Psalm 69:18

Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

69:13-21 Whatever deep waters of affliction or temptation we sink into, whatever floods of trouble or ungodly men seem ready to overwhelm us, let us persevere in prayer to our Lord to save us. The tokens of God's favour to us are enough to keep our spirits from sinking in the deepest outward troubles. If we think well of God, and continue to do so under the greatest hardships, we need not fear but he will do well for us. And if at any time we are called on to suffer reproach and shame, for Christ's sake, this may be our comfort, that he knows it. It bears hard on one that knows the worth of a good name, to be oppressed with a bad one; but when we consider what a favour it is to be accounted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus, we shall see that there is no reason why it should be heart-breaking to us. The sufferings of Christ were here particularly foretold, which proves the Scripture to be the word of God; and how exactly these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, which proves him to be the true Messiah. The vinegar and the gall given to him, were a faint emblem of that bitter cup which he drank up, that we might drink the cup of salvation. We cannot expect too little from men, miserable comforters are they all; nor can we expect too much from the God of all comfort and consolation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Draw nigh unto my soul - To me - for my life is in danger.

And redeem it - Ransom it; save it from ruin. See the notes at Isaiah 43:3; notes at Isaiah 44:22.

Deliver me, because of mine enemies - Because they are so numerous, so powerful, and so determined on my destruction. Compare Psalm 13:4.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16-18. These earnest terms are often used, and the address to God, as indifferent or averse, is found in Ps 3:7; 22:24; 27:9, &c.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Draw nigh unto my soul, to support and relieve it, O thou who seemest to be departed far away from me.

Because of mine enemies; partly because they persecute it, and greedily seek to destroy it; and partly because they are thine as well as mine enemies, and if they succeed, will triumph not only over me, but in some sort over thee, and over religion.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Draw nigh unto my soul,.... God his father, while he was suffering, stood afar off from him; wherefore he desires that he would draw nigh to him in the manifestations of his love and favour to him; which he did, when he made known to him the way of life, and made him full of joy with his countenance;

and redeem it: that is, from the power of the grave; not leave it there, but raise him from the dead, and give him glory, as he did;

deliver me, because of mine enemies; that they might not triumph over him, as if, being dead, he should rise no more; and so the Targum,

"that mine enemies might not lift up themselves against me.''

Or the meaning is, deliver me from the grave, raise me from the dead, that I may requite mine enemies, and take vengeance on them; see Psalm 41:8.

Geneva Study Bible

Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. Draw nigh] Cp. the acknowledgement of answered prayer in Lamentations 3:57-58, ‘Thou drewest nigh in the day when I called upon thee … thou redeemedst my life.”

deliver me] Or, as R.V., ransom me. Cp. Jeremiah 15:21.

because of mine enemies] Who will triumph if I am abandoned to their malice, and by whose triumph the honour of the God whom I serve will suffer. Cp. Psalm 13:4.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it. David often complains that God is far from him (Psalm 10:1; Psalm 22:19; Psalm 38:21; Psalm 71:12, etc.), and prays that he will "draw nigh," the sense of distance and alienation being intolerable. Deliver me because of mine enemies; i.e. because of their plots and machinations (see ver. 4). Psalm 69:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In this second part the petition by which the first is as it were encircled, is continued; the peril grows greater the longer it lasts, and with it the importunity of the cry for help. The figure of sinking in the mire or mud and in the depths of the pit (בּאר, Psalm 55:24, cf. בור, Psalm 40:3) is again taken up, and so studiously wrought out, that the impression forces itself upon one that the poet is here describing something that has really taken place. The combination "from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters" shows that "the depths of the waters" is not a merely rhetorical figure; and the form of the prayer: let not the pit (the well-pit or covered tank) close (תּאטּר with Dagesh in the Teth, in order to guard against its being read תּאטר; cf. on the signification of אטּר, clausus equals claudus, scil. manu) its mouth (i.e., its upper opening) upon me, exceeds the limits of anything that can be allowed to mere rhetoric. "Let not the water-flood overflow me" is intended to say, since it has, according to Psalm 69:3, already happened, let it not go further to my entire destruction. The "answer me" in Psalm 69:17 is based upon the plea that God's loving-kindness is טּוב, i.e., good, absolutely good (as in the kindred passion-Psalm, Psalm 109:21), better than all besides (Psalm 63:4), the means of healing or salvation from all evil. On Psalm 69:17 cf. Psalm 51:3, Lamentations 3:32. In Psalm 69:18 the prayer is based upon the painful situation of the poet, which urgently calls for speedy help (מהר beside the imperative, Psalm 102:3; Psalm 143:7; Genesis 19:22; Esther 6:10, is certainly itself not an imperative like הרב, Psalm 51:4, but an adverbial infinitive as in Psalm 79:8). קרבה, or, in order to ensure the pronunciation ḳorbah in distinction from ḳārbah, Deuteronomy 15:9, קרבה (in Baer,

