I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's sons;
Psalm 69 gives us the words of a righteous sufferer, and commentators hear in him the voice of Christ. Verse 8 shows the sharpest edge of what his faithfulness cost him: the rejection reached into his own family.
Where does this suffering come from? Commentators set this psalm sharply apart from Psalm 22.
Psalm 69 is the righteous One. Here He is not forsaken by God in atonement for sin, as in Psalm 22. He is crushed under man's hatred and reproach. His enemies hate Him without a cause, though zeal for God's house has eaten Him up. Yet He takes it all from God's hand. He owns that God has smitten Him, and so He looks and prays for vengeance, not grace.
One writer traces this reproach back to its cause, using the verses on either side.
This raises the question, what was it that brought Christ into reproach? Psalm 69:7-9 give the answer. There we hear the Lord saying, "Zeal for your house has consumed Me." He was zealous for God in the middle of a nation that hated God. So they treated Him 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.
The words "my mother's sons" also touch a long dispute about Mary's own family.
Origen said that Scripture nowhere speaks of them as Mary's children, and this learned writer quotes him. The statement is certainly wrong: see Psalm 69:8. Neither of these truly great scholars, presumably, would have denied that this psalm speaks of the Messiah.
The Gospels show us this scene, and also when the estrangement ended.
To His own brothers (according to the flesh) He had become a stranger (v. 8). John 7:3-5 records the scornful words of unbelief that His brothers spoke to Him. They did not believe in Him until after His sacrifice on Calvary.
Does this verse allow a believer to push family aside? One writer traces the Lord's own family life for an answer.
This scripture does not mean that we may refuse natural relationships. To be "without natural affection" is one of the features of the "perilous times" (2 Timothy 3). What we have here is completely different. Before His public ministry began He was "subject to" Joseph and Mary, and in that relationship, as in every other, He was perfect, and so our blessed example. But then came His baptism and anointing, and He entered on His service. He had come to do the will of God, and until His work was finished He was devoted wholly to the glory of God. From then on the claims of God absorbed Him, and the zeal of His Father's house consumed Him. So He became a stranger to His brothers, and an alien to His mother's children... When His work was ended, He committed Mary, in the tenderness of His perfect love, to the care of the disciple whom He loved.
Another servant of God knew this isolation long before.
David, anointed king of Israel, was used by God to bring a mighty deliverance; but first he had to submit to a long trial of faith. Saul, who should have been the first to acknowledge what God had done by his hand, professed not to know him (1 Samuel 17:56)... "I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons" (Psalm 69:8) tells of the deep sorrow of a loving heart, forced into such isolation by faithfulness to God. In its application to the blessed Lord Jesus it finds its perfect fulfilment in Him alone. He entered more fully than any other into every kind of suffering that can come on the servant of God in the world.
This suffering came from men, not from the bearing of sin. So others can walk the same road behind Him.
In Psalm 69 He is not absolutely alone. Many a saint has known what it is to suffer from evil men, because he is identified with God's Name and cause. He is immeasurably pre-eminent in this, but there are others.
- Cause — Zeal for God's house, not any fault of His own, put Him outside. The reproach began with faithfulness.
- Cost — That zeal reached His own home. He became a stranger to His brothers, and John records their unbelief.
- Care — He never denied natural affection. He was subject to Joseph and Mary, and God's claim came first.
- Company — David walked the same road of isolation first, and the psalm finds its full answer only in Christ.
- Continuation — He bore atonement alone, but many a saint has shared this reproach for God's Name.
For the zeal of thy house hath devoured me, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen upon me.
Psalm 69 is the cry of a righteous sufferer. This verse joins two things that seem unrelated: a burning devotion to God's house, and a flood of insults that were never aimed at Him.
Commentators mark out what kind of suffering this psalm describes. These are not His atoning sufferings, which came from God. They are the cost of standing for God among evil men.
The sufferings in this Psalm are not the ones connected with His soul being made an offering for sin. His atoning sufferings came from God, as we see in Psalm 22. Here the sufferings are endured for God. Verse 7 states it plainly: "For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach." That note runs all the way through. By the spirit of prophecy we see the holy, dependent Man. He is completely identified with God's interests, and He goes down into death because of it.
The disciples recalled the first half of the verse when Jesus drove the traders out of the temple. His act was not temper but a Son defending His Father's house.
The house of prayer for all nations becomes a gathering place for money-changers. They turn the Father's house into a house of merchandise. The Lord deals with this great evil. He justifies His judicial act by claiming His relationship with God as His Father, and by saying that the temple is His Father's house. So once again He displays His glory before His disciples. He acts as the Son, in zeal for the glory of His Father's house, according to the Scripture, "Zeal for your house has consumed me." Now that the Son has come, this psalm takes on a fuller and deeper meaning. It shows us that the rejected Man the psalmist speaks of is none other than the Son.
That zeal had a price, and He knew where it was heading.
This very zeal and devotion to His Father's glory was a pledge of His death. The Pharisees asked Him by what authority He did these things. His answer shows He knew where such zeal was leading Him: "Destroy this temple" — take My life — "and in three days I will raise it up."
One writer traces the verse in two steps: devotion to God's house first, then insults meant for God falling on a Man.
First, our Lord was devoted to the glory of God and the interests of His house. That devotion lifted Him above every natural claim on Him. This led, secondly, to His complete identification with God and His interests on the earth. He felt everything according to God, and for God. So He said, "the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me." He received everything, not as it touched Himself, but as it affected God and His glory. A reproach spoken against God wounded His heart, because He was here not for Himself, but for God.
Set beside the first man, the contrast shows what He gave back to God.
The first man Adam robbed God of His glory. He gave up obedience to God and dependence on Him. He became eaten up with self-interest and self-seeking. The second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, was marked by absolute obedience and dependence. He was eaten up with zeal for God's house. He was so wholly identified with the interests and glory of God that if anyone flung reproaches at God, the reproach fell on His head. So having taken man's true place, He restored to God as Man the place that was truly His as God. He glorified God where the first man had dishonored Him.
Unlike Psalm 22, this psalm allows company in its sorrow. Some of its lines fit believers, not the Lord Himself.
In Psalm 69 He is not absolutely alone. Many a believer has suffered at the hands of evil men because they are identified with God's name and cause. He is immeasurably supreme in this, but there are others. That accounts for expressions in the Psalm which apply to those others, but do not apply to Him.
But the two halves of the verse divide differently for us:
He did that alone; we could have no part in such divine and holy indignation. But in these reproaches we may share, and we will if we are like Him. The zeal that cleansed the temple was needed then. What causes these reproaches is just as needed for the good of God's house on earth now.
- Zeal — His concern for His Father's house is the cause. Everything else in the verse follows from it.
- Cost — that zeal was a pledge of His death, not just one day's confrontation in the temple.
- Transfer — He stood so fully on God's side that insults aimed at God fell on Him instead.
- Restoration — the first man robbed God of glory. The second Man gave it back, eaten up with God's interests.
- Share — His holy indignation was His alone. His reproach is open to everyone identified with His name.