Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvin“Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood,and give them water of gall to drink.” (Jeremiah 9:15)But still the Apostle John justly declares that this Scripture was fulfilled when the soldiers gaveChrist vinegar to drink upon the cross, (John 19:28-30;) for it was requisite that whatever crueltythe reprobate exercise towards the members of Christ, should by a visible sign be represented inChrist himself. We have stated on the same principle, in our remarks upon Psalm 22:18, that whenthe soldiers parted the garments of Christ among them, that verse was appropriately quoted, “Theyparted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots;” although David’s objectwas to express by figurative language that he was robbed, and that all his goods were violentlytaken from him, and made a prey of by his enemies. The natural sense must, however, be retained;which is, that the holy prophet had no relief afforded him; and that he was in a condition similarto that of a man who, already too much afflicted, found, as an additional aggravation of his distress,that his meat was poisoned, and his drink rendered nauseous by the bitter ingredients with whichit had been mingled.Psalm 69:22-2922. Let 86 their table before them be for a snare; and their prosperity 87 [or things for peace] fora net. 23. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see; and make their loins continually totremble. 24. Pour out thy wrath upon them; and let thy hot displeasure seize them. 25. Let theirhabitation be desolate; let none dwell in their tent; 26. For they have persecuted him whom thouhast smitten; and they have added to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded, [literally of thywounded ones.] 27. Add iniquity to their iniquity; and let them not enter into thy righteousness.28. Let them be blotted out from the book of the living; and let them not be written among therighteous. 29. As for me, I am poor and sorrowful; thy salutation shall exalt me.latter place, rendered poison In Hosea 10:4, it is rendered hemlock; and in Amos 6:12, it is put in apposition with a word theretranslated hemlock, although the same word is also rendered wormwoodVinegar, we conceive, here means sour wine, such as was given to slaves or prisoners in the East. Persons in bettercircumstances used lemons or pomegranates to give their drink a grateful acidity. It was therefore a great insult offered to a royalpersonage to give him in his thirst the refreshment of a slave or of a wretched prisoner; and David employs this figure to expressthe insults which were offered to him by his enemies. See Harmer’s Observations, volume 2, pp. 158, 159.86 This and the following verses, which are here expressed in the form of imprecations, are translated by many in the futuretense, as predictions: “Their table before them shall be for a snare,” etc.87 The LXX. have rendered the word here translated prosperity by a word which signifies recompense: “Let their table beforethem be for a snare, και είς ἀνταπόδοσιν, and for a recompense, and for a stumbling-block.” Paul, in quoting this and the verseimmediately following, as descriptive of the judgments which befell the Jews after their rejection of the Messiah, quotes withsome slight difference the words of the LXX. He has, Εἰς ἀνταπόομα αὐτοῖς, “for a retribution upon them.” The Psalmist’senemies had given him gall for his meat, and in his thirst vinegar to drink, and he denounces on them evils similar in kind: as ifhe had said, Would that their own table may be made bitter by misery and misfortune, and the food provided for the nourishmentand strengthening of their bodies turned, in the righteous retribution of God, into the means of their injury and destruction.“Michaelis,” says Walford, “shows how exactly these comminations were fulfilled in the history of the final siege of Jerusalemby the Romans. Many thousands of the Jews had assembled in the city to eat the Paschal lamb, when Titus unexpectedly madean assault upon them. In this siege the greater part of the inhabitants of Jerusalem miserably perished.”40