Big Idea: Our passion for worship and for God may evoke misunderstanding from others.

Understanding the Text

Psalm 69 is an individual lament that has grown out of the worshiper’s persecution and assaults by those who hate him. The psalmist is ill (69:29) and falsely accused (69:4). Often these two conditions are combined, as with Job, to create an intolerable situation for the psalmists.

Psalm 69 belongs to a subcategory of psalms sometimes called imprecatory psalms, because they contain “curses” against the psalmist’s enemies (see “Additional Insights: Imprecatory Psalms,” before the unit on Ps. 35). They take the form, however, of prayers that God will curse their enemies, or the impersonal “may they be . . . ” Typically, vengeance is left in God’s hands.

Psalm 69 is almost the op…