others who have been wounded.
In Psalm 22 you get, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" "I cry in the daytime and you do not hear," and so on. But in this Psalm 69, which comes nearest to that one, the suffering is very different in principle. "Save me, O God, for the waters," and so on; "but as for me, my prayer is to you in an acceptable time," though it goes on to death. In Psalm 22 He is forsaken, bearing divine wrath for sin. There are dogs around and "my soul is like wax," He says, "but be not far from me." He is far from Him, entirely alone. He could not then speak of "those whom you have wounded."
Commentators differ over the flood in this verse. Some read the water as the pressure of human hatred while He carried a debt that was never His.
In the first section we see Christ identified with His people. Suffering in the place of others always involves that. He is heard in His distress, as the waters of affliction penetrate even to the soul. He is sinking beneath the floods, and into the deep mire where there is no standing ground. Then come the countless enemies, with their hatred that has no cause, while He is paying the debt owed by others, not by Himself — restoring what He never took away.
Others read the same flood as God's judgment at Calvary. They connect the verse with Hebrews 5:7.
Verse 1 of this psalm reminds us of Hebrews 5:7. That verse speaks of Christ, "who in the days of His flesh... offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence." He was not saved from dying, but saved out of death by resurrection. However, this verse certainly emphasizes the agony of His suffering, as He feels the floods of the waters of judgment at the time of His sacrifice on Calvary. This is not literal water, of course. He deeply felt the floods of God's judgment overflowing Him — judgment because of our sins.
Notice where the cry goes. The depth is real, the footing is gone, and He still turns upward and uses the word "my."
It opens with a cry for salvation (verses 1-3). No depth of trouble, however great, should shake the heart's confidence in God. Here the depth of it is great indeed: "I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me." Yet He turns to God, and calls Him "my God" (verse 3). God's relation to His people, on the ground of redemption, never changes. As well in the darkest as in the brightest day the saint can cry to Him as "my God."
The flood He went into is the reason His people walk beside water that no longer threatens them.
Everlasting goodness takes us by the hand and leads us beside the still waters. These waters were not always quiet; they were not so in the former psalm, but now He has stilled them for His own beloved sheep. When the waters came in to His soul at the cross (Psalm 69:1) they were a mighty flood. But these water-floods are past; Christ has stilled them; He has made them "still waters" for us.
- Waters. The psalm opens with a man going under — a flood reaching the soul, mire with no footing, strength spent in crying.
- Whose. Commentators differ. Some read the waters as human hatred, others as God's judgment at Calvary.
- Cry. Unlike Psalm 22, He is not forsaken here; He still prays, still says "my God," and still thinks of others who wait on God.
- Heard. He was not saved from dying but out of death — the strong crying of Hebrews 5:7 answered by resurrection.
- Stilled. Because the flood closed over Him, it is stilled for His people; the same waters are now the still waters of Psalm 23.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into the depths of waters, and the flood overfloweth me.
Psalm 69 opens with the cry of a man going under. The water has risen to his neck, and his feet find nothing to stand on. Two questions run through this verse: whose voice is it, and what are these deep waters?
Commentators read this verse as the words of Christ. They tie the sinking of verse 2 to His descent to the lowest place.
He "descended first." So let us first consider Psalm 69. There we see Him sinking in "deep mire" and "deep waters" (v. 2), and going down into "the waterflood," "the deep," and "the pit" (v. 15). Ephesians 4:9 speaks of Him descending "into the lower parts of the earth," and that phrase causes some difficulty. But if we connect it in our minds with this Psalm, the difficulty largely disappears.
Mire gives nothing to stand on. One writer sets that loss of all support beside the hatred pressing in on Him, and finds one thing still holding.
The people He came to in love threw Him out with scorn. The people He came to save pressed in and closed around Him. His soul turned to God... but no answer came from any side. Deep human hatred was all around Him, and darkness above Him too. Everything gave way except the power of love. "I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me." The waves and the billows went over Him. Everything was lost in the waves except love. Love sustained Him. Love was greater than all, and it was set on us.
Some take the overflowing waters as the judgment of God falling on Christ for our sins:
He felt deeply the floods of God's judgment overflowing Him (v. 2). It was judgment because of our sins. It left Him weary with crying, His throat dried, and His eyes failing as He waited for God to step in with resurrection power (v. 3).
Others say the psalm stops short of that. They place the forsaking and atonement in Psalm 22, and read verse 2 as suffering endured for God, not from God:
The sufferings in view in our Psalm are not those connected with His soul being made an offering for sin. His atoning sufferings were from God, as we see in Psalm 22. Here He endures the sufferings for God. Verse 7 says it plainly: "For it is for Your sake that I have borne reproach." That note runs all through the Psalm. In prophecy we see the holy, dependent Man completely identified with God's interests, and going down into death because of that.
Verse 2 says the flood has already covered Him. That shapes the later prayer of verse 15. It is not a plea to escape the depths, but a plea that they give way again.
He prays for deliverance from that in which He is sinking, and from the enemies that surround Him. He asks that the flood may not overflow Him. Since this has already happened (v. 2), He cannot be asking that it never overflow Him. He is asking that it give place again... So these words match the words in Hebrews about the One "who was able to save Him" — not "from," but "out of death," that is, by resurrection.
