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PSALM 69. v. 7, &c. Second Part. (L. M.) Christ's Sufferings and Zeal.

I

Twas for thy sake, eternal God,
Thy Son sustain'd that heavy load
Of base reproach and sore disgrace,
And shame defil'd his sacred face.

II

The Jews, his brethren and his kin,
Abus'd the man that check'd their sin:
While he fulfill'd thy holy laws,
They hate him, but without a cause.

III

‘My Father's house,’ said he, ‘was made
‘A place for worship, not for trade;’
Then scattering all their gold and brass,
He scourg'd the merchants from the place.

IV

Zeal for the temple of his God
Consum'd his life, expos'd his blood:
Reproaches at thy glory thrown
He felt, and mourn'd them as his own.

V

His friends forsook, his followers fled,
While foes and arms surround his head;
They curse him with a slanderous tongue,
And the false judge maintains the wrong.

VI

His life they load with hateful lies,
And charge his lips with blasphemies;
They nail him to the shameful tree;
There hung the man that dy'd for me.

VII

Wretches with hearts as hard as stones,
Insult his piety and groans:
Gall was the food they gave him there,
And mock'd his thirst with vinegar.

VIII

But God beheld; and from his throne
Marks out the men that hate his Son;
The hand that rais'd him from the dead
Shall pour the vengeance on their head.

In both the metres of this psalm, I have applied it to the sufferings of Christ, as the New Testament gives sufficient reason, by several citations of this psalm: From which places I have borrowed the particulars of his sufferings for our sins, his scourging the buyers and sellers out of the temple, his crucifixion, &c. But I have omitted the dreadful imprecations on his enemies, except what is inserted in this last stanza, in the way of a prediction or threatening.

 

The false judge is the high-priest, not Pilate.

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