Discovery BoxPsalms 69:7-12 
Context69:7 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
Psalms 69:19-20
Context69:19 You know how I am insulted, humiliated and disgraced;
you can see all my enemies. 13
69:20 Their insults are painful 14 and make me lose heart; 15
I look 16 for sympathy, but receive none, 17
for comforters, but find none.
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 Heb “before you [are] all my enemies.”
14 tn Heb “break my heart.” The “heart” is viewed here as the origin of the psalmist’s emotions.
15 tn The verb form appears to be a Qal preterite from an otherwise unattested root נוּשׁ (nush), which some consider an alternate form of אָנַשׁ (’anash, “be weak; be sick”; see BDB 60 s.v. I אָנַשׁ). Perhaps the form should be emended to a Niphal, וָאֵאָנְשָׁה (va’e’onshah, “and I am sick”). The Niphal of אָנַשׁ occurs in 2 Sam 12:15, where it is used to describe David’s sick child.
16 tn Heb “wait.”
17 tn Heb “and I wait for sympathy, but there is none.” The form נוּד (nud) is an infinitive functioning as a verbal noun:, “sympathizing.” Some suggest emending the form to a participle נָד (nad, “one who shows sympathy”). The verb נוּד (nud) also has the nuance “show sympathy” in Job 2:11; 42:11 and Isa 51:19.