Then the picture reverses: the waters that closed over Him did not keep Him.
This was deliverance "out of the mire," deliverance both from those who hated Him and from the deep waters of God's judgment (v. 14). Though He did sink in the deep waters, they did not overflow or swallow Him up. The judgment did not consume Him; He consumed the judgment fully, so taking it completely away for those whose place He had taken in death.
Nothing was under His feet, so that we might have something unshakeable under ours.
He had to dig deep to lay the foundation, He had to go down into the depths until beneath Him there was nothing... under the foundation He would lay, nothing could be left that might shake His building. It must stand in everlasting righteousness.
Unlike Psalm 22, this psalm allows others alongside Him — though never as equals.
In Psalm 69 He is not utterly alone. Many a saint has known what it is to suffer from evil men, because they were identified with God's Name and cause. He stands above them beyond all measure, but there are others. This accounts for expressions in the Psalm which apply to the others, but which do not apply to Him.
- Descent. The mire and the deep waters trace Christ's descent to the lowest place — He sank until nothing was beneath Him.
- Depth. "No foothold" is the point. Nothing to stand on, no comfort from man, darkness above — and love alone holding Him.
- Dispute. Commentators differ. Are these floods God's judgment for our sins, or suffering borne for God's sake? Psalm 22 holds the forsaking.
- Deliverance. He was not saved from death but out of death; the flood covered Him and then gave way in resurrection.
- Design. He dug that deep to lay a foundation nothing can shake. And in this psalm, unlike Psalm 22, suffering saints may stand with Him — never as equals.
I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
A sufferer has prayed until his voice is gone, his throat is raw, and his eyes ache from watching for help. Commentators hear the voice of Christ in this cry, and they ask what suffering it describes and how faith holds on when God delays.
The words fit David, but writers see someone far greater standing behind them.
This most important psalm expresses a state of soul that calls for the closest attention and patient study. All through we have seen the remnant of Israel before us, or Christ associated with that remnant. That is the case here. The One who speaks is doubtless, first of all, David; but clearly a greater than he. The state described is this: He is in the deepest distress, sinking in deep mire... Yet He is not forsaken of God. On the contrary, His prayer goes up to the LORD at an acceptable time.
The exhaustion in this verse comes from the length of the waiting, not only from the pain.
The psalm opens at the hour of the deep amazement and overwhelming distress of Jesus. Alone in His grief, with no one to pity Him, He still waited for God. And God seemed to be taking a long time to come to His help.
What others felt in part, He felt to the full. Even there, He still calls God His own.
Verses 1-3 present the Lord's personal sufferings on the cross. Later in the psalm we hear of the hatred of man that He endured on the path leading to the cross. Here the psalm sets the extreme suffering first — what the Lord endured in His own soul. Everything the godly in Israel felt in some measure, He felt fully, as only a perfect Man could. The nation had "no standing" before God; the Lord entered into this position in spirit on the cross. Yet in this position the remnant were waiting for God. Christ expressed that confidence perfectly. In the middle of His distress He can still say He is "waiting for my God."
A dried throat is not poetry. It marks a real body at the end of its strength.
The circumstances of the death of Jesus followed from His humanity — a truth most precious to us. He was crucified in weakness; He was handed over to the Gentiles; His throat was dried up while He waited on His God. He was perfect in all these things. Men saw all of this from the outside: it was man. The One who could look within saw Him who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.
Commentators draw a firm line between this psalm and Psalm 22. The difference is the direction of the suffering.
The sufferings in view in our psalm are not the ones connected with His soul being made an offering for sin. His atoning sufferings were from God, as we see in Psalm 22. Here He endures the sufferings for God. Verse 7 states it plainly: "For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach." This is the dominant note all through.
The failing eyes were not looking in vain.
Verse 1 of this psalm reminds us of Hebrews 5:7. It speaks of Christ, who "offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence." He was not saved from dying, but saved out of death by resurrection. The agony of His suffering stands out here... It left Him weary with crying, His throat dried and His eyes failing, while He waited for God to step in with resurrection power.
These are not atoning sufferings. So believers can walk some way along this road, which was never true of Psalm 22.
Psalm 22 predicts the sufferings He endured at the hands of men on the cross. Yet all of them are secondary to the supreme sufferings that were His when God forsook Him. That was the hour of atonement, and so He stands absolutely alone. In Psalm 69 He is not absolutely alone. Many a saint has known what it is to suffer from evil men, because they are identified with God's name and cause. He is immeasurably above them in this, but there are others.
- Waiting — God "seemed to be taking a long time"; delay, not silence, wears the sufferer out.
- Weakness — the dried throat belongs to a real body: "He was crucified in weakness," yet He was "perfect in all these things."
- Confidence — while waiting, He still says "my God"; the very place with "no standing" becomes the place of faith.
- Cause — here He suffers for God; the forsaking of atonement belongs to Psalm 22. That line runs through the whole psalm.
- Answer — the failing eyes got their answer: not saved from dying, but "saved out of death by resurrection." Others may share that path in measure.