Summary
The longest of the nine, and the most quoted in the New Testament after Psalm 22. It begins with water: mire with no footing, floods to the neck, a throat worn out with waiting. The reproach is explicitly for God’s sake — he bore it because zeal for God’s house ate him up — and it comes from his own brethren, from the drunkards’ songs, from those who gave him gall for meat and vinegar to drink.
The imprecation of verses 22–28 asks that the table become a snare and the record be closed: what they refused, let them not be reckoned among the righteous. Paul reads it of Israel’s hardening, and the Gospels read the vinegar of the cross out of verse 21. The psalm does not stay there. It ends with the poor seeing and being glad, with heaven and earth praising, and with the cities of Judah built and inhabited — the imprecation is the hinge, not the end.
Outline
No footing in the deep mire; hated without cause; a stranger to his brethren because zeal for God’s house consumed him.
In an acceptable time, deliver me; let not the pit shut its mouth; and they gave me gall and vinegar.
Let their feast trap them and their eyes darken; let habitation be desolate and their names not written with the righteous.
A song better than sacrifice; the humble shall see and be glad; God will save Zion and build the cities of Judah.
Stanza divisions provisional — to be conformed to the Book of Psalms for Worship. References NASB.