Psalm 69: The Waters Have Come Up to My Neck

"Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head… then I restored that which I took not away."

"Because for thy sake I have borne reproach… I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach… They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards."

"Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table become a snare before them… Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents… Let them be blotted out of the book of the living."

"But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high. I will praise the name of God with a song… This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock… For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession."

Mire and gate

The images are the waters of death (vv. 1–2, 14–15) and the town gate where elders judged and men drank (v. 12). The speaker is shamed for his religious zeal and his fasting; even his family disowns him. The suffering is social as much as physical.

The end and the exile

The last verses widen to Zion and "the cities of Judah," to be rebuilt and resettled. Many scholars read these as a community ending added during or after the exile; others think the speaker was a temple zealot of the restoration period. The heading ("upon Shoshannim, of David") gives no setting.

Psalm 69 in the New Testament

After Psalm 22, Psalm 69 is the lament most quoted in the New Testament: v. 4 "hated without a cause" (John 15:25, or Psalm 35:19); v. 9a "the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (John 2:17, at the cleansing of the temple); v. 9b (Romans 15:3); v. 21 gall and vinegar (Matthew 27:34, 48; John 19:28–29); vv. 22–23 (Romans 11:9–10); v. 25 (Acts 1:20, of Judas, changed to the singular "his habitation"). These are readings of the psalm in the light of Jesus' passion; the psalm itself is the prayer of a persecuted worshipper.

Acts 1:20

Hebrew 69:25: "Let their encampment (tirah) be desolate; in their tents let none dwell." Acts 1:20 quotes, "Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein," applying the plural curse to one person and adding Psalm 109:8, "his bishoprick let another take." See the passage page.

The curses

Verses 22–28 are among the strongest imprecations in the Psalter. "Blotted out of the book of the living" recalls Moses' plea in Exodus 32:32. As with Psalms 35 and 58, the site presents them as prayers that hand vengeance to God.

Gall and vinegar in the versions

Hebrew 69:21 has rosh, a bitter or poisonous plant ("gall"), and homets, sour wine ("vinegar"). The library's Greek and Latin keep both (Vulgate "fel" and "aceto"; Giguet "du fiel… de vinaigre"). Matthew 27:34 ("vinegar to drink mingled with gall") follows this wording; Mark 15:23 speaks instead of "wine mingled with myrrh." In the library's Hebrew the psalm runs one verse ahead of English because of the heading.