Psalm 69:1,3: “Save me, O God! / For the waters have come up to my neck . . . / I am weary with my crying; / My throat is dry; / My eyes fail while I wait for my God.”

March 15th, 2024 by Pastor Ed in devotional

This psalm has been called “the poor man’s prayer” because it is the humble, vulnerable, and transparent cry of David to the Lord. He couldn’t shrug off that people he cared about were slandering and betraying him. There is no other portion of Old Testament Scripture more frequently quoted in the New Testament, except Psalm 22, than these verses. We might say that David was writing here more like the prophet of God that he was, than in any other place. Almost a 1000 years before the incarnation of Christ (God in the flesh), these words correctly predicted many events in the Savior’s betrayal, death, and resurrection.

David cried to the Lord until his throat and tears were gone, because his burdens were so completely overwhelming him. Betrayal is most painful when it happens through someone close to us: friend or blood. Both Jesus and David experienced this depth of betrayal and it did make them suffer for a time. It seems that betrayal either makes us softer or harder, depending on whether or not we can forgive the perpetrator.

In 1998 the Navy had to find a place to store 12,000 gallons of napalm until they could find a company to “treat it or process it.” They had originally contracted with a company in Indiana, but when political protest broke out over allowing something as deadly and destructive as bottled-up napalm into their cities, the company backed out. The people of Indiana didn’t want it anywhere near them. Bottled-up anger, unresolved  bitterness, has the same potential for destruction if we allow it to come into our lives. That is why Jesus said, “And forgive us our sins, / For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. / And do not lead us into temptation, / But deliver us from the evil one” (Luke 11:4).

“LORD, please do forgive us from holding grudges against those who have hurt or wronged us in any way. Release us, please.”

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Psalms 69 KJV

¹ Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.

² I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.  

³ I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

⁴ They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.

⁵ O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee. 

⁶ Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord GOD of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.

⁷ Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.

⁸ I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.

⁹ For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.

¹⁰ When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach.

¹¹ I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.

¹² They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards. 

¹³ But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.

¹⁴ Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.

¹⁵ Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

¹⁶ Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

¹⁷ And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily. 

¹⁸ Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.

¹⁹ Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: mine adversaries are all before thee.

²⁰ Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. 

²¹ They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

²² Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.

²³ Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.

²⁴ Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

²⁵ Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.  

²⁶ For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded. 

²⁷ Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness. 

²⁸ Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.

²⁹ But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.

³⁰ I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.

³¹ This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.

³² The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God. 

³³ For the LORD heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners.

³⁴ Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moveth therein. 

³⁵ For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.

³⁶ The seed also of his servants shall inherit it: and they that love his name shall dwell therein.