The Berean Table

Field	Detail
Pericope	Psalm 70:1–5
Theme	The poor and needy believer, mocked by enemies, flees to God alone with urgent prayer, confident that He will come and be magnified.

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Opening Prayer

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Closing Prayer

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Timeline Context

Place in the Psalter

Psalm 70 stands in Book II of the Psalter (Psalms 42–72), the collection that closes with the editorial note “The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.” (Psalm 72:20). Book II is often called the Elohistic Psalter (Psalms 42–83), because in these psalms the general name Elohim (God) largely replaces the covenant name YHWH (the LORD). Psalm 70 belongs to the last cluster of Davidic prayers in the book, and it returns, after the praise of Psalms 65–68, to the lament voice of Psalm 69.

A Psalm Lifted from Psalm 40

The five verses of Psalm 70 are, with small but deliberate changes, the last five verses of Psalm 40 (Psalm 40:13–17). Psalm 40 opens with thanksgiving for a past deliverance, “I waited patiently for the LORD” (Psalm 40:1), moves through the great confession of 40:6–8 that Hebrews 10:5–7 places on the lips of Christ, and ends with a fresh cry for help, “For evils have encompassed me beyond number” (Psalm 40:12). Psalm 70 takes only that closing cry, leaving behind both the thanksgiving and the confession of iniquity in Psalm 40:12, and sets it on its own as a prayer for a new day of trouble. The Psalter holds several such doublets — Psalm 14 and Psalm 53; Psalm 57:7–11 and Psalm 108:1–5; Psalm 60:5–12 and Psalm 108:6–13 — and each shows the people of God reusing inspired prayers for fresh needs.

Neighbors on Either Side

Psalm 70 is placed after Psalm 69, whose sufferer cries, “But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high!” (Psalm 69:29), and before Psalm 71, which carries no superscription and opens with the same urgency: “O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me!” (Psalm 71:12). Many interpreters therefore read Psalm 70 as a short bridge, or even a prelude, to the prayer of old age in Psalm 71. Keil and Delitzsch think it was placed after Psalm 69 because of the kindred nature of its contents.

Historical Setting

The superscription names David as author and gives no historical occasion. The commentators record several proposals without settling them: Gill reports Jewish and patristic suggestions that it belongs to David’s flight from Saul or from Absalom (1 Samuel 19–26; 2 Samuel 15–18), and an ancient Syriac title connecting it with Sheba’s rebellion (2 Samuel 20). None can be proved. What is certain is that the psalm, detached from Psalm 40, was given its own liturgical use “for the memorial offering,” as the superscription says, and so was prayed by the worshiping congregation of Israel in the tabernacle and temple, in the generations between David (about 1010–970 B.C.) and the exile.

Redemptive-Historical Placement

Psalm 70 belongs to the age of the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7:12–16), when God’s promise rested on a king who was himself hunted, mocked and needy. The anointed king prays as a poor man; the one through whom God would bless the nations must cry for his own deliverance. That paradox looks forward to the Son of David, who would be both the Lord’s Anointed and the most despised of men (Isaiah 53:3), whose loud cries were heard (Hebrews 5:7), and in whose resurrection God “made haste” to vindicate His Servant. The church now prays this psalm between Christ’s first coming and His return, still saying, “do not delay!” (v. 5).

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Historical-Grammatical Study

Genre

Psalm 70 is an individual lament in its briefest form. It contains the essential movements of the lament: address and petition (v. 1), complaint about enemies with a prayer for their defeat (vv. 2–3), a turn toward the community of the faithful (v. 4), and a closing confession of need with renewed petition (v. 5). Unlike many laments, it has no explicit vow of praise; instead it ends as it began, with an urgent cry. The prayer is framed by the verb “make haste” (v. 1) and its synonym “hasten” (v. 5), an inclusio that sets the whole psalm in the key of urgency.

