The Most Avoided Messianic Psalm (1): Drowning in the Depths (Psalm 69:1-4) by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. The Watery Imagery
II. The Fearful Reality
III. The Striking Restoration
W. S. Plumer: "[Psalm 69] is very decidedly Messianic. The only question is, whether it is directly and fully prophetic or typical-Messianic. There is no valid objection to the admission that in some parts David, as a sufferer, speaks as a type of Christ, and that in others he rises to the height of unqualified prediction respecting Messiah. Verse 4 is cited in John 15:25; v. 9, in John 2:17; Romans 15:3; v. 21, in Matthew 27:34, 48; Mark 15:23; John 19:28, 29; vv. 22, 23, in Romans 11:9, 10; and v. 25, in Acts 1:16, 20. Sound commentators generally admit that it has its fulfilment in Christ. Theodoret: 'It is a prediction of the sufferings of Christ, and the final destruction of the Jews on that account.' Calvin: 'David wrote this inspired ode, not so much in his own name, as in the name of the whole church of whose head he was an eminent type.' Vitringa: 'It is admitted among Christians, that in the sixty-ninth Psalm Christ, and Christ as a sufferer, is to be placed before our eyes. We add, that it refers to Christ crucified as the Evangelists Matthew, Mark and John apply it.' Fabritius: 'In this Psalm David is a figure of Christ.' Alexander: 'The only individual in whom the traits meet is Christ.' Hodge: 'This Psalm is so frequently quoted and applied to Christ in the New Testament, that it must be considered as directly prophetical.' Similar remarks might be cited from Gill, Anderson, Scott and others. Calvin's first remark on this Psalm is: 'There is a close resemblance between this and the twenty-second Psalm.' Many others have observed the likeness. This is a composition of great beauty and poetic excellence" (Psalms, p. 675).
J. A. Alexander: "There is no psalm, except the twenty-second, more distinctly applied to him [i.e., Christ] in the New Testament [than Psalm 69]" (The Psalms Translated and Explained, p. 292).
John Gill: "[Christ] satisfied justice he had never injured, though others had; he fulfilled a law, and bore the penalty of it, which he never broke; and made satisfaction for sins he never committed; and brought in a righteousness he had not taken away; and provided a better inheritance than what was lost by Adam: and all this was done at the time of his sufferings and death, and by the means of them" (Comm. on Ps. 69:4).