Chapter # 11 Paragraph # 1 Study # 8
December 16, 2018
Humble, Texas
(096)
1769 Translation:
9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.
1901 ASV Translation:
9 And David saith,
Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, And a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them:
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, And bow thou down their back always.
- I. David's Appeal For Judgment Upon the Wicked: Psalm 69:22-23.
- A. The "Focus" is upon "their table".
- 1. The uses of this word (translated here as "table") in the New Testament all point to the same "point": a "table" is where a person places, or entrusts, his/her "goods of value".
- a. The majority use is of the "table" upon which is placed the "food" for the meal that feeds the body (one of the two necessities of life ((1 Timothy 6:8)), neither of which are to be objects of "concern" ((Matthew 6:31))...(Mark 7:28).
- b. There is also the use of the word regarding the "tables" of the moneychangers in the temple for which Jesus showed intense disregard (Mark 11:15).
- c. It is also used for the "table" of the shewbread in the temple (Hebrews 9:2).
- d. And it is used as the "table" where worship occurs as the fundamental issue of relationship with God (1 Corinthians 10:21).
- 2. Taken altogether, these uses point to a crucial "focus of values" that makes it an excellent choice by the Septuagint translators for David's appeal (Psalm 68:23 in the Septuagint).
- a. At issue is the "root" of physical life and man's attitude that he shall "live" by bread (Matthew 4:4).
- b. Add that to Jesus' declaration that if we do not "eat" His flesh as our "bread that has come down from heaven", we will have no "Life" (John 6:51, 53).
- c. And then enter into the sanctuary and behold the table with the "bread" upon it, signifying the critical nature of Christ as the Manna from Heaven (Hebrews 9:2).
- 3. Thus, the "table" of the "hardened" is their intense commitment to "self-preservation" in what they deem to be "life".
- B. David's Desire(s).
- 1. That their "table" might become a "snare".
- a. The term is used in Luke 21:35 to refer to the sudden "disaster" of the great tribulation and its final "event" (the coming of the Son from heaven; consider Revelation 19) as falling suddenly upon humanity like the sudden springing of the snare captures its victim and holds it for the treatment it will receive from the builder of the snare.
- b. It is used in 1 Timothy 6:9 to refer to the inescapable bonds that hold a victim until it is subjected to its "destruction and perdition".
- 2. That their "table" might become a "trap". This word is only used once in the New Testament, but the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains says of it that it refers to "traps" for animals other than birds. It goes on to say that there may be three different kinds of ways victims might be "caught" (snares, traps, and stumblingblocks) but that the meaning may be that there are two kinds of traps that cause the victims to "stumble" into disaster.
- 3. That their "table" might become a "stumblingblock".
- a. Matthew 13:41; 16:23; and 18:7 use the word to describe things that are "offensive" and hurtful to others.
- b. Paul uses it in Romans (9:33; 11:9; 14:13; and 16:17) to indicate something placed in the way so that someone will "stumble" over it and "fall into difficulty".
- 4. That their "table" might become a "recompense". This word is only used twice in the New Testament, but its meaning is not unclear: it means to have one's actions returned upon him/her. If a person invites others to come to a feast and that person later has a similar invitation extended to him/her, the "recompense" has come (Luke 14:12). In our text, the "payback" is negative.
- 5. Summary.
- a. The four "unto a..." phrases combine to indicate David's desire that the persons be subjected to the legitimate outcomes (recompense) of their "tables".
- b. However, David wants it to be a sudden, unexpected, inescapable "subjection" because their "tables" have "hidden snares, traps, and stumblingstones" that "catch" them in the very midst of their gleeful pursuits of wickedness.
- 6. Additionally, there is another couplet of "wishes".
- a. "Let their eyes be darkened...".
- 1) The word translated "darkened" is used in eight texts of the New Testament and five of them have to do with a diminishing of the light given by the sun, moon, or stars by some means (Revelation 9:2, for instance, attributes the "darkening" to "smoke"). The other three each contribute to a larger reality: Romans 1:21 says "their foolish heart was darkened"; Ephesians 4:18 says "the understanding [is] darkened"; and our current text says it is "the eyes" that are to be "darkened".
- 2) Though a figure of speech, this desire that the eyes be darkened, has a graphic meaning: a "clouding" of the ability to discern reality. This is highly significant in light of the desires for effective "snares, traps, and stumbling stones". No one with "eyes" that see will walk into a trap.
- b. "Bend their back through all [time]".
- 1) The root word for "bow" is used in 4 texts of the New Testament and invariably refers to the "knees". The word in our text is an emphatic use of this root and is only used here in the New Testament. The strong implication is that David was not satisfied with simply "bowing" -- knees or anything else --, he wanted them bent double.
- 2) There is a level of vindictiveness here, rooted in the heinousness of the attitudes of the "sinners" depicted in Psalm 69 as they mock The Love of God as He suffers for them.
- 3) The picture is of those whose "loads" in life are so heavy as to almost crush them. It is clear that David's wish is that those who so pervert the ways of God as to destroy His Love will face the outcomes of their ways to a terrible degree, having been "led on" in their blindness to "snares, traps, and things that trip".