*Thou* knowest my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour mine adversaries are all before thee.
Here the Sufferer tells God what God already sees, and then points to the enemies around Him. Two questions follow: whose voice is this, and what comfort is there in being known?
Psalm 69 is not describing the same suffering as Psalm 22. Commentators draw a firm line between the two, and it decides how the whole psalm is read.
Our Psalm is not looking at the sufferings linked with His soul being made an offering for sin. His atoning sufferings came from God, as we see in Psalm 22. Here He endures the sufferings for God. Verse 7 states it plainly: "For Your sake I have borne reproach." That is the dominant note all through.
Reproach did not fall on Him at random. Something in the way He lived provoked it.
He was zealous for God in the middle of a God-hating nation, and as a result He was treated as a "stranger" and an "alien". His zeal brought Him into the outside place of reproach and shame. He represented God in a world that hated God. His presence among men gave them an occasion for expressing their hatred. They poured out on Christ their hatred of God. As the Lord says, "For Your sake I have borne reproach", and again, "The reproaches of those who reproached You have fallen on Me."
The verse stacks up three words: reproach, shame, dishonor. The contempt behind them came from the top of the nation and from the bottom alike.
Besides these we find many remarkable hints of what He suffered. Hatred, reproach, shame, dishonour are all mentioned. They reached Him from every direction. "Those who sit in the gate speak against Me;" and it was the elders and judges who sat there — the most respectable of the people. But equally, "I was the song of the drunkards;" and they were the least respectable of the people.
The verse brings no rescue yet, only recognition. That is where the Sufferer rests: the God of tender mercies is the God who has seen all of it.
He speaks as One who knows from experience the loving-kindness of the Lord and the greatness of His tender mercies. He also speaks as One who needs these mercies, as the servant of Jehovah surrounded by enemies. His consolation is that all is known to God. The One with the loving-kindness and the mercies is the One who knows His reproach, His shame, His dishonour. His very adversaries are all before God.
The last clause turns from what He felt to who was doing it. God was keeping a record the persecutors never suspected.
Because the Lord Jesus is truly Man, He felt the reproach, shame and dishonor as keenly as anyone else could. Scornful men dared to treat Him worse than they would have treated actual criminals. But those evildoers stood before the eyes of God. They did not realise that He was taking full account of every word and action.
That record has a result for the persecutors themselves.
The effect of His suffering at the hands of wicked men is judgment on themselves.
The reproach of Christ is not left in the past. Writers apply this verse to the believer's own path, though always with His as the measure.
The Lord Himself knows what reproach means. None have ever tasted reproach and shame as deeply as He has; but you and I, dear fellow-believer, have the privilege of bearing His reproach in some small measure. May He grant us to value it as greater riches than this poor world can offer!
- Known — the cause. He suffered here for God, not the atoning suffering that came from God in Psalm 22. His zeal for God drew it out.
- Known — the scope. Reproach, shame and dishonor reached Him from every level: the elders in the gate and the drunkards in the street.
- Known — the comfort. He does not ask God to notice. He rests, because the God of tender mercies has already seen it all.
- Known — the adversaries. God took full account of every word and action of His persecutors, and they never knew it.
- Known — the outcome. His suffering at the hands of wicked men ends in judgment on them. His followers share, in a small measure, the reproach He knew in full.
Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am overwhelmed and I looked for sympathy, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.
Psalm 69 traces the sufferings of Christ at the hands of men. Verse 20 shows what those sufferings did inside Him: a heart broken by reproach, and eyes searching for one kind face. Why could the reproach of men break His heart, and why did no comforter come?
The wound was not just insult. It was love met with hatred. One writer contrasts it with the way our own hearts break:
Christ's heart was also broken, but in a way quite different from how our hearts are broken. His love was disregarded: this is what broke His heart. The more He showed His love, the more hatred rose up against Him. "Reproach has broken My heart." We need this breaking to lay our hearts bare; He did not. He was love itself. But the hatred of man made it impossible to show that love, and this broke His human heart. Man's only answer to so much grace was the shame and disgrace of the cross. And in spite of all this, His broken heart bore the curse and the whole weight of God's judgment, to save the very people who insulted Him and spat in His face.
Some take the words as more than a figure of speech. One writer sees in them the direct cause of Jesus' death:
In Psalm 69:20 we read, "Reproach has broken my heart"; and it seems as though this was in fact the immediate cause of the Lord's death. Sorrow upon sorrow had burst in on Him, when, having cried with a loud voice, He stopped breathing.
The verse records a search, not just an absence. That one word tells us how truly human He was:
The Lord Jesus felt the rebuffs. He would not have been truly man if He had not felt them. He could say, "I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." Notice, "I looked." His loving human heart longed and "looked" for pity, but did not find it. He looked for comforters, but looked in vain. There was no pity for Jesus — no comforters for Him. He was left alone.
Commentators point to Gethsemane as the moment the words came true — and the failure came from His closest friends:
Then again, when reproach had broken His heart He had to say, "I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but found none." This was fulfilled in His disciples. It was in Gethsemane that He was "sorrowful and very heavy," and even Peter, James and John failed Him completely.
These sorrows are of a different kind from the forsaking described in Psalm 22. They are real, they lasted to the very end, and they were not the payment for sin:
Some have raised special objections to the idea that this suffering continued until death. But the Psalms are witnesses of it. No doubt the cup of the wrath of God has, so to speak, almost blotted out all the rest. Yet it is no less true that these Psalms describe sufferings of Christ at the hands of men right up to death, and show that He felt them. We see them fulfilled word for word in the Gospels. Read Psalm 22:14-20, and notice the contrast between these sufferings and the forsaking of God.
With no comfort on earth, He turned to God alone. The next verse shows what men gave Him instead:
So He looks to God alone in the day when the reproaches of men had broken His heart. To look elsewhere for comfort was useless, for in this world there were none to take pity. He looked, indeed, for some to take pity, for some to comfort, but He found none. Far from pity and comfort, they only answered His cry with gall and vinegar.
He found no comforter, so He can comfort everyone who has none:
The bitter yet blessed waters of Marah lead to a deeper knowledge of Calvary. And the deep, painful need of a broken heart leads to deeper fellowship with His heart. He could say, as no one else ever could, "Reproach has broken my heart." His people enjoy the tender sympathies of fellow travellers freely. He had none of that. He had to add — "and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." Oh, what a refuge we have in the once broken and desolate heart of Jesus!
- Reproach. What broke His heart was love turned away — the more He showed it, the more hatred rose against Him.
- Looked. "I looked" is the mark of true manhood: His heart wanted pity and searched for it.
- None. Gethsemane gave the answer: even Peter, James and John failed Him, and men gave Him gall and vinegar.
- Distinct. These are sufferings from men, felt right up to death, and set in contrast with the forsaking of Psalm 22.
- Refuge. He found no comforter, so His broken heart is now the shelter of everyone left alone.