Psalm 70: Make Haste, O God

Psalm 70 is the shortest cry for help in this stretch of the Psalter; it is almost word-for-word a republished version of Psalm 40:13-17. That repetition is not a copy-paste error. In ancient liturgy, urgent material was sometimes detached from a longer composition and given its own song, the way a single chorus can be lifted out of a longer hymn for moments when only the chorus is bearable. The superscription's odd Hebrew phrase "lehazkir" ("for remembrance" or "to bring to remembrance") may indicate this psalm was used with the memorial portion of certain offerings, the moment when a worshiper was asking God to remember him by name.

The Hebrew verbs in this psalm pile up at sprint speed: "hasten", "deliver", "make haste", "hurry to me". A first-temple Israelite knew that the God of Sinai is patient and slow to anger; yet the psalter also gives him language to ask God to move faster. The piety here is not impatience with God's character. It is honest pressure, the prayer of someone whose situation is collapsing in real time. David trusts the slow God of his fathers enough to ask him to speed up. That tension, theological calm and existential urgency, sits in the heart of a healthy life of prayer.

The closing line, "I am poor and needy. Make haste to me, O God", is one of the simplest sentences a believer can pray. "Poor and needy" ("ani v'evyon") is a stock pair in the Psalter for the worshiper who has nothing left to offer God except his hunger and his trust. In Israel's law, the "ani v'evyon" had a special place at the temple gate, in the gleaning fields and in the prophets' rebukes. To pray this line is to take your seat among them and to assume that God has always had a soft spot for that particular bench.