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
and still we find no mention whatever in the Gospel of the sackcloth and ashes. We must, then, with St. Augustine, allow that these verses have a spiritual meaning, and are so to be explained; and then we are to understand the fasting in tears and sorrow to signify the ardent hunger and thirst for the salvation of souls that afflicted him so deeply; and the sackcloth to represent the mortal and frail flesh he chose to assume, that, by such humility, he may induce mortals to despise the things of this world, and long for those of the next; and, for such reasons, he became “a reproach,” and became also a “by word;” that is, a thing to be scoffed at among the Jews. And that Christ was derided and scoffed at is plain, from Mark 5; for, when he said, “The girl is not dead, but sleepeth,” they laughed him to scorn; and when he spoke of the necessity of giving alms, “Now, the Pharisees, who were covetous, heard all these things, and they derided him.” And, in his passion, he was derided by the soldiers, by Herod, by the high priests, and many others.
12 By way of appendix to the foregoing persecutions, he adds, The judges and the princes, in their councils, sought my death, suborned false witnesses against me; and, finally, condemned me. Judgment was generally delivered at the gates; hence we have, in Proverbs 31, “Her husband is honorable in the gates, when he sitteth among the senators of the land.” “And they that drank wine made me their song;” not only in their public assemblies, but even in their private parties of pleasure, did they talk of me, making me the butt of their mirth and ridicule.
13 The prophet having hitherto explained the extent and the greatness of the sufferings of Christ, now enters into Christ’s prayer to his Father, to be delivered from such calamities, of which St. Paul writes, Heb. 5, “Who in the days of his flesh, offering up prayers and supplications with a strong cry and tears to him, that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence.” Whence we gather that Christ’s prayer was not an absolute prayer that he should not suffer, or that he should not die, but that he should not be detained in his passion or in death, in which “he was heard,” for that prayer was put up while he hung on the cross, and after three days, by a glorious resurrection, he was delivered from death, and every other tribulation. “But as for me, my prayer is to thee,” while they insulted and abused me, “my prayer is to thee.” I offered myself to thee, God the Father, for them, saying, “The time of thy good pleasure, O God,” the time defined by you, when it would be your good pleasure to deliver me from such torments, and to reconcile the whole world by such an oblation, has now arrived. We read the same in John 17, “Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son;” and John 19, “It is consummated.”—“In the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.” He goes on with his prayer, and asks, that as “the time of his good pleasure is come,” his prayer may be heard. “In the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation;” that is, through the immense mercy that prompted you to promise reconciliation through the passion of your Son. “In the truth of thy salvation,” and by reason of the truth; that is, the veracity and the certainty of salvation, for God is no less pious and merciful in promising that salvation which he did promise.
14–15 He asks to be delivered in the same figurative language that he used in the three first verses, under the figures of water, mud, and storm. “Draw me out of the mire, that I may not stick fast,” that I may not sink so deep in it, that I could not be pulled out, for he said previously, “I stick fast in the mire.” He now prays that he may not be kept fast in it. “Deliver me from them that hate me,” from my wicked persecutors, “and out of the deep waters,” from the grievous tribulations into which they have plunged me. “Let not the tempest of water drown me.” Having previously said, “a tempest hath overwhelmed me;” he, therefore, now asks that he may not be drowned in it, that he may not be detained in the deluge of water, which he explains by the expression, “nor the deep swallow me up,” so that I may never rise again. “And let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.” Let not the pit into which I have fallen close upon me; while it is open, there is some hope of escape, once it closes there is none.
16–18 In order to show the greatness and the extent of Christ’s sufferings, he now, speaking in the person of Christ, prays at greater length. “Hear me, O Lord, for thy mercy is kind;” and he offers three reasons for being heard, because of God’s mercy, the second by reason of the greatness of his pain; and the third by reason of his relentless enemies. The first is taken from the mercy of God, who is always most kind and merciful to those who are in trouble. The second reason is found in the verse, “And turn not away thy face.” God never turned away his face from his Son, though he seemed to do so when he left him hanging on the cross in the most intense pain, forcing him to exclaim, “O God, my God, why hast thou abandoned me?” and it is the same he has in view, when he says here, “Turn not away thy face from thy servant;” that is to say, leave me no longer in those torments. The third reason is found in the expressions “Attend to my soul and deliver it.” He asked in the previous verse to be “heard speedily,” and he now explains what he wanted, saying, “Attend to my soul;” that is, to my course of life now run, and deliver my soul by a speedy resurrection; and he assigns a reason for his so doing, which is the third, as we have already said, namely, “Save me because of my enemies;” take me from death and sorrow, restore me to life everlasting, that my enemies, when they shall have seen their efforts against me were fruitless, may be either confounded or converted; which really happened; for when the people heard that Christ arose from the grave, and saw the fact confirmed by evident signs and prodigies, many in sorrow began to say, “What shall we do men, brethren?” and three thousand were at once converted. More of them in their obstinacy were so confounded as to say, “What shall we do to those men? for a miracle indeed hath been done by them, conspicuous to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; it is manifest, and we cannot deny it.”
19–20 He calls God himself to witness the extent of his sufferings, and especially what he was suffering from slander and calumny, for high minded souls feel more thereon than they do from any corporal sufferings. “Thou knowest my reproach;” the calumnies they are heaping on me, “and my confusion,” the shame I suffer in consequence, for the innocent, in such cases, suffer as well as the guilty, when they see credit attached to the false accusations that are made against them; “and my shame,” the shame that follows confusion, however unjust it may be. “In thy sight are all they that afflict me.” As my afflictions cannot escape your notice, so you must see those who inflict them, from whom I can expect nothing but reproaches and misery, a thing my heart long since expected. “And I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and there was none.” He finally adds, that he not only had no one to console him under such sufferings, but in his hunger he got gall, and in his thirst vinegar. There were many at the time sorry for the death of Christ, but there were not many “grieving together with him;” that is, whose sorrow sprung from the same source as that of Christ’s. The Apostles and the pious women, to be sure, grieved for Christ’s death, for the death of his body, but Christ himself grieved for the spiritual death, and the spiritual blindness of the Jews, who madly raged against the physician who came to cure them. In like manner, he looked for “one that would comfort me, and I found none;” because the comfort he looked for was the conversion of the wicked. During his passion many were hardened, few or none converted. The thief was converted, but it was in the very end of his passion; but in his very passion, the crowd cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him;” the Apostles were scandalized and fled; Peter denied him, Judas fell into despair.