David pours out his grief over how he has been made a reproach to his neighbors because of the deadly slanders and schemes of his enemies. This portion of Psalm 31 is prophetic of how Jesus is abandoned by His disciples as His enemies conspire to destroy Him.
Psalm 31, composed by David, is a personal declaration of absolute trust in the LORD and a request for His help during a time of deep discouragement and extreme danger. It is a prayer to God organized into two sections of praise with a series of complaints set between them. Psalm 31 concludes with an exhortation to trust and hope in the LORD.
- The First Praise is Psalm 31:1-8.
- The Complaint to the LORD is Psalm 31:9-13.
- The Final Praise is Psalm 31:14-22.
- The Concluding Exhortation is Psalm 31:23-24.
Psalm 31 is also prophetic of Jesus’s persecution and glorious vindication as the Messiah.
Most of The Bible Says commentary for Psalm 31 are divided into two sections: one which explores how the psalm corresponds to David; the other which explains its prophetic relationship to Jesus as the Messiah.
Psalm 31:9-13 as David’s Complaint to the LORD
After acknowledging the LORD’s goodness with sincere praise (Psalm 31:1-8), the psalmist introduces his complaints with an appeal for God’s mercy and grace.
Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress (v 9a).
David humbly recognizes he is in desperate need of the LORD’s grace when he petitions: Be gracious to me, O LORD. David perceives that he is nothing without God’s mercy and favor. And he recognizes that only the LORD’s lovingkindness can save him from his predicament.
David explains the specific reason for his need of the LORD’s grace—for I am in distress.
Distress refers to a state of overwhelming anxiety. It is brought on by intense fear or significant loss; and/or extreme suffering, pain, or hardship. Distress can manifest emotionally, mentally, or physically.
Life is sometimes distressing. Jesus promised His disciples that they would have much distress in the world, before offering them true encouragement (John 16:33). It is good and right to acknowledge our pains and hardships when we encounter them. Ignoring them often leads to trying to overcome them in our own strength and power—an approach which is doomed to fail.
Instead, God repeatedly invites us to cast our cares upon Him (Psalm 55:22, Isaiah 41:10, Matthew 11:28-30, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7). And this is precisely what David is doing as he off-loads his complaints to the LORD.
The Bible does not forbid or condemn complaining. It only condemns unproductive or irreverent complaining. The Bible identifies unproductive complaining as “grumbling.” Paul cites Israel’s grumbling about their circumstances in the wilderness and the resulting destruction that came upon them as a warning and negative example to avoid (1 Corinthians 10:1-13).
Constructive complaining states the problem and looks for a solution. Constructive complaining is respectful and always directed to the person(s) who have responsibility over the situation and who are in a valid position to address the complaint—this is often an authority figure.
The grumbler often whines to those who are not in a position to solve the problem. Grumbling can also take the form of a manipulation of authority, as Israel did to God essentially saying “If you don’t give us what we want then you aren’t really our God” (Exodus 17:7).
As the all-powerful and eternal king of the universe, the LORD our Creator is always a proper authority to petition our complaints to, provided they are done with good faith that is humbly respectful of His authority.
It is also appropriate to address our concerns to those in positions of authority over us if those concerns fall within their arena. For instance, if we have a problem or complaint about something at work, it is appropriate to respectfully state our concerns and recommended solutions to our supervisor. It is grumbling when we talk about it to our co-workers who have no authority to address our concerns.
James tells us that the core ingredients for constructive complaining are faith and humility.
James warns against faithless complaining during trials:
“For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
(James 1:6b-8)
From this it is apparent that complaining or asking God for help without faith is not only unproductive; it is counterproductive.
The complainer “must ask in faith without any doubting” (James 1:6a) that God will listen to his complaints and give him wisdom (perspective) on his trials. Or as the author of Hebrews teaches: “without faith it is impossible to please” God, and that anyone “who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Immediately after demonstrating the necessity of faith, James grounds in humility petitioning God and/or complaining,
“The brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.”
(James 1:9-10)
Here James asserts that circumstances are neutral in regards to temptation. We should choose a proper perspective that allows us to benefit from difficulty through growing our faith and not cling to or trust in prosperous circumstances, but recognize that the things of this world are fleeting.
David’s petition and subsequent complaints are full of faith in the LORD’s ability to rightly address them, and are steeped in humility. David’s faith is evident when he stated previously:
“Into Your hand I commit my spirit;
You have ransomed me, O LORD, God of truth.”
