The 69th (like the 40th) may have been originally suggested by the persecution of the prophet Jeremiah, when he was thrown into the miry cistern (Jer. xxxviii.); but it contains an anticipation of Calvary, whose fulfilment is described by all the Evangelists, in the wine mingled with myrrh, and the vinegar and gall offered in mockery before the Crucifixion:
They gave me gall to eat:
And when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink.
S. John, the nearest to the Cross and to the heart of the Crucified, tells us moreover that this verse was consciously appropriated by Christ Himself, when, "knowing that all things are now finished, that the Scripture might be accomplished, He saith, I thirst" (John xix. 28).
Each of the other proper Psalms for Good Friday bears its witness to the suffering Christ. The 88th, at first sight one of the most difficult in the Psalter, a Psalm whose darkness seems scarcely illuminated by any ray of hope, is clearly chosen to illustrate Christ's desolation on the Cross, the Three Hours of darkness, His Burial and His descent into Hades. The Sufferer is absolutely alone, lover and friend are in darkness; He is fighting the battle with that last enemy of mankind, the King of Terrors, yet overcoming the sharpness of death by faith and patient endurance; He is looking on to the dawn of Easter:
Unto Thee have I cried, O Lord:
And early shall my prayer come unto Thee;
or—
In the morning shall my prayer come before Thee (R.V.).
May not even those strange words "from My youth up Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind" have been on the lips and in the thought of the "Man of Sorrows" as the Cross cast its shadow over Him, perhaps from His earliest years? "For not even our Lord Jesus Christ Himself," says The Imitation in one of those chapters which sweeten the tears of the world, "was ever one hour without the anguish of His Passion as long as He lived" (Imit. ii. 12).
Both the 40th and the 54th suggest that inner secret of the Atonement which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has fixed upon as giving Christ's Passion its universal efficacy:
An offering of a free heart will I give Thee.
(liv. 6.)