Biblion Bible Commentary
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God Will Save Zion
Psalms 69:22-36
22 Let their table before them become a snare. May it become a retribution and a trap. · WEB
The longest imprecation in the Psalter, quoted by an apostle about Judas, and then a promise that the poor will inherit.
Let their table before them become a snare. May it become a retribution and a trap Psalms 69:22.
Seven verses of curse, the most sustained in the collection. Paul quotes the first two of them in Romans, applying them to a hardening that came on Israel Romans 11:9–10, and Peter quotes verse twenty-five of Judas when the eleven choose his replacement Acts 1:20.
That the New Testament uses these verses is the reason they cannot simply be dismissed as sub-Christian anger. They are treated as prophetic, and what they describe is judgment on a settled refusal.
Still, the shape of them should be stated plainly. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they can't see Psalms 69:23 asks that people who would not look be left unable to. Let their table before them become a snare asks that what they were enjoying become the trap. In each case the punishment requested is the thing itself, allowed to run to its end — which is the pattern of judgment throughout this collection.
Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous Psalms 69:28.
The severest request in the Psalter. Whatever else is said about it, the psalmist asks God to do this and does not presume to do it himself — and Scripture elsewhere is clear that the book is God's to keep Exodus 32:33 Revelation 20:12.
For they persecute him whom you have wounded Psalms 69:26.
The reason offered, and it is the psalm's own justification. Their crime is kicking a man who is already down, and specifically one whom God had struck. They saw the wound and used it.
But I am in pain and distress. Let your salvation, God, protect me Psalms 69:29.
The curses stop as suddenly as they began, and the man returns to his own condition.
I will praise the name of God with a song... It will please Yahweh better than an ox, or a bull that has horns and hoofs Psalms 69:30–31.
The same judgment as the fiftieth psalm, from the other direction: a song is worth more than the largest animal on offer. The detail about horns and hoofs specifies a mature bull, the most valuable sacrifice available, and the psalm says the song beats it.
For Yahweh hears the needy, and doesn't despise his captive people Psalms 69:33.
For God will save Zion, and build the cities of Judah. They shall settle there, and own it Psalms 69:35.
The psalm ends far from where it began. A man drowning alone finishes with a rebuilt country and people living in it who did not own it before — and the last line gives the qualification for inheriting: those who love his name Psalms 69:36.
held with reason What this mark means