Psalms 69:29 Explained in Context

Read It With

• Psalms 69:22–29
• Psalms 69:1–36

Read Psalms 69:29 with 69:22–29 and 69:1–36. Read alone, “But I am poor and sorrowful” could lose the individual voice, the parallel line or movement it develops, and the psalm's outcome. The complete movement establishes: Within Psalms 69:22–29, the individual voice carries the movement “Imprecations and the afflicted speaker's plea” as part of “Flooded lament, zeal, reproach, and severe curses.” Its lament-imprecation form and poetic parallelism hold the petitions, images, memories, or praise together before any single line is applied.

Why This Verse Appears Here

Psalms 69:22–29 intensifies “Petition for rescue and unanswered compassion” within Psalm 69 by carrying “Imprecations and the afflicted speaker's plea.” The turn from “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” to “Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let…” explains why this movement occurs here. Within that relationship, Psalm 69:29 turns the movement by contrasting what precedes it with “But I am poor and sorrowful.”