The Superscription

The ESV prints the title “To the choirmaster. Of David, for the memorial offering.” The phrase rendered “for the memorial offering” is the Hebrew lehazkir, a causative form of zakar, to remember, and occurs in the Psalter only here and in the title of Psalm 38. Three readings are offered by the commentators:

• A liturgical rubric. The azkarah (H234, a reminder or memorial) was the handful of the grain offering burned on the altar, “and the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.” (Leviticus 2:2). Keil explains that the ascending smoke “was intended to bring the owner of the offering into remembrance with God” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, on 38:1), so that Psalms 38 and 70 were prayed when the memorial portion was offered. Edersheim describes how the priest took the portion, “carried it to the top of the altar, salted it, and then placed it on the fire” (Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, on the Meat-Offering).
• A prayer that “reminds” God. Henry takes the title to mean that the psalm puts God in remembrance of His mercy and promises, “not that the Eternal Mind needs a remembrancer, but this honour he is pleased to put upon the prayer of faith” (Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 70:1). Compare the LORD’s own invitation, “Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right.” (Isaiah 43:26).
• A note of reuse. Calvin suggests the title may mark the psalm as a remembered extract: “This psalm is merely a part of the fortieth, and the inscription, To call to remembrance, is perhaps designed to indicate this” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 70:1).

These readings are not mutually exclusive. The same verb appears when David appoints Levites “to invoke, to thank, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel.” (1 Chronicles 16:4), where “to invoke” renders lehazkir.

The Divine Names

The changes from Psalm 40 are concentrated in the divine names, and they are deliberate. Psalm 40:13 addresses YHWH twice; Psalm 70:1 addresses God (Elohim) and then the LORD (YHWH). Psalm 40:16 has “Great is the LORD!” (Psalm 40:16); Psalm 70:4 has “God is great!” (v. 4). Psalm 40:17 closes “O my God”; Psalm 70:5 closes “O LORD.” Barnes concludes that such changes “must have been by design, and could not have been made by copyists” (Barnes, Notes on the Psalms, on 70:5). The result is a psalm that begins and ends with the covenant name, so that the cry to the God of all the earth is held within the name by which He bound Himself to Israel (Exodus 3:14–15).

Key Hebrew Terms

• chush (H2363), to hurry, make haste (vv. 1, 5): the controlling verb of the psalm, used in the Psalms of God hurrying to His servant’s aid (Psalm 22:19; 38:22; 71:12; 141:1).
• natsal (H5337), to snatch away, rescue (v. 1): the verb of deliverance from a stronger hand.
• ezrah (H5833) and ezer (H5828), help (vv. 1, 5): strength that comes to the aid of weakness, used of God as Israel’s help (Deuteronomy 33:29) and of the woman as the man’s helper (Genesis 2:18), never implying inferiority in the helper.
• bosh, chapher and kalam (vv. 2–3): three words for shame, disappointment and humiliation; with sug (to flinch, go back) and shub (to turn back), they describe an army routed and retreating.
• he’ach (H1889), “Aha!” (v. 3): an exclamation of malicious glee (Psalm 35:21; Ezekiel 26:2).
• baqash (H1245), to seek (vv. 2, 4): the enemies seek David’s life; the faithful seek God.
• yeshuah (H3444), salvation, deliverance (v. 4): from the root yasha, from which the names Joshua and Jesus come (Matthew 1:21).
• tamid (H8548), continually (v. 4, “evermore”): the word used of the regular daily sacrifice.
• gadal (H1431), to be great (v. 4): the jussive yigdal, let Him be great or let Him be magnified.
• ani (H6041) and ebyon (H34), poor and needy (v. 5): the afflicted and lowly, and the destitute who must beg.
• palat (H6403), to bring to safety (v. 5, “my deliverer”): to cause to escape.
• achar (H309), to delay, linger, be late (v. 5).