(Psalm 31:5)
David’s humility was first expressed in the psalm’s opening line when he confesses how he has “taken refuge” (not in himself) but “in the LORD” (Psalm 31:1a).
After petitioning God to Be gracious to him because he is in distress, David then begins to give specifics on what his distress entails through a series of complaints.
David’s first complaint is:
My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also (v 9).
Grief is intense sorrow over something lost. Apparently, David’s eyes are swollen and sore from shedding so many tears crying from grief. His vision may be blurry from tears. His soul is greatly discouraged and depressed, and his body feels wasted away because of the fear and grief. David lacks his usual vigor and enthusiasm for life.
David’s second complaint is:
For my life is spent with sorrow
And my years with sighing (v 10a).
These lines describe David’s dejection. They could indicate one of two things.
They could describe the fact that the psalmist’s sufferings have been endured for a long period of time—years or even the span of his life. They could also indicate how the distressing circumstances the psalmist is facing are threatening to wipe out all the work of his life and years. They could indicate both of these things.
The psalmist uses the imagery of sighing or groaning to immerse the reader/worshipper into his distress (and confident faith).
David’s third complaint is:
My strength has failed because of my iniquity,
And my body has wasted away (v 10b).
Here David seems to attribute the cause of his distress and grief to his iniquity.
This attribution could mean one of two things.
It could be David’s confession of his sin and a recognition of its destructive toll. Its destructiveness has caused his strength to have failed and it has wasted away his body. The wages or consequences of sin is always death and destruction (Romans 6:23a). The death brought about by sin is separating us from God’s (good) design for our lives, to live in harmony with Him and with others.
While David was a man after God’s heart (1 Samuel 13:14), he also was a notorious sinner who committed adultery and murder (2 Samuel 12:9). David confessed and repented of his sin (2 Samuel 12:13). He wrote Psalm 51 as a prayer of repentance for these evil actions.
Confession and repentance are the two proper responses whenever we become aware of our sin.
To learn more about how to Biblically respond to sin and guilt, see The Bible Says article, “Guilt and Repentance: The Healthy Way to Deal with Remorse.”
The expression because of my iniquity could also be a reference to David’s iniquity, not against God, but his iniquity and offense against “those who regard vain idols” (Psalm 31:6). If this is the meaning of my iniquity, then David is suffering righteously because he stood against the idols of his adversaries.
Either application of my iniquity could apply.
The broader context of Psalm 31 presents David as a righteous sufferer who is rejoicing and praising God for his deliverance. Jesus instructed His disciples to “rejoice and be glad” (Matthew 5:12) whenever people insulted them or persecuted them, or said false evils of them because of Christ (Matthew 5:11).
Jesus said those who suffered unjustly were “Makarios” (exceedingly happy) whenever they were persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Matthew 5:10). “Exceedingly happy” describes David, the psalmist’s dominant attitude throughout Psalm 31. Jesus suffered unjustly, and the Apostle Peter uses His example to encourage His New Testament followers to also embrace such suffering (1 Peter 3:13-18).
David’s fourth complaint is:
Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach,
Especially to my neighbors,
And an object of dread to my acquaintances (v 11a).
David complains that his adversaries have made him a reproach.
David’s adversaries are “those who regard idols” (Psalm 31:6). They are against and oppose David (v 13). They have managed to make David a reproach not just among strangers but especially to his neighbors—i.e. David’s friends and family.
The term reproach refers to the expression of disapproval, blame, or criticism directed toward someone due to their actions, behavior, iniquity, or perceived shortcomings. A reproach is an act of shaming or dishonoring.
David accurately describes what it is like to be a reproach when he says that his adversaries have made him an object of dread to my acquaintances. He says: Those who see me in the street flee from me (v 11b).
The likely reason his neighbors and acquaintances have turned against him and despise him—and the reason those who see David in the street run away and flee from him—is because they are afraid that if they are seen associating with him, that they too will be stigmatized into an object of dread. To avoid this horrible fate, seemingly everyone who was formerly close to David is now avoiding him.
David elaborates what his grief feels like with his fifth complaint:
I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind;
I am like a broken vessel (v 12).
First, he says that he is treated as though he did not exist. He is forgotten as a man who has been dead for a long time. He is out of mind—no one seems to even think of him anymore. As an object of dread, David is probably thought of by his friends—but apparently they are so fearful of what his adversaries will do to them, they simply act as if he were out of their mind altogether. They pretend not to care about or consider him.
