Psalms 69:14-21

Reader! if you are much acquainted with the evangelists accounts of Jesus's sufferings in the garden and on the cross (and if you are not, it is much to be wished that you were) you will see how all these expressions refer to those solemn seasons. Oh! how expressive are they of the sorrows of Jesus! Behold and see, was ever any sorrow like unto his sorrow, with which the Lord afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger? Lamentations 1:12. I am inclined to think that David, king of Israel, as a prophet, was purposely commissioned by the Holy Ghost to compose such expressions as these, which we meet with both in this and other Psalms of his, for the special use of the Lord Jesus in the day of his flesh. And I am also farther inclined to think, that as in no part of our Lord's sufferings God's honour and glory were more magnified than when Christ bore shame and reproach, as the sinner's Surety; Christ particularly referred to the vast recompense made, by way of reparation, when he said, Thou hast known my reproach, my shame, and my dishonour. Sweet consideration to the soul of the believer! I stay not to make any additional observations concerning those situations of Jesus which the prophet here describes of his broken heart, the desertion of his friends, and the offered gall and vinegar; the Reader will not fail, I hope, to recollect that the reproaches and taunts of the Jews, while Jesus hung on the cross, the desertion of all his disciples in that hour of sorrow, and the sufferings of Jesus not being finished until this last prediction was fulfilled, in the giving him the gall and vinegar to drink; all so strikingly belonged to the Lord Jesus, as that they could belong to no ether, and plainly manifest it is of him alone the prophet speaks.