Psalm 69:26

Psalm 69:26, in plain English

They're piling on pain to someone You've already disciplined—they're cruel to the afflicted, treating the wounded worse than they already are.

Why it's here

Here's something crucial: the psalmist sees his own suffering as coming from God's hand, but that doesn't mean his enemies should add to it. This verse distinguishes between God's discipline (which has a purpose) and human cruelty (which is just cruelty). His enemies aren't correcting him; they're enjoying his pain.

Who's speaking

David, explaining to God why his enemies deserve judgment—they're not helping him be better; they're just hurting him.

Where it sits in the story

This teaches us something important about God's discipline versus human malice. When you're going through something hard, people who pile on more pain instead of showing mercy are opposing God's work, not supporting it.

The scholarly reading

The psalmist clarifies his moral standing: he is suffering because God has allowed it, and his enemies compound this by mocking him for wounds God Himself has inflicted.

Language and setting

This verse is theologically crucial—it reorients our understanding of the entire imprecatory section. The psalmist is not merely claiming innocence; he is claiming that his suffering is divinely permitted, even ordained. The Hebrew נִשְׁמַר (nishmar, from שׁמר 'to strike') indicates that God is the one who has struck him. His enemies' sin is therefore not merely against the psalmist but against God's sovereign purpose—they are adding insult to God's own work. The phrasing suggests a theodicy: the psalmist suffers righteously under God's hand, and his persecutors mock what God has done.

Voice

The psalmist, offering the theological rationale for his preceding curses.

Significance

This echoes the suffering servant passages in Isaiah 53, where the servant bears wounds inflicted by God yet remains vindicated. The New Testament applies this interpretive lens systematically to Christ, whose suffering is understood not as punishment for sin but as vicarious bearing of others' judgment. The psalmist's claim to suffer under God's intentional hand becomes a prototype for messianic suffering.

24Pour out Your wrath upon them, and let Your burning anger overtake them.

25May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents.

26For they persecute the one You struck and recount the pain of those You wounded.

27Add iniquity to their iniquity; let them not share in Your righteousness.

28May they be blotted out of the Book of Life and not listed with the righteous.

Read all of Psalm 69 — David is drowning — literally and figuratively. The waters have come up to my neck. A psalm of desperation that Jesus made His own.