Second, David says he is treated like garbage, when he says I am like a broken vessel. A broken vessel or jar is worthless. It can no longer hold anything or fulfill its function. A broken vessel has lost its usefulness. David says he is like a broken vessel that has lost his usefulness and now is being discarded and thrown away accordingly.
David’s sixth and final complaint describes his adversaries’ intentions now that they have made him a reproach who is avoided as an object of dread, forgotten as a dead man, and treated like a useless broken vessel.
His sixth complaint is:
For I have heard the slander of many,
Terror is on every side;
While they took counsel together against me,
They schemed to take away my life (v 13).
The psalmist writes I have heard the slander of many to indicate the many false and harmful things said about him. A slander is any untrue thing that is said with the intent to damage a person’s reputation. Many have slandered David, and he has heard what the many have said.
The term many could refer to the fact that the psalmist has many adversaries or it could refer to the people at large. If many refers to the people, then it suggests that his adversaries’ slanders have become so prolific and effective that practically everyone has accepted them as true and/or are constantly repeating and talking about them. In other words, David has heard the untrue evil said of him from all quarters.
David possibly writes Terror is on every side to suggest that he knows of no one who is on his side. There is no one among his acquaintances to whom he can turn to for help. There is no one among his neighbors or friends he can trust. Every person seems to be against him. The expression Terror is on every side could also refer to the fact that David and his allies are surrounded by his adversaries.
He says he felt this Terror while his enemies took counsel together against him and schemed to take away his life. The timestamp of while suggests that his adversaries are no longer slandering, plotting, or scheming for David’s life. That terror was now in the past—before the LORD rescued him.
For a while David’s adversaries did counsel together to devise schemes designed to kill David. Their schemes were unsuccessful. David was not killed by his enemies. He died as an old man at the end of a long reign as king (1 Kings 1:1, 2:10). But during that while when David’s enemies schemed to take away his life, his circumstances were deeply distressing, spent with sorrow, and outright terrifying.
In the life of David, these complaints could refer to several events.
- They could refer to the time while he was on the run from King Saul who was unjustly seeking his life.
(1 Samuel 19-31)
- It could refer to the time when David’s son Absalom was conspiring and rebelling against him.
(1 Samuel 15-18)
- It could refer to Sheba’s Revolt. Sheba was from the tribe of Benjamin; he led some men in Israel against David when the king returned his capital to the city of Jerusalem.
(2 Samuel 20)
Psalm 31:9-13 as Messianic Prophecy
Psalm 31:9-13 is prophetic of Jesus, the Messiah.
The Bible Says commentary for this section of scripture will continue numbering the various ways Psalm 31 is prophetic of Jesus as Messiah. The listing of Psalm 31’s Messianic prophecies begins in The Bible Says commentary for Psalm 31:1-5. This section of scripture starts with the 13th Messianic prophecy of Psalm 31.
13. The Messiah will be distressed and grieved.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also (v 9).
Jesus the Messiah was greatly distressed and grieved as the hour of His death approached. After He entered the garden called Gethsemane, Jesus “began to be grieved and distressed” (Matthew 26:38). He confided to Peter, James, and John: “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me” (Matthew 26:39).
14. The Messiah will call out to the LORD during His distress and grief.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also (v 9).
When Jesus the Messiah was distressed and “grieved, to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38) in the garden of Gethsemane, He called out to the LORD. He prayed:
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”
(Matthew 26:39)
Luke reports that Jesus was so distressed in His body and soul, that “His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground” when He fervently prayed in agony (Luke 22:44).
The book of Hebrews further demonstrates how this prophecy was fulfilled:
“In the days of His flesh, [Jesus] offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”
(Hebrews 5:7)
15. The Messiah will feel discouraged about His mission.
For my life is spent with sorrow
And my years with sighing (v 10a).
Jesus, the Messiah was pained and felt sorrow over Israel’s rejection of Him.
As the Christ, Jesus came to inaugurate the Messianic kingdom if Israel would receive Him as their Messiah. His message was “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).
This was the same message He told His twelve disciples to proclaim to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6-7). Jesus told them to not waste time lingering in one city when they were persecuted for this message, and to quickly “flee to the next [because] truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 10:23).
These verses show how Jesus came to initiate God’s kingdom.
But Israel did not receive Jesus as their Messiah (John 1:11), and this pained Jesus, as His life and years were spent with sorrow and sighing over their rejection of Him.
His sorrow was evident when Jesus wept over Jerusalem and the destruction its people brought upon themselves “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation [of the Messiah]” (Luke 19:40-44).
