The Most Avoided Messianic Psalm (1): Drowning in the Depths (Psalm 69:1-4) by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. The Watery Imagery
II. The Fearful Reality
III. The Striking Restoration
Psalm singing: 42:3-7; 32:1-5; 40:1-5; 69:1-4 (see below for the words to the Psalms)
Scripture reading: Psalm 69

W. S. Plumer: "[Psalm 69] is very decidedly Messianic. The only question is, whether it is directly and fully prophetic or typical-Messianic. There is no valid objection to the admission that in some parts David, as a sufferer, speaks as a type of Christ, and that in others he rises to the height of unqualified prediction respecting Messiah. Verse 4 is cited in John 15:25; v. 9, in John 2:17; Romans 15:3; v. 21, in Matthew 27:34, 48; Mark 15:23; John 19:28, 29; vv. 22, 23, in Romans 11:9, 10; and v. 25, in Acts 1:16, 20. Sound commentators generally admit that it has its fulfilment in Christ. Theodoret: 'It is a prediction of the sufferings of Christ, and the final destruction of the Jews on that account.' Calvin: 'David wrote this inspired ode, not so much in his own name, as in the name of the whole church of whose head he was an eminent type.' Vitringa: 'It is admitted among Christians, that in the sixty-ninth Psalm Christ, and Christ as a sufferer, is to be placed before our eyes. We add, that it refers to Christ crucified as the Evangelists Matthew, Mark and John apply it''" (Psalms, p. 675).
J. A. Alexander: "There is no psalm, except the twenty-second, more distinctly applied to him [i.e., Christ] in the New Testament [than Psalm 69]" (The Psalms Translated and Explained, p. 292).
John Gill: "[Christ] satisfied justice he had never injured, though others had; he fulfilled a law, and bore the penalty of it, which he never broke; and made satisfaction for sins he never committed; and brought in a righteousness he had not taken away; and provided a better inheritance than what was lost by Adam: and all this was done at the time of his sufferings and death, and by the means of them" (Comm. on Ps. 69:4).

Psalm 42:3-7
3 My tears have unto me been meat,
both in the night and day,
While unto me continually,
Where is thy God? they say.
4 My soul is poured out in me,
when this I think upon;
Because that with the multitude
I heretofore had gone ;
With them into God’s house I went
with voice of joy and praise;
Yea, with the multitude that kept
the solemn holy days.
5 O why art thou cast down, my soul ?
why in me so dismay’d ?
Trust God, for I shall praise him yet,
his count’nance is mine aid.
6 My God, my soul’s cast down in me;
thee therefore mind I will
From Jordan’s land, the Hermonites,
and ev’n from Mizar hill.
7 At the noise of thy water-spouts
deep unto deep doth call;
Thy breaking waves pass over me,
yea, and thy billows all.

Psalm 32:1-5
1 O BLESSED is the man to whom
is freely pardoned
All the transgression he hath done,
whose sin is covered.
2 Bless’d is the man to whom the Lord
imputeth not his sin,
And in whose sp’rit there is no guile,
nor fraud is found therein.
3 When as I did refrain my speech,
and silent was my tongue,
My bones then waxed old, because
I roared all day long.
4 For upon me both day and night
thine hand did heavy lie,
So that my moisture turned is
in summer’s drought thereby.
5 I thereupon have unto thee
my sin acknowledged,
And likewise mine iniquity
I have not covered :
I will confess unto the Lord
my trespasses, said I;
And of my sin thou freely didst
forgive th’ iniquity.

Psalm 40:1-5
1 I WAITED for the Lord my God,
and patiently did bear;
At length to me he did incline
my voice and cry to hear
2 He took me from a fearful pit,
and from the miry clay,
And on a rock he set my feet,
establishing my way.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
our God to magnify:
Many shall see it, and shall fear,
and on the Lord rely.
4 O blessed is the man whose trust
upon the Lord relies;
Respecting not the proud, nor such
as turn aside to lies.
5 O Lord my God, full many are
the wonders thou hast done:
Thy gracious thoughts to us-ward far
above all thoughts are gone:
In order none can reckon them
to thee: if them declare,
And speak of them I would, they more
than can be number’d are.

Psalm 69:1-4
1 SAVE me, O God, because the floods
do so environ me,
That ev’n unto my very soul
come in the waters be.
2 I downward in deep mire do sink,
where standing there is none:
I am into deep waters come,
where floods have o’er me gone.
3 I weary with my crying am,
my throat is also dry’d ;
Mine eyes do fail, while for my God
I waiting do abide.
4 Those men that do without a cause
bear hatred unto me,
Than are the hairs upon my head
in number more they be:
They that would me destroy, and are
mine en’mies wrongfully,
Are mighty: so what I took not,
to render forc’d was I.