Grammar and Structure

The Hebrew of verse 1 lacks the opening verb of Psalm 40:13, ratsah (H7521, to be pleased), so that the line begins abruptly, O God, to deliver me. The ESV supplies “make haste” from the parallel line, as the older English versions did. Verses 2–4 are a string of jussives — “let them be,” “may all,” “may those” — wishes addressed to God, not commands addressed to the enemies. Verse 5 is built on a strong contrast: “But I” (waani) sets the psalmist over against both the mockers and the rejoicing community. Keil notes that in verse 5 “the hope is turned into petition” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, on 70:5): where David had stated, “I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me” (Psalm 40:17), he now pleads, “But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God!” (v. 5).

Ancient Background

In the ancient Near East, public shame was a social death; a king whose enemies said “Aha!” over his fall had lost his honor before the nations. The psalm asks that this shame be reversed and returned upon those who sought it. The memorial portion of the grain offering, burned while the rest went to the priests, gave the worshiper a visible pledge that his offering — and, with it, his prayer — rose before God.

Covenantal Themes

The psalm rests on the covenant relationship expressed in its possessive pronouns: “my help and my deliverer” (v. 5). The Davidic king prays as the representative of a people (v. 4), and his deliverance is the occasion of their joy. The pairing of “poor and needy” belongs to the covenant vocabulary of those whom the LORD has pledged to defend (Psalm 72:12–13; Deuteronomy 15:11), and the prayer that the wicked be turned back echoes the covenant promise that God would curse those who curse His people (Genesis 12:3).

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Expanded Outline

Section 1 — The Urgent Cry for Rescue (Psalm 70:1)

Key Insight

The psalm opens with no preface, no ascription of praise and no rehearsal of past mercies. It begins with a cry: “Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me!” (v. 1). The Hebrew is more abrupt still. Where Psalm 40 began its petition with a verb of gracious willing, “Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me!” (Psalm 40:13), Psalm 70 drops it, and the ESV supplies “make haste” from the second line. Barnes describes the result as “a fragment commencing without even the care necessary to make the grammatical construction complete” (Barnes, Notes on the Psalms, on 70:1). What Barnes calls a fragment the believer recognizes as the grammar of emergency. A man who is drowning does not compose periodic sentences; he shouts for help.

Two verbs, one plea. The first verb, natsal, means to snatch away or rescue, the word used when a shepherd delivers a lamb from the mouth of a lion (1 Samuel 17:35). The second, chush, means to hurry. The noun ezrah, help, belongs to the family of ezer, the word used of God as the shield of Israel’s help (Deuteronomy 33:29). Help in Scripture is never the condescension of a weaker party; it is strength coming to the aid of weakness. David asks for both rescue from the danger and help within it.

Two names, one God. The verse addresses God first as Elohim and then as YHWH. Keil observes that this portion of Psalm 40 “is detached from it and converted into the Elohimic style” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, on 70:1). Yet the covenant name is not lost. It stands at the end of the first verse and again as the very last word of the psalm (v. 5), so that the cry to the God of all the earth is bracketed by the name He swore to Moses (Exodus 3:14–15). The one who hurries to help is the Creator of all and the LORD bound to His people by covenant.

The boldness of “make haste.” Is it reverent to ask the eternal God to hurry? Calvin, who refers his readers back to Psalm 40 for the exposition of Psalm 70, answers that God Himself grants the liberty: “such is his goodness, that he permits us to use this form of prayer, That he would make haste according to our desires” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:13). The urgency is not impatience with God but dependence upon Him. It is faith that knows where help lies and cannot do without it (Psalm 22:19; 38:22; 141:1).

Christ in the cry. This prayer finds its fullest voice in the Son of David. The psalm from which these verses were taken is the psalm Hebrews places on Christ’s lips as He comes into the world: “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book” (Hebrews 10:7). In the days of His flesh the Lord Jesus prayed “with loud cries and tears,” (Hebrews 5:7) and He was heard, not by being spared the cross, but by being raised from the dead (Acts 2:24). Gill, recording the ancient Syriac title of the psalm, notes that it was read as “a supplication of the righteous, and even of Christ himself” (Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible, on 70:1). Because the Son cried and was answered, every needy believer who cries “make haste” in His name prays with the assurance that the Father hears (John 16:23).