Jesus alluded to His years with sighing in His final public remarks before the cross. He lamented, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matthew 23:37).
Moreover, this prophecy in Psalm 31 about how the Messiah’s life is spent with sorrow and His years with sighing is similar to a prophetic dialogue between the LORD and His Servant (the Messiah) in the second Servant Song of Isaiah (Isaiah 49).
In considering Israel’s rejection of Him, the LORD’s Servant prophetically confesses to the LORD:
“I have toiled in vain,
I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity.”
(Isaiah 49:4)
The Servant’s confession to the LORD sounds more like a bitter defeat than a victory celebration. He tells God: “I have given every ounce of energy that I had to fulfill the select task You called Me to, but I have come up empty. I have failed to successfully complete My mission.”
But the LORD responds to His discouraged Servant:
“It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also make You a light of the nations
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
(Isaiah 49:6)
In other words, the LORD encourages the Messiah when He feels disheartened about Israel’s rejection of Him, how He will use this rejection to redeem not only Israel, but all the nations of the earth. The Apostle Paul affirms this sentiment in his letter to the Romans (Romans 11:11).
The Bible Says commentary for the second Servant Song begins here [link to Isaiah 49:1-2 commentary].
16. The Messiah will be crushed by iniquity.
My strength has failed because of my iniquity,
And my body has wasted away (v 10b).
This prophecy about the Messiah’s iniquity is prophetic of Jesus in two senses, both of which resulted in His strength failing and His body wasting away on the cross.
The first way the Messiah’s iniquity could be understood is because Jesus, the Messiah, challenged the religious establishment and transgressed their vain rules, causing them to accuse Jesus of transgressing against them. But even as He transgressed the traditions of man, Jesus never violated God’s perfect Law—the Law of Moses.
The Messiah’s iniquity which this verse alludes to, then, is the manner in which Jesus disrespected and broke the laws and tradition of the Pharisees and Scribes (Matthew 12:1-7, 8-14, 16:6, 12, John 5:8-13); the manner in which He cleared the temple of moneychangers and spoke against the extortion of the Sadducees (Matthew 21:12-16); and the manner in which He exposed the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:1-36).
For this iniquity against the religious authorities, Jesus was crucified on a cross, where His muscles cramped, His strength failed Him, and His body wasted away from dehydration, suffocation, asphyxiation, and hypovolemic shock.
The second and more important way the Messiah’s iniquity could be understood is the manner in which Jesus sacrificially bore our iniquity on our behalf so that we might have forgiveness of our sins. In this sense, His iniquity was our iniquity.
As Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
“He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
(1 Corinthians 5:21)
Isaiah made a similar prophecy regarding the Messiah.
“But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.”
(Isaiah 53:5)
Jesus the Messiah was crucified for our iniquity, where His hands were pierced, His strength failed, and His body wasted away. All the sins of the world were nailed to the cross with Him (Colossians 2:14). As a result, Jesus died for the sins of the world, that all might have life (John 3:16).
17. The Messiah’s adversaries will make Him a reproach.
Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach (v 11a).
Jesus the Messiah’s adversaries made Him a reproach among the people.
Reproach refers to the expression of disapproval, blame, or criticism directed toward someone due to their actions, behavior, iniquity, or perceived shortcomings. A reproach is an act of shaming or dishonoring.
During Jesus’s trial before Pilate, Jesus’s adversaries—the chief priests—“stirred up the crowd to ask [Pilate] to release Barabbas for them instead [of Jesus]” (Mark 15:11). To accomplish this, they made Jesus a reproach with false accusations of being a blasphemer. They were so effective at making Jesus a reproach that they persuaded the crowd to demand that Pilate crucify Jesus no matter what (Matthew 27:25, Luke 23:22-23, John 19:15).
Moreover, the cross itself was a reproach.
Crucifixion as a form of execution was a potent tool of social control employed by the Roman Empire over the people it conquered. This merciless form of punishment was not only a means of dealing with offenders but also a strategic deterrent against potential wrongdoers.
The Romans believed that by making the process of crucifixion agonizingly public, they could instill an overwhelming sense of dread, discouraging individuals from committing lawlessness, lest they too suffer this agonizing end. Crucifixion humiliated its victims and made them a reproach for all to see. In keeping with Roman tradition, Jesus was likely crucified naked and on a main road for all to see.
18. The Messiah’s friends and allies will treat Him as a reproach.
Especially to my neighbors,
And an object of dread to my acquaintances;
Those who see me in the street flee from me (v 11b).