(Note: Originally - was the sign for every kind of o6, hence the Masora includes the חטוף also under the name קמץ חטף; vid., Luther. Zeitschrift, 1863, S. 412,f., cf. Wright, Genesis, p. xxix.))

is imperat. Kal; cf. the fulfilment in Lamentations 3:57. The reason assigned, "because of mine enemies," as in Psalm 5:9; Psalm 27:11, and frequently, is to be understood according to Psalm 13:5 : the honour of the all-holy One cannot suffer the enemies of the righteous to triumph over him.

(Note: Both נפשׁי and איבי, contrary to logical interpunction, are marked with Munach; the former ought properly to have Dech, and the latter Mugrash. But since neither the Athnach-word nor the Silluk-word has two syllables preceding the tone syllable, the accents are transformed according to Accentuationssystem, xviii. 2, 4.)

The accumulation of synonyms in Psalm 69:20 is Jeremiah's custom, Jeremiah 13:14; Jeremiah 21:5, Jeremiah 21:7; Jeremiah 32:37, and is found also in Psalm 31 (Psalm 31:10) and Psalm 44 (Psalm 44:4, Psalm 44:17, Psalm 44:25). On הרפּה שׁברה לבּי, cf. Psalm 51:19, Jeremiah 23:9. The ἅπαξ γεγραμ, ואנוּשׁה (historical tense), from נוּשׁ, is explained by ענוּשׁ from אנשׁ, sickly, dangerously ill, evil-disposed, which is a favourite word in Jeremiah. Moreover נוּד in the signification of manifesting pity, not found elsewhere in the Psalter, is common in Jeremiah, e.g., Psalm 15:5; it signifies originally to nod to any one as a sign of a pity that sympathizes with him and recognises the magnitude of the evil. "To give wormwood for meat and מי־ראשׁ to drink" is a Jeremianic (Jeremiah 8:14; Jeremiah 9:14; Jeremiah 23:15) designation for inflicting the extreme of pain and anguish upon one. ראשׁ (רושׁ) signifies first of all a poisonous plant with an umbellated head of flower or a capitate fruit; but then, since bitter and poisonous are interchangeable notions in the Semitic languages, it signifies gall as the bitterest of the bitter. The lxx renders: καὶ ἔδωκαν εἰς τὸ βρῶμά μου χολήν, καὶ εἰς τὴν δίψαν μου ἐπότισάν με ὄξος. Certainly נתן בּ can mean to put something into something, to mix something with it, but the parallel word לצמאי (for my thirst, i.e., for the quenching of it, Nehemiah 9:15, Nehemiah 9:20) favours the supposition that the בּ of בּברוּתי is Beth essentiae, after which Luther renders: "they give me gall to eat." The ἅπαξ γεγραμ. בּרוּת (Lamentations 4:10 בּרות) signifies βρῶσις, from בּרה, βιβρώσκειν (root βορ, Sanscrit gar, Latin vor-are).