To the Chief Musician, of David, to Cause to Remember
1. O God, to deliver me,
O Yahweh, to my help hurry.
2. Let them be ashamed and confounded
who seek my soul.
Let them be turned back and humiliated
who delight in my evil.
3. Let them return as a consequence of their shame
who say, "Aha, aha!"
4. Let them exult and rejoice in you,
all who seek you,
and let them say continually, May God be magnified!"
who love your salvation.
5. And I, I am afflicted and needy.
Hurry to me, O God.
You are my help and the one who makes me escape.
O Yahweh, do not delay.
Psalm 70 is almost exactly the same as Psalm 40:13-17.
Like Psalm 38, it is intended “to cause to remember.” David probably meant that he wanted to bring this to God’s remembrance rather than his own. Both psalms are urgent requests to God to be merciful and give help in times of trouble. In Psalm 38 he needed forgiveness. In this psalm he needed deliverance from enemies.
The psalm is a chiasm. Verse 5 repeats several words from verse 1: the names God and Yahweh, the word help (though in a slightly different form), the imperative “hurry,” and a synonym for deliver. So those verses are the beginning and end of the chiasm. Verse 4 repeats the participle seeking from verse 2, but also contrasts with it; in verse 2 David is praying against those seeking his soul, but In verse 4 he is praying for those seeking God. Verse 3 stands alone at the center. It is not a true parallelism, but one long sentence and is the pivot on which the chiasm turns.
The structure is a little more complex than that. Verse 3 has a very close association with verse 2. It is a third element added to that double parallelism that extends the whole to a triple parallelism. But it also has a close association with verse 4, because it describes what the enemies are saying, while verse 4 describes what those who seek God say. It’s a very clever way to balance the chiasm: the central element connects directly but differently with both of the next elements outward in the structure.
The sentences in verses 1 and 5 are very short and urgent. The sentences in verses 2-4 are long. Such long sentences are fairly uncommon in Old Testament poetry. Usually, parallelism limits the length of sentences to a few words.
These sentences have some other things in common. They are all optatives (they express wishes), and the subjects are in participial form: those seeking my soul, those delighting in my evil (verse 2), those saying (verse 3), those seeking you, those loving your salvation (verse 4). In fact, the parallelism is not only in the ideas expressed, but also in the word order itself. Each of the sentences begins with the verb and ends with the subject.
Verses 1 and 5 do not use the optative, except in the very last line. They use the imperative. This also enhances the urgency of those two verses.
Verse 5 has 4 lines while verse 1 has only two. Verse 1 has two petitions, governed by a single verb that occurs in the second line.
O God, to deliver me, O Yahweh, to my help, make haste!
Verse 5 also has two petitions:
O God, make haste to me... O Yahweh, do not tarry!
But in this verse a statement of fact precedes each of these petitions and provides the reason for the petition:
And I am poor and needy... My help and the one who makes me escape you are.
Finally, verse 4 is unique in this psalm, though not in the Book of Psalms as a whole, in its extension of personal requests to include all those who seek God.
There is a sense of desperation here. It’s especially in such times that we are most inclined to turn to God. When the trouble is not so great, or we don’t feel it as very great, we sometimes, to our shame, try to deal with it ourselves. But when the trouble is great and we have come to the end of our own resources, we are more inclined to do what we should always do: turn to God and look for him to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
The request to make haste is not one we use much, probably because we are a little afraid of such strong expressions in our prayers. We may even feel that it runs counter to the fear of God to be so demanding and so insistent. But fear and boldness fit together very comfortably in this psalm and others. Fear of God and understanding of his greatness does not have to mean that we are timid in our prayers. He has made great promises. Our prayers should seize on those promises and bring them to him with the full expectation that he will be true to his word.
Even in very great trouble we should not be so consumed with thoughts of ourselves that we have no time to think of others. Suffering for righteousness’ sake is partaking of the sufferings of Christ and filling up their measure. Our thoughts therefore should be with all those who belong to Christ and whose troubles are the same as ours. We must be making our own contribution to the well-being of others even while we are suffering ourselves. Much of life seems to be a waiting for God to answer. We cry for help: nothing happens, or at least we do not see anything. We cry again and again, and still God is silent. This is a problem in the Christian life. The answer of the psalms is, “Wait. Wait for God. Wait for his help. Do not give up hope or faith. Be steadfast. Be persistent in c