Application

Psalm 70 teaches us that prayer does not need to be long to be real. Many believers imagine that God is moved by eloquence or by length, and so they postpone prayer until they have time to do it properly. Jesus warned against heaping up empty phrases and assured us, “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8). A two-line cry offered in faith is a true prayer.

This should reshape our instincts in a crisis. When the diagnosis comes, when a child calls in tears, when temptation ambushes us late at night, our first word should be the word of verse 1: “Make haste, O God, to deliver me!” (v. 1). Nehemiah prayed in the moment between the king’s question and his own answer (Nehemiah 2:4). We should commit this verse to memory so that it is ready when composed prayer is impossible.

It should also correct our self-reliance. The order of the psalm is telling: David cries to God before he says a word about his enemies or his plans. Many of us reverse that order, exhausting every human resource before we turn to God as a last resort. Psalm 70 makes God the first resort.

Finally, we should pray to God by both His names — the sovereign Creator who rules all things and the covenant LORD who has bound Himself to us in Christ — and we should pray in the name of the Son, who prayed this way before us and was heard (John 14:13).

A warning against misapplication: the liberty to say “make haste” is not a license to set God’s timetable or to judge His love by the speed of His answer. Scripture also says, “Whoever believes will not be in haste” (Isaiah 28:16). Faith hurries to God in prayer; it does not run ahead of God by sinful shortcuts when the answer seems slow. Nor does this short prayer condemn longer, carefully prepared prayers, or the use of written prayers; the psalm itself is an inspired form of words, reused by God’s people for their own needs.

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Section 2 — Let the Mockers Be Turned Back (Psalm 70:2–3)

Key Insight

Having cried for help, David turns to those who threaten him: “Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life! Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt!” (v. 2). The vocabulary is the language of a routed army. Bosh is to be ashamed, chapher to blush with disappointment, sug to flinch and fall back, kalam to be humiliated. The enemies are described by what they want: they “seek” (baqash) his life, and they “delight” (chaphets) in his hurt. Their hostility is not a passing quarrel but settled malice that takes pleasure in another’s ruin.

Verse 3 adds their words: “Let them turn back because of their shame who say, ‘Aha, Aha!’” (v. 3). The exclamation he’ach is the gloating cry of those who watch a man fall and enjoy it (Psalm 35:21). Psalm 40:15 had prayed, “Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, ‘Aha, Aha!’” (Psalm 40:15). Psalm 70 replaces “appalled” (shamem) with “turn back” (shub), so that the second verse and the third now repeat the same picture of retreat.

Shame returned upon the shamers. The prayer is not for arbitrary harm but for a fitting reversal. Calvin paraphrases the petition: “As their sole desire has been to overwhelm me with shame … so let a similar confusion fall upon their own heads” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:15). The pattern is the justice of God that runs through Scripture: the pit-digger falls into his own pit (Psalm 7:15–16), Haman hangs on his own gallows (Esther 7:10). David does not take the reversal into his own hands; he asks God to bring it about.

Shame that leads to seeking. Matthew Henry notices that a prayer for an enemy’s shame may also be a prayer for his conversion: “let them be brought to repentance, so filled with shame as that they may seek thy name” (Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 70:2). He has in view Psalm 83, which prays, “Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O LORD.” (Psalm 83:16). Shame can be the severe mercy that turns a persecutor around, as it did for Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1–6; 1 Timothy 1:13).

A guard against abuse. Calvin, writing on the parallel verse, warns that such words must never become cover for personal spite, “lest any man, when giving loose reins to his passions, should allege the example of David in palliation or excuse” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:13). David speaks as the LORD’s anointed, whose enemies are enemies of God’s purpose, and he hands vengeance to God rather than taking it. This is the man who twice spared Saul’s life (1 Samuel 24:6; 26:9). The New Testament holds the same posture: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God,” (Romans 12:19).

