Psalm 69:4
Those who hate me without reason
outnumber the hairs of my head;
many are my enemies without cause,
those who seek to destroy me. (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Psalm 69
Much like we did with Psalm 22, we are going to take our time with Psalm 69. After Psalm 22, Psalm 69 is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. It is quoted in all four gospels in addition to Acts and Romans. This is considered a Messianic Psalm in that David wrote it but the words are Jesus’ words. And like the other psalms, these words come from Jesus as he hangs on the cross.
The psalm begins much like Psalm 22 with a cry out to God for rescue. The analogy the psalmist uses of his current situation is like drowning in deep water. He can’t find the bottom with his feet and he’s sinking. The water is up to his neck and it’s only a matter of time before he goes under.
In verse three the psalmist is exhausted from calling for help and receiving no rescue. His throat is dry and his eyes are tired. He’s calling and looking for God but God hasn’t shown up yet. These first three verses heavily resemble the first two verses of Psalm 22 in that they both describe Jesus being exhausted as he cries out to God and receiving no answer.
Moving on to verse four, the similarities switch to Psalm 35. Psalm 69:4 contains the virtually the exact same phrase found in Psalm 35:19, “those who hate me without reason.” This is the verse that the apostle John recorded Jesus as quoting in John 15:25 in his teaching the disciples why the world hates him and them too.
This message is often frustrating for me. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me for anyone to hate Jesus today. I understand that Jesus threatened the power structure of the religious leaders of his time. Although he gave them no reason to hate him on a personal level, they thought he was going to take their positions of power and authority. If that happened, their wealth would disappear and they would no longer have nice things.
But today, people aren’t threatened that Jesus will take their power in that sense. There are a lot of powerful people in powerful positions who follow Jesus. But on a personal level, Jesus does want to be Lord of your life. And in that sense, he does want to take your power. And that frustrates me in an effort to understand the people who refuse to give it to him. You can’t take the power and riches that this world offers with you when you die. So why trade eternity for it?
Jesus said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed” (John 3:19-20). This helps me a bit with my frustration because I understand that people have a hard time confessing to an evil deed. And when they have these secrets that cannot be exposed, it’s easier to hate the one trying to expose them than to simply confess and come clean.
Jesus continued, “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God” (John 3:21). When you don’t have anything to hide and everything is exposed, there is no weight of sin on you anymore. You can then realize the full meaning of what Jesus said, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt 11:30).
Christ in the Old Testament 
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