Psalm 69 is a deep pleading to God for His protection and restoration. Stricken phrases run all through it, until verse 29 when the mood changes to one of more confidence and assurance. Such experiential phrases as ‘My throat is dry’, ‘I am the song of the drunkards’, ‘Let not the pit shut its mouth on me.’

This is also a psalm which gives expression and emotion to the Lord’s passion and the temptations he endured. It echoes events in the gospel story, for example, in verse 21 it says, ‘They gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink’. (see Matthew 27:34, and Apocalypse Explained 519.2)

We are going to pick out some of the main themes in this long psalm and work with them spiritually. First, there is a regular use of ‘deep’, ‘sink’, ‘mire’, ‘shame’ and ‘reproach’. The spiritual idea of such words as us being ‘brought low’ has to do with our experience of temptation. Spiritual temptation originates in the desire of hell to destroy. It is an attack on what we have come to most love, especially that which concerns the Lord. It is a spiritual crisis. If we've been spiritually 'up', making progress, the hells attack our new good loves, wanting to knock us down. (See Arcana Caelestia 5036)

Another theme in the psalm is the endeavour of our enemies. They hate without any cause, they are pitiless, they sit in the gate and speak against me. They openly and endlessly plot to destroy. They include family members. Thinking about this spiritually, it's clear that hell and evil spirits have expertise and cunning to break down resistance. Always note that spiritually, ‘enemies’ are not other people but the evils and the states they inflict. (See Heaven and Hell 580)

A third theme running through is the speaker’s frequent comment that his persecution is not because of himself but because of his faithfulness to the Lord. ‘Because for Your sake I have borne reproach’ ; ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten me up and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me’. (See New Jerusalem 187) Only those who are active in regeneration will experience spiritual temptation, and regeneration cannot happen without temptation.

Another theme is that the Lord knows all that is going on in the heart, mind and state of the person experiencing this distress. ‘O God, You know my foolishness and my sins are not hidden from You.’ ; ‘You know my reproach, my shame, my dishonour; my adversaries are all before You’ . (See Apocalypse Revealed 262)

And in verse 26 there is the additional idea that the Lord has brought about this distress, which, while it is only an appearance, is a permission so that we are strengthened through it. ‘For they persecute the ones You have struck, and talk of the grief of those You have wounded.’ (Divine Providence 234)

Finally, there is the theme of the accountability of evil in bringing on the states which terrify and distress us spiritually. God knows all things, including the desires of evil, and the laws of Providence bring on the consequence – not the punishment – that evil will bring its own downfall. ‘Let their table become a snare before them, and their well-being a trap’ ; ‘Let their dwelling place be desolate; let no one live in their tents’ ; ‘Let them be blotted out from the book of the living’. (See Divine Providence 6490)

With careful scrutiny, one can see and appreciate the gradual stirring of the speaker all through this psalm, moving from abject fear, through clearer and clearer reasoning, to the point of confidently affirming the Lord and all His saving power and presence. The important takeaway for us is that we CAN make the same shift.