The Most Avoided Messianic Psalm (7): “Let Their Table Become a Snare" (Psalm 69:20-22) by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. Who Is Speaking?
II. Speaking of Whom?
III. Saying What?
William S. Plumer on Psalm 69:22: “This verse is clearly connected with the next three, so that the right use of one being ascertained, we know the application of the others. Christ applied to his scornful countrymen the twenty-fifth verse, and this goes with it. Paul makes the same application of this verse and the next, Rom. 11:9, 10; so that we have the key to the right exposition.”
John Calvin on Psalm 69:22: “These expressions are metaphorical, and they imply a desire that whatever things had been allotted to them in providence for the preservation of life, and for their welfare and convenience, might be turned by God into the occasion or instrument of their destruction. From this we gather that as things which naturally and of themselves are hurtful, become the means of furthering our welfare when we are in favour with God; so, when his anger is kindled against us, all those things which have a native tendency to produce our happiness are cursed, and become so many causes of our destruction. It is an instance of the Divine justice, which ought deeply to impress our minds with awe, when the Holy Spirit declares that all the means of preserving life are deadly to the reprobate (Titus 1:15) so that the very sun, which carries healing under his wings (Malachi 4:2) breathes only a deadly exhalation for them.”
John Calvin on Genesis 50:20: “… whatever poison Satan produces, God turns it into medicine for his elect. And although in this place God is said to have ‘meant it unto good’ [Gen. 50:20], because contrary to expectation, he had educed a joyful issue out of beginnings fraught with death: yet, with perfect rectitude and justice, he turns the food of reprobates into poison, their light into darkness, their table into a snare [Ps. 69:22], and, in short, their life into death. If human minds cannot reach these depths, let them rather suppliantly adore the mysteries they do not comprehend, than, as vessels of clay, proudly exalt themselves against their Maker [cf. Rom. 9:20-21].”