Verse 1
"To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, A Psalm of David."
"To the chief Musician" is the choir director, over the music in the Holy Temple. "Shoshannim" is a musical direction: it literally means lily flowers, and here names a melody or six-stringed instrument. A psalm of King David, set down to be sung.
Verse 19
"Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies."
Come near to my soul, God; do not stand far off. Redeem it — buy it back to Yourself and bring it out of distress. Because of my enemies, ransom and free me, so they cannot gloat at my ruin.
Verse 20
"Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: mine adversaries are all before thee."
You know all my humiliation: "reproach" is the insult, "shame" the disgrace, "dishonour" the contempt and degradation. Before You stand all my foes.
Verse 21
"Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."
The insult broke my heart and I am mortally sick, an illness with no cure. I hoped someone would pity me and nod his head in shared sorrow — none did. I sought comforters, and found none.
Verse 22
"They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink."
Into my food — the word means food and nourishment — they put "gall," a bitter, poisonous herb. And in my thirst they gave me sour vinegar, not water.
Verse 23
"Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap."
Let their table, set out before them, turn into a snare, a "net" for catching birds. And for those at ease in security, let it become a stumbling block and trap.
Verse 24
"Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake."
Let their eyes grow dark so they can no longer see. And their loins — the hips, the seat of the body's strength — make them totter unceasingly.
Verse 25
"Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them."
Pour out upon them Your fury, Your wrath and anger. And the burning of Your anger, the fierce blazing wrath, will overtake and seize them, no escape.
Verse 26
"Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents."
Let their dwelling, their walled camp and settlement, become ruined and abandoned. And in their tents let none remain.
Verse 27
"For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded."
The very one whom You have already struck and pained, they pursue all the more. And about the pain of Your wounded — those You struck — they talk on with relish.
So closes the third part of Psalm 69. Even broken to the dust and uncomforted, he does not surrender but places his judgment in God's hands — in faith that there is justice and a Judge, and an honest cry is never lost.