34 Let the heavens and the earth give praise to him, the seas, and everything moving in them.
Let the sea be thundering, with all its waters; the world, and all who are living in it; Let the streams make sounds of joy with their hands; let the mountains be glad together,
Give praise to the Lord. Let the Lord be praised from the heavens: give him praise in the skies. Give praise to him, all you his angels: give praise to him, all his armies. Give praise to him, you sun and moon: give praise to him, all you stars of light. Give praise to him, you highest heavens, and you waters which are over the heavens. Let them give praise to the name of the Lord: for he gave the order, and they were made. He has put them in their places for ever; he has given them their limits which may not be broken. Give praise to the Lord from the earth, you great sea-beasts, and deep places: Fire and rain of ice, snow and mists; storm-wind, doing his word: Mountains and all hills; fruit-trees and all trees of the mountains: Beasts and all cattle; insects and winged birds: Kings of the earth, and all peoples; rulers and all judges of the earth: Young men and virgins; old men and children: Let them give glory to the name of the Lord: for his name only is to be praised: his kingdom is over the earth and the heaven. He has put on high the horn of his people, for the praise of all his saints; even the children of Israel, a people which is near to him. Let the Lord be praised.
I have put your evil doings out of my mind like a thick cloud, and your sins like a mist: come back to me; for I have taken up your cause. Make a song, O heavens, for the Lord has done it: give a loud cry, you deep parts of the earth: let your voices be loud in song, you mountains, and you woods with all your trees: for the Lord has taken up the cause of Jacob, and will let his glory be seen in Israel.
And all the angels were round about the high seat, and about the rulers and the four beasts; and they went down on their faces before the high seat, and gave worship to God, saying, So be it. Let blessing and glory and wisdom and praise and honour and power and strength be given to our God for ever and ever. So be it. And one of the rulers made answer, saying to me, These who have on white robes, who are they, and where did they come from?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 69
Commentary on Psalms 69 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 69
David penned this psalm when he was in affliction; and in it,
Now, in this, David was a type of Christ, and divers passages in this psalm are applied to Christ in the new Testament and are said to have their accomplishment in him (v. 4, 9, 21), and v. 22 refers to the enemies of Christ. So that (like the twenty-second psalm) it begins with the humiliation and ends with the exaltation of Christ, one branch of which was the destruction of the Jewish nation for persecuting him, which the imprecations here are predictions of. In singing this psalm we must have an eye to the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that followed, not forgetting the sufferings of Christians too, and the glory that shall follow them; for it may lead us to think of the ruin reserved for the persecutors and the rest reserved for the persecuted.
To the chief musician upon Shoshannim. A psalm of David.
Psa 69:1-12
In these verses David complains of his troubles, intermixing with those complaints some requests for relief.
Psa 69:13-21
David had been speaking before of the spiteful reproaches which his enemies cast upon him; here he adds, But, as for me, my prayer is unto thee. They spoke ill of him for his fasting and praying, and for that he was made the song of the drunkards; but, notwithstanding that, he resolves to continue praying. Note, Though we may be jeered for well-doing, we must never be jeered out of it. Those can bear but little for God, and their confessing his name before men, that cannot bear a scoff and a hard word rather than quit their duty. David's enemies were very abusive to him, but this was his comfort, that he had a God to go to, with whom he would lodge his cause. "They think to carry their cause by insolence and calumny; but I use other methods. Whatever they do, As for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord!' And it was in an acceptable time, not the less acceptable for being a time of affliction. God will not drive us from him, though it is need that drives us to him; nay, it is the more acceptable, because the misery and distress of God's people make them so much the more the objects of his pity: it is seasonable for him to help them when all other helps fail, and they are undone, and feel that they are undone, if he do not help them. We find this expression used concerning Christ. Isa. 49:8, In an acceptable time have I heard thee. Now observe,
Psa 69:22-29
These imprecations are not David's prayers against his enemies, but prophecies of the destruction of Christ's persecutors, especially the Jewish nation, which our Lord himself foretold with tears, and which was accomplished about forty years after the death of Christ. The first two verses of this paragraph are expressly applied to the judgments of God upon the unbelieving Jews by the apostle (Rom. 11:9, 10), and therefore the whole must look that way. The rejection of the Jews for rejecting Christ, as it was a signal instance of God's justice and an earnest of the vengeance which God will at last take on all that are obstinate in their infidelity, so it was, and continues to be, a convincing proof of the truth of the Christian religion. One great objection against it, at first, was, that it set aside the ceremonial law; but its doing so was effectually justified, and that objection removed, when God so remarkably set it aside by the utter destruction of the temple, and the sinking of those, with the Mosaic economy, that obstinately adhered to it in opposition to the gospel of Christ. Let us observe here,
Psa 69:30-36
The psalmist here, both as a type of Christ and as an example to Christians, concludes a psalm with holy joy and praise which he began with complaints and remonstrances of his griefs.