The Most Avoided Messianic Psalm (8): “Pour Out Thine Indignation Upon Them” (Psalm 69:23-25) by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. The Awesome Meaning
II. The Parties Involved
III. The Profound Significance
Matthew Poole on Psalm 69:23: “Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake. Their eyes; not the eyes of their bodies (for so this was not accomplished in David’s nor in Christ’s enemies) but of their minds, that they may not discern God’s truth, nor their own duty, nor the way of peace and salvation. Punish them in their own kind; as they shut their eyes and would not see, so do thou judicially blind them. This was threatened and inflicted upon the Jews, Isaiah 6:10; John 12:39, 40. Their loins: this also belongs to the loins of their minds or souls; of which we read Luke 12:35; 1 Peter 1:13. The loins of the body are the seat of strength, and the great instrument of bodily motions and actions; which being applied to the mind, the sense may be, either, 1. Take away their courage and alacrity, and give them up to pusillanimity, and terror, and despair; or rather, 2. Take away their strength and ability for spiritual actions. In the former branch, he wisheth that they may not be able to see or choose their way; and here, that they may not be able to walk in it, nor to execute the good counsels which others may give them. As, on the other side, when God gives men strength, they are able not only to walk, but to run in the ways of God, Psalm 119:32; Song of Solomon 1:4; Isaiah 40:31.”
William S. Plumer on Psalm 69:25: “Let their habitation be desolate. This clause is quoted by Christ in his lament over Jerusalem, and applied to the Jewish nation, showing its prophetical character, Matt. 23:37, 28. It is also quoted by Peter and applied to Judas Iscariot, Acts 1:16-20. He speaks of it as a prophecy: ‘This Scripture must needs be fulfilled.’ These things show that the common form of prediction is no just cause of offence. No doubt it foretells the awful doom of all those who malignantly reject the gospel and despise the person of the Mediator. The Jews and Judas were representative men, and as such the clause is applied to them. And let none dwell in their tents. This is a repetition of the prediction of the first clause, and refers to the loss of their own land by the unbelieving Jews, and, together with the first, predicts the evils that should fall on the posterity of such as wilfully and finally reject Christ and the authority of God, Ex. 20:5; Isa. 14:20, 21.”