“Make
haste, O God, to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O LORD!
Let
them be ashamed and confounded Who seek my life; Let them be turned back and
confused Who desire my hurt. Let them be turned back because of their shame,
Who say, "Aha, aha!"
Let
all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; And let those who love Your
salvation say continually, "Let God be magnified!"
But
I am poor and needy; Make haste to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.”
The
title of Psalm 70 informs us that David is the human writer. But we always need
to remember that God is the author of every verse in the Bible. “All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for…” (2 Timothy 3:16).
Meaning every Word in the Bible comes from the very “breath” of God, and
is given for the purpose of teaching us God’s ways and principles, reproving or
rebuking us when we do wrong, correcting us to get us back on the right path,
and instructing us on how to stay on the right path!
God
uses human writers like David to give us His Holy Word and used their life and
their experiences to reveal Himself to us! David is writing Psalm 70 as a Psalm
to be sung by the best musician who leads the temple worship. He also wrote
this Psalm “to bring to remembrance”. This is the poor man's memorial. David
personally pleads with God that he may not be forgotten, but David's Lord may
be heard here also. Even if the Lord seems to forget us, we must not forget
him.
Psalm
70 is one of four Psalms that only have five verses. The others are Psalm 15,
43, and 100. There is another interesting thing about Psalm 70. If you have
been reading faithfully through the Psalms, when you come to this one you might
have thought, “Goodness, I think I have already read this one”. And the truth is you have read these same
identical words back in Psalm 40:13-17, with only a few exceptions.
David
evidently felt God had forgotten him and his pressing personal needs, even
though his prayers had been ascending like burning incense to the throne. His
problem was that God did not seem to be responding with sufficient speed. One
commentator calls this psalm "a fragment of Psalm 40, made into a separate
Psalm because of its use as an emergency prayer."
Have
our circumstances overwhelmed us? Do the heavens seem as brass to our cries?
Then this is the Psalm for us! It must often have been used as an emergency
prayer by Israel in the long course of that nation's troubled history.
This
Psalm also has a link with Psalm 71. In some commentaries the two psalms are
simply printed together as one. Another commentator takes the position that
Psalms 70 and 71 are really "a compound psalm." Psalm 70, while
linked with Psalms 40, 69, and 71, nevertheless stands by itself in our Bibles
as a little poem designed by the Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray in an
emergency.
In
verse 1, David calls out to God to “Make haste, O God to deliver me! Make haste
to help me, O LORD!” In verse 2-3,
he hears his enemies laughing at him and wishing for him to be defeated and
fall. But then in verse 4, David remembers that there are some wonderful Godly
people who are still loving and seeking the LORD for His salvation and desire
for Him to be magnified!
David
ends this short “emergency prayer” by acknowledging his own poor, needy and helpless
condition. But now instead of asking the LORD to hurry up and deliver him from
his enemies, he simply asks the LORD to “Make haste to me”. David realizes that when he has the LORD’s
presence, he will have His help and deliverance!
Yes,
my friend, this is a prayer that we might often need to pray and that’s why I believe
it is repeated in the Psalms. You can reference it as, Psalm 70 - “My Emergency
Prayer”, in the front cover of your Bible, and go to it and read it aloud in
your times of troubles, tribulations, and trials! “And if God be for us, who
can be against us” (Romans 8:31).
God bless!