Christ and the mockers. The cry “Aha!” was heard again at Golgotha: “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘Aha!’” (Mark 15:29). The mockers even borrowed the language of deliverance: “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him” (Matthew 27:43). Jesus did not pray their ruin but their forgiveness (Luke 23:34). Yet God did turn the mockers back. On the third day the empty tomb put their “Aha” to shame, and at Pentecost thousands of those who had joined in the derision were cut to the heart and sought the Lord (Acts 2:36–37). What remains of the prayer awaits the day when every knee will bow (Philippians 2:10–11).

Application

This section gives us permission to name our enemies before God. The psalms do not ask us to pretend that no one is against us. There are people who seek our harm, and there are those who are glad when we fall. God invites us to bring them to Him honestly rather than nursing secret resentment.

It also teaches us where to take our grievances. David does not plot, retaliate, or broadcast his complaints; he prays. When a coworker undermines us, when a relative gloats over our failure, when online voices mock our faith, the first place to take it is the throne of grace. Handing the matter to God frees us from the exhausting work of settling scores (1 Peter 2:23).

It calls us to pray for repentance as well as for justice. The shame we ask God to bring on those who oppose Him may be the very means by which He turns them to Himself (Psalm 83:16). Jesus commands, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:44), and Christians pray Psalm 70:2–3 within that command, asking that God’s justice be done and that mercy, if it pleases Him, come first.

Finally, it exposes our own hearts. Before we pray against those who say “Aha,” we should ask whether we have said it. To rejoice when an enemy stumbles is itself condemned (Proverbs 24:17–18), and the gospel humbles us: we too were once enemies whom God reconciled by the death of His Son (Romans 5:10).

A warning against misapplication: these verses never license personal hatred, revenge, or praying harm upon a spouse, a neighbor, a church member or a political opponent. They are the prayer of the LORD’s anointed against those who set themselves against God’s purposes, and they hand all vengeance to God. Where someone is being harmed or threatened, the psalm legitimizes crying out and seeking safety; it does not require anyone to stay in danger, and abuse should be reported to the civil authorities God has appointed (Romans 13:4).

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Section 3 — Let All Who Seek You Rejoice (Psalm 70:4)

Key Insight

The psalm now turns from enemies to friends: “May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, ‘God is great!’” (v. 4). The structure is a deliberate contrast. Calvin saw it in the parallel verse: “Formerly David had said that the wicked sought his life; now he ascribes to the faithful quite a contrary feeling, namely, that they seek God” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:16). The same verb, baqash, describes both groups (vv. 2, 4). Everyone is seeking something; the question is whether a man seeks another’s ruin or seeks God. The two groups also have two sayings. The mockers say, “Aha, Aha!” (v. 3); the faithful say, “God is great!” (v. 4).

Joy in God Himself. Two verbs for joy are joined, sus (to be bright, cheerful) and samach (to be glad), and their object is not deliverance in the abstract but God: “be glad in you” (v. 4). The cross-reference is Psalm 105, “let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!” (Psalm 105:3). Matthew Henry draws the pastoral point: “There is pleasure and joy even in seeking God” (Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 70:4). The seeker does not have to wait until the search is over to be glad; the seeking is itself a sign of God’s favor.

Those who love Your salvation. The faithful are further described as those who “love your salvation.” The word yeshuah means deliverance, and it shares its root with the names Joshua and Jesus (Matthew 1:21). Spurgeon preached a whole sermon on this clause, observing that “We may admire the salvation which is preached, but we shall only love the salvation which is experienced” (Spurgeon, Our Watchword, Sermon No. 1013). To love God’s salvation is to have received it, to delight in its way and to want nothing else in its place.

