Psalm 69 [MT 70]

1–2

On the first occasion we nearly perished of hunger and thirst while we were wandering about in the desert [without food] for five days and five nights. On the second occasion we traveled over savage, rugged mountains until our feet were pierced by the stones, and we suffered very great pain and very nearly had to yield up our souls. On the third occasion we sank in the mud several times more than waist deep, and there was none to help [us], and we cried out the words of the blessed David, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come even to my soul. I have sunk into a dark abyss, wherein is no place on which to stand. Save me from the mire so that I do not sink.” On the fourth occasion a great flood burst on us at the time when the Nile floods, and we walked about in the water, and we sank down very nearly to the nostrils [of the animal that we rode], and we cried out and said, “Drown us not, O Lord, in a whirlpool of waters, and let not the abyss swallow us up, and let not the pit close its mouth over us.”

The Histories of the Monks 20

"Save me, O God, for the waters have entered in even unto my soul" [Psalm 69:1]. That grain is despised now, that seems to give forth humble words. In the garden it is buried, though the world will admire the greatness of the herb, of which herb the seed was despised by the Jews. For in very deed observe ye the seed of the mustard, minute, dull coloured, altogether despicable, in order that therein may be fulfilled that which has been said, We have seen Him, and He had neither form nor comeliness. [Isaiah 53:2] But He says, that waters have come in even unto His soul; because those multitudes, which under the name of waters He has pointed out, were able so far to prevail as to kill Christ....Whence then does He so cry out, as though He were suffering something against His will, except because the Head does prefigure the Members? For He suffered because He willed: but the Martyrs even though they willed not; for to Peter thus He foretold his passion: "When you shall be old," He says, "another shall gird you, and lead you whither you will not." [John 21:18] For though we desire to cleave to Christ, yet we are unwilling to die: and therefore willingly or rather patiently we suffer, because no other passage is given us, through which we may cleave to Christ. For if we could in any other way arrive at Christ, that is, at life everlasting, who would be willing to die? For while explaining our nature, that is, a sort of association of soul and body, and in these two parts a kind of intimacy of gluing and fastening together, the Apostle says, that "we have a House not made with hands, everlasting in the Heavens:" [2 Corinthians 5:1] that is, immortality prepared for us, wherewith we are to be clothed at the end, when we shall have risen from the dead; and he says, "Wherein we are not willing to be stripped, but to be clothed upon, that the mortal may be swallowed up of life." [2 Corinthians 5:4] If it might so be, we should so will, he says, to become immortal, as that now that same immortality might come, and now as we are it should change us, in order that this our mortal body by life should be swallowed up, and the body should not be laid aside through death, so as at the end again to have to be recovered. Although then from evil to good things we pass, nevertheless the very passage is somewhat bitter, and has the gall which the Jews gave to the Lord in the Passion, has something sharp to be endured, whereby they are shown that gave Him vinegar to drink. [Matthew 27:34] ...For here both sweet are temporal pleasures, and bitter are temporal tribulations: but who would not drink the cup of tribulation temporal, fearing the fire of hell; and who would not contemn the sweetness of the world, longing for the sweetness of life eternal? From hence that we may be delivered let us cry: lest perchance amidst oppressions we consent to iniquity, and truly irreparably we be swallowed up.

