69:7 For I suffer 1 humiliation for your sake 2
and am thoroughly disgraced. 3
69:8 My own brothers treat me like a stranger;
they act as if I were a foreigner. 4
69:9 Certainly 5 zeal for 6 your house 7 consumes me;
I endure the insults of those who insult you. 8
69:10 I weep and refrain from eating food, 9
which causes others to insult me. 10
69:11 I wear sackcloth
and they ridicule me. 11
69:12 Those who sit at the city gate gossip about me;
drunkards mock me in their songs. 12
69:26 For they harass 13 the one whom you discipline; 14
they spread the news about the suffering of those whom you punish. 15
1 tn Heb “carry, bear.”
2 tn Heb “on account of you.”
3 tn Heb “and shame covers my face.”
4 tn Heb “and I am estranged to my brothers, and a foreigner to the sons of my mother.”
5 tn Or “for.” This verse explains that the psalmist’s suffering is due to his allegiance to God.
6 tn Or “devotion to.”
7 sn God’s house, the temple, here represents by metonymy God himself.
8 tn Heb “the insults of those who insult you fall upon me.”
sn Jn 2:17 applies the first half of this verse to Jesus’ ministry in the context of John’s account of Jesus cleansing the temple.
9 sn Fasting was a practice of mourners. By refraining from normal activities such as eating food, the mourner demonstrated the sincerity of his sorrow.
10 tn Heb “and it becomes insults to me.”
11 tn Heb “and I am an object of ridicule to them.”
12 tn Heb “the mocking songs of the drinkers of beer.”
13 tn Or “persecute”; Heb “chase.”
14 tn Heb “for you, the one whom you strike, they chase.”
15 tn Heb “they announce the pain of your wounded ones” (i.e., “the ones whom you wounded,” as the parallel line makes clear).
sn The psalmist is innocent of the false charges made by his enemies (v. 4), but he is also aware of his sinfulness (v. 5) and admits that he experiences divine discipline (v. 26) despite his devotion to God (v. 9). Here he laments that his enemies take advantage of such divine discipline by harassing and slandering him. They “kick him while he’s down,” as the expression goes.