Saying it evermore. Their speech is constant: tamid, evermore, the same word used of the regular daily offering. What they say is yigdal Elohim, which the ESV renders “God is great!” and the older versions rendered as a wish, let God be magnified. Psalm 40:16 has “Great is the LORD!” (Psalm 40:16), with the covenant name. Either way, the saying is a confession and a prayer that God’s greatness be seen and acknowledged.

One deliverance, many glad. Why does David’s personal prayer widen to include “all who seek you”? Calvin answers: “David, therefore, shows that he asks nothing for himself individually but what pertains to the whole Church” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:16). When God delivers one of His children, all His children have reason to rejoice, because they see in that deliverance how He will deal with them (Psalm 34:3).

Christ, the salvation they love. The salvation the faithful love is finally a Person. Simeon took the infant Jesus in his arms and blessed God for the salvation he had seen (Luke 2:30). Mary sang, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” (Luke 1:46). Facing the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, glorify your name.” (John 12:28), and the Father answered. When God raised His Son, the deliverance of the one became the joy of the many: “the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20). Every believer who seeks God in Christ is given a share in that gladness, and a mouth to say that God is great.

Application

This verse confronts us with a question about what we are seeking. The enemies sought David’s life; the faithful seek God. Many of us seek God’s gifts — health, success, relief — more than we seek God Himself. Psalm 70:4 calls us to make God the object of our desire and the source of our gladness (Psalm 73:25).

It also asks whether we love salvation or merely want it. It is possible to want to escape judgment without loving the God who saves, or the holiness that salvation produces. Those who love God’s salvation prize Christ, delight in grace and long to be made holy (Titus 2:11–14).

It shapes our speech. The faithful “say evermore, ‘God is great!’” (v. 4). What we say continually reveals the master-thought of our minds (Luke 6:45). Christians should form the habit of naming God’s greatness aloud: thanking Him at meals with specific mention of answered prayers, telling a small group what He has done this week, responding to good news with praise rather than mere relief.

It builds the communion of saints. When one believer is delivered, all should rejoice (Romans 12:15). We should share our answered prayers with the church so that others may be encouraged, and we should rejoice genuinely when God blesses someone else, even when our own prayers are still waiting.

A warning against misapplication: the joy of verse 4 is not forced cheerfulness that denies sorrow. David prays this verse in the middle of trouble, with enemies still pressing, and verse 5 returns at once to his need. Those who are grieving should never be told that lament is unspiritual. Nor should “God is great!” become a slogan of triumph over others; it is the confession of needy people who have been saved by grace.

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Section 4 — Poor and Needy, Yet Holding Fast to God (Psalm 70:5)

Key Insight

The psalm closes where every true prayer must begin: “But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!” (v. 5). The opening “But I” sets David apart both from the mockers of verse 3 and from the rejoicing company of verse 4. He longs to join their song, but for now he stands in his need.

Poor and needy. The pair ani and ebyon recurs throughout the Psalms (Psalm 40:17; 86:1; 109:22). Ani is the afflicted, lowly one, bowed down in mind or circumstances; ebyon is the destitute, the beggar who has nothing to offer. Though David was a king, he comes to God as a beggar. Spurgeon called this the soul confessing, and he saw in it the secret of prevailing prayer: “Necessity is the very best plea with benevolence, either human or divine” (Spurgeon, Pleading, Sermon No. 1018). The plea is not “I deserve help” but “I need help.” Calvin, on the parallel verse, adds that “our miseries in no respect produce on the part of God a feeling of weariness towards us” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:17). Our need does not tire God; it draws His mercy.

From confidence to petition. Psalm 40 had said, “As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.” (Psalm 40:17). Psalm 70 changes the second clause into a prayer: “hasten to me, O God!” (v. 5). Keil observes that “the hope is turned into petition” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, on 70:5). The confidence has not been abandoned; it has been put to work. Faith that once said “God thinks on me” now says “God, come to me,” because the trouble is pressing and the answer has not yet arrived. The verb chush returns from verse 1, framing the psalm with urgency.

