“I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.”
The statement that the psalmist has become a stranger to siblings and an alien to mother's children articulates the isolation and estrangement that accompany persecution. The broken family relationships suggest that the psalmist is rejected by the closest circle of intimacy. This verse emphasizes that the psychological and relational cost of persecution extends to the deepest bonds.
Church Fathers on Psalms 69:8
1. We have been born into this world, and added to the people of God, at that period wherein already the herb from a grain of mustard seed has spread out its branches; wherein already the leaven, which at first was contemptible, has leavened three measures, that is, the whole round world repeopled by the three sons of Noe: Genesis 9:19 for from East and West and North and South shall come they that shall sit down with the Patriarchs, Matthew 8:11 while those shall have been…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a reflection on this verse
No reflections on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!