Jesus the Messiah’s adversaries made him a reproach and a liability to His followers.
This prophecy has multiple fulfillments.
The first fulfillment was when Jesus submitted to arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. When He did this, instead of fighting back or escaping as they expected Him to do, “they all left Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56—See also Mark 14:50).
The second fulfillment was when Peter denied knowing Jesus on three separate occasions over the course of His first two religious trials (Matthew 26:69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:54-61, John 18:15-17, 25-27).
This prophecy is also similar to Psalm 69:19-20:
“You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor;
All my adversaries are before You.
Reproach has broken my heart and I am so sick.
And I looked for sympathy, but there was none,
And for comforters, but I found none.”
(Psalm 69:19-20)
This prophecy also bears similarities to Psalm 116:11: “I said in my alarm, ‘All men are liars.’” Psalm 116 refers to how all of Jesus’s disciples were sure that they would die before they would ever abandon Jesus, when He warned them how they would fall away from Him that very night (Matthew 26:31-35).
19. The Messiah will die, to the relief of His enemies.
I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind (v 12a)
This meaning of this Messianic prophecy has two possible interpretations.
The first interpretation of this prophecy is related to the previous two prophecies concerning how the Messiah’s enemies will make Him a reproach, especially to His friends (Psalm 31:11).
According to this interpretation, the Messiah’s friends would treat Him as if they did not even remember or know Him. They would react to Him as if He were a man who was forgotten and had been dead for ages. They would pretend He was, or perhaps even willfully put, the Messiah out of mind.
The Messiah’s disciples treated Jesus this way after He submitted to being arrested (Matthew 26:56). And Peter seemed to have forgotten Jesus, the Messiah, as a dead man, and to have put him out of his mind when He emphatically denied knowing anything about Jesus before the rooster crowed (Matthew 26:74).
A second possible interpretation of the prophetic expression: I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind could insinuate that the Messiah will die, to the relief of His adversaries.
According to this interpretation, instead of metaphorically being as a dead man, the Messiah will literally be a dead man. And His death will relieve His enemies of their fears about Him, so that He will be be forgotten and be out of mind.
If this is what is meant by this prophetic expression, then the first part of this prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus the Messiah died. Jesus became a dead man when He dismissed His spirit on the cross (Matthew 27:50, Luke 23:46, John 19:30).
The second part of this prophecy—that the Messiah will be forgotten and out of mind occurred after He became a dead man.
Upon His death, Jesus’s adversaries (the chief priests and elders) most likely felt great relief because He had been not only a growing threat to their power (seek Matthew 21-23), but hours earlier He had unmasked Judas as His betrayer, which threatened to expose their conspiracy to murder Him. If news of their treachery scandal leaked, it could easily have started a riot which would likely have led to them either being deposed by the people (Matthew 26:5) or having their power stripped by Rome.
That was likely why they scrambled to illegally condemn Jesus so quickly on the night of Passover and send Him to Pilate for execution before Jerusalem was any wiser. With Jesus dead, they believed this threat would largely subside.
To their mind, all that was left to do was to ensure that Jesus’s dead body remained entombed, lest “His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first’” (Matthew 27:64).
The Roman Governor, Pilate, granted them a guard and authorized them to make His grave “as secure as you know how” (Matthew 27:65). This likely put their remaining fears to rest. With a Roman detachment guarding Jesus’s dead body to prevent it from being stolen, Jesus’s adversaries likely believed they could finally relax for the Sabbath. Their fears concerning Jesus and the threat He represented were being forgotten and were drifting out of mind while His dead body was under guard. (But Jesus would soon come back to life from the dead and would never be forgotten!)
It is possible that both interpretations of this prophetic expression apply: I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind.
20. The Messiah will be broken.
I am like a broken vessel (v 12b).
Jesus the Messiah was physically broken from being repeatedly beaten, from being scourged by the Romans, and from His crucifixion.
When something is broken, it means it no longer functions or works properly. A vessel is something that holds or contains something of value. In ancient Judea, vessels usually contained oils, wine, water. When Jesus’s body became like a broken vessel it could no longer contain His spirit (Luke 23:46, John 19:30).
On the night He was arrested, Jesus shared a Passover meal (called a “Seder”) with His disciples. He took this occasion to demonstrate how Passover pointed to the sacrifice He was about to make to redeem Israel from slavery to sin. During this Seder, Jesus took the unleavened bread, “broke it and gave it to His disciples, and said, ‘Take eat; this is My body’” (Matthew 26:26). Luke reports that Jesus added “which is given for you” (Luke 22:19) when He said this.
