Many people today want to know what the future holds. It’s still dark out when I leave for work and on my way in to the office I pass by a very well lit up establishment that has a big neon sign that says “Palm Readings”. These kind of places try to predict your future from looking at lines on your hands. Many such places also deal in horoscopes that purport to be able to tell you what your future holds based on the alignment of celestial bodies. Many people are interested in what the future holds, but sadly if you’re visiting these places you’re likely to be let down by the reality that none of us can see the future, not in the stars or in lines on our hands. I guess it’s part of the human condition to want to know what tomorrow will bring and to try and find answers everywhere we look. Today it is clear that the future just isn’t ours to know.
But there is someone who does know the future. Jehovah has a track record of predicting events accurately. Whether it was the fall of Babylon to King Cyrus as foretold in Isaiah or the rise and fall of world empires foreshadowed in Daniel, there have been many events in the bible that were foretold with accuracy and precision.
In Isaiah 46:10 Jehovah tells us that “From the beginning I foretell the outcome, and from long ago the things that have not yet been done.” Yes, Jehovah knows what has been, what is and what will be!
Indeed, the bible includes many prophecies that were recorded by its inspired writers. I this article we are going to look at Psalm 69 and the many prophecies about the Christ that were recorded there. These prophecies were written about 1,000 years prior to the birth of Jesus and the prophecies contained in them would have been well known to Jews living in the 1st century C.E. As a result, the Christian Greek scriptures contain record of many fulfillments of prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures.
Although there are many examples we could review, here I will explore just three (3) of the prophecies about the messiah contained in Psalm 69.
The first (1) prophecy we will consider can be found at Psalm 69:4. Here, if we read just the first part it says “Those hating me without cause are more numerous than the hairs of my head.” We may wonder: How was this fulfilled? We can read the fulfillment in The Book of John. There in John 15:24 Jesus himself says: “If I had not done among them [the people] the works that no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have both seen and hated me as well as my Father. But it is that the word written in their Law may be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without cause.’”
Notice that Jesus said “Written in their Law”. Here the term “their Law” refers to the Mosaic scriptures, and in this case Psalm 69:4 that we read earlier. In essence, because the people had seen Jesus’ works, seen the miraculous things performed yet still hated him they now had sinned. This scripture in John is the recording of the fulfillment of Psalm 69:4. Indeed, we can glean many instances in the scriptures where this would be true, but in this instance Jesus himself uttered the words.
The second (2) prophecy we will consider can be found at Psalm 69:9. Here the psalmist wrote “(the) Zeal for your house has consumed me, And the reproaches of those reproaching you have fallen upon me.” At first this prophecy isn’t as easy to see as Psalm 69:4 was, but it becomes clear when we read the account at John 2:13-17 of how this was fulfilled. There in John 2:13-17 we read: “Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money brokers in their seats. So after making a whip of ropes, he drove all those with the sheep and cattle out of the temple, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he said to those selling the doves: “Take these things away from here! Stop making the house of my Father a house of commerce!” His disciples recalled that it is written: “The zeal for your house will consume me.”
Jesus had such zeal for the temple, for his father’s house, that he took great risk in driving those turning a place of worship into a place of commerce out of the temple! As it turns out the priest, scribes and other temple authorities were the very ones behind these profit-making businesses that were the very source of Jesus indignation. But, as the Psalmist wrote “the zeal for his fathers house” had consumed Jesus and therefore he could not sit by silently and watch.
This takes us to the third (3) prophecy we will consider. If you can turn with me back to Psalm 69, this time to verses 20 and 21. Again that’s Psalm 69:20-21. Here we read: “Reproach has broken my heart, and the wound is incurable. I was hoping for sympathy, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. But for food they gave me poison, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
You probably don’t need me to tell you what scripture this is referring to. The scene is Jesus on deaths bed, having been nailed to the stake; he was in agony, in pain. Indeed at Luke 22:44 we read that “his sweat became as drops of blood falling to the ground.” Yes the reproach itself had broken his heart and the wound is incurable. Are these words a literal death from a broken heart? Perhaps, for the hours preceding his death were both physically and emotionally draining but the bible doesn’t say anything else about this.
We can see at the end of verse 21 it predicted “and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” We see this fulfilled in John 19:28-30. If you turn with me there we read that: “After this, when Jesus knew that by now all things had been accomplished, in order to fulfill the scripture he said: “I am thirsty.” A jar was sitting there full of sour wine. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop stalk and held it up to his mouth. When he had received the sour wine, Jesus said: “It has been accomplished!” and bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.”
What a picture that paints. The creation of wine involves microorganisms that converts the sugars and starches of grapes into alcohol. Similarly, sour wine is wine that has had different microorganisms covert the alcohol in wine into acetic acid. Acetic acid is better known as vinegar, and having drank vinegar I’d say it’s pretty sour. Here we see that Jesus himself was aware of the prophecy foretold Psalm 69:21 and apparently this was the last of the prophecies to be fulfilled before he gave up his spirit. The verse in John says that “In order to fulfill the scripture” he asked for a drink, then uttered “It has been accomplished!”. Although I can imagine the pain and suffering Jesus was going through, one can only imagine the joy he had knowing that he had accomplished what may be the most difficult endeavor any man has ever accomplished.
Here we covered just three (3) of the prophecies contained in Psalm 69, and Psalm 69 contains but a small fraction of the many prophecies contained in the bible. Perhaps we can see how Jehovah is the true sovereign of the universe and the one who can foretell the future with accuracy. And, perhaps that will give us some comfort when we read scriptures like Revelation 21:4 where Jehovah promises us that he will wipe out all our tears, death, mourning and outcry will be done away with! Yes, may the evidence of past prophecies being fulfilled give us the faith that the remaining unfulfilled prophecies are as sure as done in Jehovah’s eyes.