Exposition on Psalm 69

"Fixed I am in the clay of the deep, and there is no substance" [Psalm 69:2]. What called the clay? Is it those very persons that have persecuted? For out of clay man has been made. [Genesis 2:7] But these men by falling from righteousness have become the clay of the deep, and whosoever shall not have consented to them persecuting and desiring to draw him to iniquity, out of his clay does make gold. For the clay of the same shall merit to be converted into a heavenly form, and to be made associate of those of whom says the Title of the Psalm, "in behalf of them that shall be changed." But at the time when these were the clay of the deep, I stuck in them: that is, they held Me, prevailed against Me, killed Me. "Fixed" then "I am in the clay of the deep, and there is no substance." What is this, "there is no substance"? Can it be that clay itself is not a substance? What is then, "fixed I am"? Can it be that Christ has thus stuck? Or has He stuck, and was not, as has been said in the book of Job, "the earth delivered into the hands of the ungodly man"? [Job 9:24] Was He fixed in body, because it could be held, and suffered even crucifixion? For unless with nails He had been fixed, crucified He had not been. Whence then "there is no substance"? Is that clay not a substance? But we shall understand, if it be possible, what is, "and there is no substance," if first we shall have understood what is a substance. For there is substance spoken of even of riches, as we say, he has substance, and he has lost substance....

Exposition on Psalm 69

Previously, you see, when [Christ] was showing us an example of humility in the flesh, it was said with reference to his passion that the waves of the sea rose mightily against him, to which he yielded voluntarily for our sakes, so fulfilling the prophecy, "I came into the depth of the sea, and the tempest overwhelmed me." Thus he did not rebut the false witnesses or the savage roar of the crowd, "Have him crucified!" He did not use his power to quell the raging hearts and stop the mouths of the furious mob, but he bore it all with patience. They did to him whatever they wanted, because "he became obedient unto death, even death on a cross."

Sermon 75:7

"I have laboured, crying, hoarse have become my jaws" [Psalm 69:3]. Where was this? When was this? Let us question the Gospel. For the Passion of our Lord in this Psalm we perceive. And, indeed, that He suffered we know; that there came in waters even unto His Soul, because peoples prevailed even unto His death, we read, we believe; in the tempest that He was sunk down, because tumult prevailed to His killing, we acknowledge: but that He laboured in crying, and that His jaws were made hoarse, not only we read not, but even on the contrary we read, that He answered not to them a word, in order that there might be fulfilled that which in another Psalm has been said, "I have become as it were a man not hearing, and having not in his mouth reproofs." And that which in Isaiah has been prophesied, "like a sheep to be sacrificed He was led, and like a lamb before one shearing Him, so He opened not His mouth." [Isaiah 53:7] If He became like a man not hearing, and having not in His mouth reproofs, how did He labour crying, and how were His jaws made hoarse? Is it that He was even then silent, because He was hoarse with having cried so much in vain? And this indeed we know to have been His voice on the Cross out of a certain Psalm: "O God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" But how great was that voice, or of how long duration, that in it His jaws should have become hoarse? Long while He cried, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees:" long while He cried, "Woe unto the world because of offenses." [Matthew 18:7] And truly hoarse in a manner He cried, and therefore was not understood, when the Jews said, What is this that He says? "Hard is this saying, who is able to hear it?" We know not what He says. He said all these words: but hoarse were His jaws to them that understood not His words. "My eyes have failed from hoping in My God." Far be it that this should be taken of the person of the Head: far be it that His eyes should have failed from hoping in His God: in whom rather there was God reconciling the world to Himself, [2 Corinthians 5:19] and Who was the Word made flesh and dwelled in us, so that not only God was in Him, but also He was Himself God. Not so then: the eyes of Himself, our Head, failed not from hoping in His God: but the eyes of Him have failed in His Body, that is, in His members. This voice is of the members, this voice is of the Body, not of the Head. How then do we find it in His Body and members?...

Exposition on Psalm 69

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. [Psalms 69:4] But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

Christ did not speak deceitfully but displayed all justice and humility. He did not suffer that kind of death [crucifixion] for anything he had done but so that those things that the prophets had predicted would happen to him through you as the very Spirit of Christ already foretold in the Psalms, saying, "They repaid me evil instead of good"; "What I had not taken, I repaid"; "They pierced my hands and feet"; "They put gall in my drink, and they satisfied my thirst with vinegar"; and "They cast lots for my clothing." The other things that you would commit against him have also been foretold. He patiently endured and suffered all those things not for anything he had done but so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled that were spoken by the prophets.

