Psalm 70:3

The prayer begins with a command to God: “Make haste.” The Hebrew verb, chuwsh, means to hurry, and it can also mean to be eager with excitement or enjoyment. Here it is an imperative, and in the KJV “Make haste” opens the verse and returns in its second half, so that the whole prayer is framed by the need for speed. David is in real peril, and he says so plainly.

The two halves of the verse say nearly the same thing in different words, as Hebrew poetry often does. “To deliver me” asks for rescue from danger and from powerful enemies. “To help me” is wider, and takes in support, strength and provision as well as rescue. Together they ask for everything a person in trouble needs from God.

David’s urgency is an expression of trust. He hurries to God because he is sure that God is able to act quickly and willing to do it. This is the confidence of the psalm that calls God “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1), and of the one that says the righteous cry and the LORD hears them (Psalm 34:17).

The psalm opens with a heading: “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.” It names David as the author. “To the chief Musician” (lamnats·tseach) shows that the prayer was given over for public worship and set to music, so that what David prayed in his own distress became a prayer the whole congregation could use.

“To bring to remembrance” translates lehazkir, which means “to cause to remember” or “to bring to mind.” It can be heard in two ways, and both are true to the psalm. It is a plea that God would remember his covenant promises, his past faithfulness and the need of the one praying, as David asks elsewhere: “Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old” (Psalm 25:6). God never forgets, so to ask him to remember is to ask him to act according to his character and his promises. It is also a reminder to the worshipper that God stands ready to hear a desperate prayer.

The psalm does not say when David prayed this. Its themes fit the many times he was hunted or betrayed, such as his flight from Saul in 1 Samuel 23, the rebellion of his son Absalom, or the threats of foreign enemies.

Verse 2 turns from David’s need to the people causing it. They “seek after my soul.” The verb bâqash means to search out or seek, and it describes a deliberate and persistent pursuit. The word for soul, nephesh, means a breathing creature, and so life, self or person. To seek someone’s soul is to be after his life, and for David this was often a literal threat. The second half of the verse describes the same people as those who “desire my hurt.”

David asks four things for them. “Ashamed” is bûwsh, which means to grow pale and so to be ashamed, and it also carries the sense of being disappointed. He is asking that their plans fail and that the failure be seen. “Confounded” asks that they be made to blush with shame. “Turned backward” pictures an advancing enemy forced into retreat, and “put to confusion” returns to the thought of disgrace. In Israel public shame was a heavy thing, often felt to be worse than bodily harm, because it meant that a person’s plans had openly collapsed.

The form of the verbs matters. “Let them be” is a wish addressed to God, so David is asking God to do this and leaves the doing to him. Other psalms pray the same way: “Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul” (Psalm 35:4), and “Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame” (Psalm 109:29). Behind such prayers is the conviction that God lets the wicked fall into the pit they dug for others (Psalm 9:15). When that happens, David’s innocence and God’s faithfulness are both made plain.

After these requests the psalm blesses those who seek God and closes with a fresh plea for speed (Psalm 70:4–5).

Verse 3 names one particular sin. David’s enemies say “Aha, aha.” The Hebrew is heʼâch, an exclamation of malicious triumph, the sound a person makes when he is glad to see another fall, and saying it twice over makes the gloating louder. The same cry is on the lips of David’s enemies in Psalm 35:21, and of the Ammonites when they rejoiced over the ruin of God’s sanctuary and people (Ezekiel 25:3). These men oppose David and enjoy his suffering as well.

David asks that they be “turned back.” The verb is shûwb, to turn back or return, and here it asks that they be repelled and their purpose undone. The reason follows: “for a reward of their shame.” The noun bôsheth means shame, both the feeling and the condition of disgrace. The shame they intended for David is to come back to them as their wages. The punishment fits the sin, since those who mocked in the open are humbled in the open.

This is how God has ordered his world. The one who digs a pit falls into it, and his mischief returns on his own head (Psalm 7:15–16, Proverbs 26:27). Paul says it plainly: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). The verse is therefore a warning to us as well. Gloating over another person’s misfortune is hateful to God, and the “Aha” can rise in our own hearts.

These verses ask for God’s justice, and that is something a Christian may ask for. Jesus commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), and Paul tells us to leave vengeance to God and overcome evil with good (Romans 12:19–21). David’s prayer does the very thing Paul describes. He takes no revenge and hands the matter to the Judge.

The two fit together. To love an enemy is to do him good and to desire his repentance and salvation. To pray Psalm 70 is to ask that his harmful plans fail, that the innocent be protected and that God’s righteousness be seen. We can want both at once. The shame David asks for may even be the means God uses to bring a wicked person to repentance, or to keep him from doing further harm.

David’s cry for a deliverer looks ahead to Christ, through whom God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13). Jesus himself prayed with this kind of urgency. In Gethsemane he asked the Father, if he were willing, to remove the cup from him, and he gave himself to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42). The speedy help David longed for came in full when Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26). He now lives for ever to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25), so our own cries for help reach the Father through him.

Jesus also knew the enemies of verses 2 and 3. Men sought his soul and desired his hurt, and at the cross they passed by mocking him (Matthew 27:39–44). Where David asked that his mockers be shamed, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Yet the cross and the resurrection were the great turning back of the enemy. God “made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15), and the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) was exalted and given the name above every name (Philippians 2:9–11). The shame meant for him fell on Satan and his powers. When he returns, every eye shall see him, including those who pierced him (Revelation 1:7).

Those who belong to Christ share his victory. He has overcome the world (John 16:33), and he has promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church (Matthew 16:18).

Psalm 70 gives us words for the moment when there is no time for many words. God put this short, pressing prayer into the worship of his people, and that tells us who he is: the mighty God and the faithful LORD, who welcomes an honest cry and whose help is near. It also gives us somewhere to take the people who wish us harm. David carried their malice and their laughter to God and left the outcome there, and that frees us from carrying revenge or bitterness ourselves. In Christ the prayer is already answered at its deepest level, for the one who was mocked and hunted has been raised, and he intercedes for all who call on him.