May 3rd, 2020 | Mark McAndrew

1) David asks the Lord to bring the judgment. He does not take this into his own hands.

2) David held a position we don’t have. He was the anointed king of Israel. He was the king of the Jews. He was God’s anointed one. He was a type of Christ. So David is speaking from that vantage point not from the vantage point of personal, petty vindictiveness. He is writing in the vein of Psalm 2.

3) David lived in the Old Covenant era, where none of us live. The OT often emphasizes temporal judgments. The NT often emphasizes eternal judgments.

4) However, the New Testament is not only unembarrassed by these words but actually quotes from the judgment section of Psalm 69 not once but twice. Once regarding Judas Iscariot in Acts 1:20 and once regarding Israel generally in Romans 11:9-10. Additionally, the New Testament has plenty of its own imprecations. For a partial list, see here.

5) These words of David are what all of us deserve because of our sins against Jesus, the true Son of David.

6) The judgments mentioned in this song are “A reliable expression of what happens to the adversaries of God’s Anointed” (quote from John Piper).

7) It is common in the OT for a word of judgment or warning to be conditional on the repentance of the listener. In the case of Jonah we see this in regards to Nineveh in Jonah 3 and Jeremiah 18:7-8. For a NT example of a radical conversion of a persecutor of God’s anointed King see Paul’s own words about himself.

8) Romans 9, 10, 11, 12, & 15 wonderfully show us how Paul applied the imprecations of Psalm 69 to his New Testament context.