An Answer to the Jews 10

Thus "there have been multiplied above the hairs of My head they that hate Me gratis" [Psalm 69:4]. How multiplied? So as that they might add to themselves even one out of the twelve. [Matthew 26:14] "There have been multiplied above the hairs of My head they that hate Me for nought." With the hairs of His head He has compared His enemies. With reason they were shorn when in the place of Calvary He was crucified. [Matthew 27:33] Let the members accept this voice, let them learn to be hated gratis. For now, O Christian, if it must needs be that the world hate you, why do you not make it hate you gratis, in order that in the Body of your Lord and in this Psalm sent before concerning Him, you may acknowledge your own voice? How shall it come to pass that the world hate you gratis? If you no wise hurtest any one, and art still hated: for this is gratis, without cause...

Exposition on Psalm 69

Just as it was said to Jesus, "Why, then, will you die if you have not committed a sin that deserves the death penalty?" Immediately he answered, "I do what the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father. Arise, let us go." Where? To the place where he, who had done nothing deserving of death, would be handed over to death. The Father had commanded that he should die—he about whom it had been prophesied, "I must repay what I did not take." He was the one who was about to suffer death without deserving it and [thereby] redeem us from the penalty of death. Adam, however, had committed sin when he reached out his hand to the tree [to pick the forbidden fruit]; he presumptuously deceived himself that he could seize the name of divinity that cannot be shared with or given to anyone [except one who is God]; divinity was conferred on the Son of God by nature, not by robbery.

Tractates on the Gospel of John 79:2

"O God, You have known mine improvidence" [Psalm 69:5]. Again out of the mouth of the Body. For what improvidence is there in Christ? Is He not Himself the Virtue of God, and the Wisdom of God? Does He call this His improvidence, whereof the Apostle speaks, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men"? [1 Corinthians 1:25] Mine improvidence, that very thing which in Me they derided that seem to themselves to be wise, You have known why it was done. For what was so much like improvidence, as, when He had it in His power with one word to lay low the persecutors, to suffer Himself to be held, scourged, spit upon, buffeted, with thorns to be crowned, to the tree to be nailed? It is like improvidence, it seems a foolish thing; but this foolish thing excels all wise men. Foolish indeed it is: but even when grain falls into the earth, if no one knows the custom of husbandmen, it seems foolish...Improvidence it appears; but hope makes it not to be improvidence. He then spared not Himself: because even the Father spared Him not, but delivered Him up for us all. [Romans 8:32] And of the Same, "Who loved me," says the Apostle, "and delivered up Himself for me:" [Galatians 2:20] for except a grain shall have fallen into the land so that it die, fruit, He says, it will not yield. [John 12:24] This is the improvidence. "And my transgressions from You are not concealed." It is plain, clear, open, that this must be perceived to be out of the mouth of the Body. Transgressions none had Christ: He was the bearer of transgressions, but not the committer. "Are not concealed:" that is, I have confessed to You, all my transgressions, and before my mouth You have seen them in my thought, hast seen the wounds which You were to heal. But where? Even in the Body, in the members: in those believers out of whom there was now cleaving to Him that member, who was confessing his sins.

Exposition on Psalm 69

"Let them not blush in Me, that wait for You, O Lord, Lord of virtues" [Psalm 69:6]. Again, the voice of the Head, "Let them not blush in Me:" let it not be said to them, Where is He on whom you were relying? Let it not be said to them, Where is He that was saying to you, Believe ye in God, and in Me believe? [John 14:1] "Let them not blush in Me, that wait for You," O Lord, Lord of virtues. Let them not be confounded concerning Me, that seek You, O God of Israel. This also may be understood of the Body, but only if you consider the Body of Him not one man: for in truth one man is not the Body of Him, but a small member, but the Body is made up of members. Therefore the full Body of Him is the whole Church. With reason then says the Church, "Let them not blush in Me, that wait for You, O Lord, Lord of virtues."...

Exposition on Psalm 69