Psalm 69:4 describes the psalmist surrounded by numerous enemies who hate him without cause. He suffers hostility disproportionate to any wrongdoing and is even forced to bear consequences for things he did not steal. The psalm thus develops the familiar biblical theme of the unjustly persecuted righteous sufferer.

John 15:25 records Jesus saying that the world's hatred fulfills the scriptural statement, "They hated me without a cause." Psalm 69:4 is a principal source of that wording. Jesus explicitly identifies His own undeserved rejection with the experience voiced in the psalm. What David or another righteous sufferer experienced historically becomes, in the Gospel, a pattern reaching its fullest expression in the causeless hatred directed toward the sinless Christ.