To learn more about how Jesus demonstrated how Passover pointed to His sacrifice, see The Bible Says article—“Jesus’s Last Supper as a Passover Seder.”
From the time of His arrest until His death, Jesus’s body would become like a broken vessel from:
- many beatings at the hands of Jews (Matthew 26:67-68, Mark 14:64-65, Luke 22:63-65, John 18:22).
- the Roman scourging, which stripped and shredded the flesh off his body from His knees to His shoulders (Matthew 27:26, Mark 15:15, John 19:1). This form of punishment was brutal and disfiguring. It is likely what Isaiah was referring to when He prophesied that the Messiah’s “appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14b).
- His crucifixion
To learn what crucifixion entailed, see The Bible Says article—“Bearing the Cross: Exploring the Unimaginable Suffering of Crucifixion.”
This prophecy that the Messiah will be like a broken vessel is reminiscent of a prophetic illustration used by Jeremiah.
In Jeremiah 19, the LORD told the prophet to go buy an earthen vessel from a potter and to take some of the elders of the people with him outside the city (Jeremiah 19:1-2). Once there, Jeremiah was to throw the vessel upon the ground, shattering it, and tell the elders that this was what the LORD was about to do to them and their power because of their iniquity (Jeremiah 19:3-14).
This was prophetic of both the Babylonian captivity in 586 B.C. and Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. But in a way, it was also prophetic of how the LORD would crush the Messiah as He bore the iniquity of Israel and the world (Isaiah 53:5-6, 10-12).
On the cross, Jesus would experience the fullness of God’s wrath and become like that broken vessel.
21. The Messiah will be slandered and perilously surrounded by many enemies.
For I have heard the slander of many,
Terror is on every side (v 13a).
Jesus the Messiah heard slander about Himself from many people as He was surrounded by adversaries on every side.
After Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night at Gethsemane, and His adversaries on the ruling council (the Sanhedrin) had time to gather in the home of Caiaphas to begin His second religious trial of the evening (Matthew 26:57), “the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death…many false witnesses came forward” (Matthew 26:58-59).
During this trial, Jesus heard many false witnesses slander Him in order to condemn Him to death. Jesus was (illegally) denied any defense that was offered on His behalf because the “whole Council” present was against Him. Terror and prospect of death was on every side of Him.
A second fulfillment of this prophecy was when Jesus was brought before Herod during the second phase of His civil trial (Luke 23:8-12),
“And the chief priests and the scribes were standing there, accusing Him vehemently. And Herod with his soldiers, after treating Him with contempt…”
(Luke 23:10-11)
This Messianic prophecy is similar to the prophecies of Psalms 22 and 35:
“Be not far from me, for trouble is near;
For there is none to help.
Many bulls have surrounded me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
They open wide their mouth at me,
As a ravening and a roaring lion.”
(Psalm 22:11-13)
“Malicious witnesses rise up;
They ask me of things that I do not know.”
(Psalm 35:11)
“The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me,
They slandered me without ceasing.
Like godless jesters at a feast,
They gnashed at me with their teeth.”
(Psalm 35:15b-16)
This Messianic prophecy regarding the slander of many is related to what the psalmist will later express in this psalm about “my enemies…those who persecute me” (Psalm 31:15b).
22. The Messiah’s enemies will conspire to kill Him.
While they took counsel together against me,
They schemed to take away my life (v 13b).
The enemies of Jesus, the Messiah took counsel together against Him and schemed to take away His life:
“Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, named Caiaphas; and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and kill Him. But they were saying, ‘Not during the festival, otherwise a riot might occur among the people.’”
(Matthew 26:3-5)
See also Matthew 12:14, 21:45-46, 22:15, John 11:47-57.
Maliciously scheming to take away Jesus’s life was just one of many illegal actions the religious leaders undertook in their effort to destroy Him.
To see a more complete list of the laws they broke in their scheme, see The Bible Says article— “Jesus’s Trial, Part 1. The Laws Broken by the Religious Leaders: A Summary.”
Biblical Text
9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow
And my years with sighing;
My strength has failed because of my iniquity,
And my body has wasted away.
11 Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach,
Especially to my neighbors,
And an object of dread to my acquaintances;
Those who see me in the street flee from me.
12 I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind;
I am like a broken vessel.
13 For I have heard the slander of many,
Terror is on every side;
While they took counsel together against me,
They schemed to take away my life.
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