A Commentary on the Book of Psalms: Psalm 68 — Christ in His Passion Declareth the Greatness of His Sufferings, and the Malice of His Persecutors the Jews; and Foretelleth Their Reprobation
Psalm 68
Christ in His Passion Declareth the Greatness of His Sufferings, and the Malice of His Persecutors the Jews; and Foretelleth Their Reprobation
Explanation Of The Psalm
1–2 The history of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Gospel, takes very little notice of the intensity of his sufferings, because the evangelists wished to show that it was quite voluntary, and borne with the greatest fortitude. But, as it was right that the world should know that the sufferings of Christ were intense beyond measure, and learn from thence the extent of their debt to the Redeemer, the Holy Ghost was pleased to reveal the intensity of his sufferings, long before, to the prophets, and, through them, as trustworthy witnesses and above suspicion, to be narrated to us. Isaias, therefore, wrote much about them, so did Jeremias, but none more than David. In the two first verses, then, of this Psalm the passion of Christ is compared to immersion of one into most deep and muddy water. “Save me, O God.” Not as regards my soul, for that he could not lose, but my body; and he does not ask that absolutely, but to express the intensity of the pains he was suffering, and the natural repugnance of man to death; in the same spirit in which he said in the garden, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” “For the waters have come in even unto my soul.” He now begins the simile of one tossed into the water. Because I am like one cast into the water, and just feeling it so to enter into his vitals as to prevent his further breathing, and, consequently, living. “I stick fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing.” I am like a man not only thrown into the deep, but even into a muddy deep, where there is no bottom, no standing. “I am come into the depth of the sea.” It is not into a small pool I have been thrown, but into a great and deep sea, overwhelmed by a heap of water over me; “and a tempest hath overwhelmed me,” because, a fierce storm of winds and waves has completely sunk me. This gives us some idea of the extent and the severity of Christ’s sufferings; for they were not confined to the simple death on the cross; his pains and his sufferings were all but innumerable. The “mire of the deep,” signifies the sins of the human race that kept him in punishment. The “tempest that overwhelmed him,” signifies God’s justice and decree that man’s sins should be atoned for, as also the rage and cruelty of the Jews, and it may also signify his own ardent love for mankind.
That storm was the immediate cause of his passion, inasmuch as his love for us caused him to suffer, as the Apostle says, “Who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;” and as St. Peter said to the Jews, “You have killed the author of life;” and St. Paul again, “Christ loved the church and delivered himself up for it.” The powerful storm then that sunk Christ into the depths of his death and passion, was partly good and laudable, partly bad and deserving extreme censure.
3 From this verse we can infer, that what he said in the two previous verses are not to be taken in the strict sense of the words, for if he had been drowned, he certainly could not cry out. This verse is also to be read under similar limitation, for Christ cried out in his passion, when he said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and again, when he said, “Into thy hands, Father, I commend my spirit.” These cries could hardly have made him hoarse. Nor is it the fact that “his eyes failed,” expecting help from God. The meaning then is, that his sufferings were as intense and as continuous as with those whose pains make them hoarse in calling for help, and whose sight has failed in looking up to God for assistance in their sufferings. If Christ, then, was always silent, and “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” sought for no help, as if he were suffering nothing, it was all owing, not to the lightness of his sufferings, but to his own firmness, his power of endurance, and the extent of his love. Had his lamentations been at all commensurate to his sufferings, his jaws would certainly have become hoarse through constant vociferation, and his eyes would have become dim in his searches for one to help him; and, therefore, as we said at first, the prophet expresses the intensity of his sufferings, while the evangelist glanced at the extent of his constancy under them.
4 Speaking now in the person of Christ, he explains, in plain language, what he had figuratively expressed before. He compared Christ’s persecutors to a swell of waters, and to a violent tempest; he now plainly says they were most violent, and almost innumerable, and were thus fierce and violent without any provocation whatever. “They are multiplied above the hairs of my head.” They were more numerous than the hairs of my head, that can scarcely be counted. “Who hate me without cause.” Their number is clear from the Gospel, for beside the counsel of the Elders, Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees, there was the great body of the people, “who cried out, Crucify him.” Whole cohorts of the pagan soldiers joined them, for “Herod with his army mocked him.” In Pilate’s house, an entire company of soldiers assembled to deride him, to whom was added Judas the traitor, to betray him. And that “they hated him without cause,” cannot be questioned, for “he went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil,” and never harmed or injured any one. The excuse they put forth in the council, namely, “If we let him alone, so the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation,” was proved, by the event, to have been dictated by a false and a mistaken prudence; for though they did not let him alone, though they obstructed, as far as in them lay, the progress of the Gospel, still the Romans came, took their place and their nation away, which would not have befallen them, had they given a favorable reception to Christ the teacher and the source of peace, mildness, and love. The prophet gives an additional instance of their violence. “My enemies are grown strong who have wrongfully persecuted me.” My unjust persecutors are strengthened, have taken courage, have succeeded, and that through their injustice, for they compelled me to pay “that which I took not away,” to suffer punishment without deserving it. Every unjust man may be called a robber, because he robs God of his glory; and therefore, when he is punished, he pays for what he so took away. Now, Christ never robbed nor took away, for he never sinned, and yet underwent the severest punishment. That the thief hanging on the cross acknowledged, when he said, “And we indeed, justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done no evil.” Luke 23.
5 Having said that he suffered unjustly, and that he had to pay what he did not take away, he now assigns a reason for his having chosen so to suffer, when he might have easily delivered himself from such unjust persecution; and the reason he assigns is his own foolishness, and his offences, however hidden from the world, being well known to God. “My foolishness;” that is, the foolishness of Adam that he took upon himself, “and my offences,” the offences of Adam and his posterity, which he bore without committing. “O God, thou knowest my foolishness,” you know that I am suffering for the folly of the first man, who believed the deceiver when he told him, that by eating the forbidden fruit he would become equal to God; and through his disobedience what has been the result of his foolishness! St. Augustine adds, that the foolishness of Christ may be said to be that which may be looked upon as such by men, and may still be the height of wisdom, namely, that when by one word he may have delivered himself from death, still he preferred suffering the most bitter torments, and the death of the cross itself, to redeem his servants and even his enemies from torments and death. That seemed folly to men, but God knows that such folly is wiser than all human wisdom. Just as to those who know nothing of agriculture, it seems folly and an irreparable loss to throw a quantity of the best grain into the earth; but when the same grains are multiplied and gathered in the harvest, then, instead of its appearing to have been folly, it turns up to have been the height of wisdom.