My help and my deliverer. The closing confession grasps God with both hands. Ezer is help; the participle from palat means one who brings to safety, who causes to escape. Spurgeon delighted in the pronouns: “The sweetness of the Bible lies in the possessive pronouns” (Spurgeon, Pleading, Sermon No. 1018). David does not say God is a help but my help. The covenant relationship is the ground of the plea (Psalm 18:2).

Do not delay. The last petition, al-teachar, asks God not to linger or be late, and the final word of the psalm is the covenant name, YHWH. The psalm ends without recording an answer. It leaves the petitioner, and the church that prays after him, in the posture of expectant waiting (Habakkuk 2:3).

Christ, who became poor. The poor and needy king points to the King who “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus had nowhere to lay His head (Matthew 8:20), was despised and rejected (Isaiah 53:3), and on the cross was stripped of everything. God did not delay at the appointed hour: on the third day He raised His Son. The first word of Jesus’ public teaching blessed those who stand where David stands: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3). And the church, still waiting, prays the last line of this psalm in the words of the last prayer of the Bible: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

Application

Psalm 70:5 teaches us to come to God as beggars, not as creditors. Spiritual pride says, “I have served You, so help me.” Faith says, “I am poor and needy; help me.” Before we ask God for anything, we should lay down every claim of merit and come with empty hands (Luke 18:13–14). Confession of need is not the obstacle to answered prayer; it is the doorway.

It teaches us to make our need our argument. When we feel most unworthy to pray, we are often closest to the posture God welcomes. A believer struggling with a besetting sin, a family facing financial ruin, a person sunk in depression, need not first fix themselves before they pray. They may say exactly what David said. Alongside prayer, they should also seek the help of the church, of wise counselors and, where needed, of doctors; God ordinarily helps the needy through other people (Galatians 6:2).

It teaches us to grasp God personally. “You are my help and my deliverer” (v. 5) is the language of faith that has let go of every other support. Spurgeon warned that we cannot hold two helpers in the same hand.

It teaches us to wait without despair. The psalm ends with “do not delay!” and no recorded answer. We may end our prayers with honest longing, and still trust (2 Peter 3:9).

And it calls us to care for the poor and needy around us, since God has made Himself their defender (Psalm 72:12–13; James 2:15–16).

A warning against misapplication: “poor and needy” does not teach that material poverty is itself a virtue, nor does it promise that God will remove every hardship on our timetable. There is no prosperity reading here; the psalm ends still waiting. Neither does confessing our poverty mean despising ourselves. The believer who says “I am poor and needy” is at the same time the beloved child of God, whose help and deliverer is the LORD.

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Cross References

Comparative Gospel Study

Not Applicable as Direct Comparison — Psalms is an Old Testament book of prayer and song, and Psalm 70 an individual lament, not Gospel narrative. However, Psalm 70 anticipates key Gospel themes:

• The Son’s urgent cry. The Gospels record Jesus praying in Gethsemane with an urgency that surpasses David’s (Matthew 26:36–44; Luke 22:44). Hebrews summarizes that agony: He prayed “with loud cries and tears,” (Hebrews 5:7) to the Father who could save Him from death. Psalm 70:1 gives the church the words of that kind of prayer, and the Gospels show the One who prayed it perfectly and was heard in His resurrection.
• The mockers’ “Aha!” The gloating of Psalm 70:3 is heard again at the cross: “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘Aha!’” (Mark 15:29). The chief priests used the very vocabulary of deliverance as a taunt (Matthew 27:43). The psalm’s prayer that the mockers be turned back is answered on Easter morning, when their triumph is overturned.
• Repeating the same prayer. Psalm 70 reuses an earlier prayer for a new trouble. In Gethsemane Jesus “prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.” (Matthew 26:44). Matthew Henry connects the two directly, noting that “our Saviour in his agony prayed thrice, saying the same words” (Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 70:1). Repetition offered in faith is not vain repetition.
• Blessed are the poor. David’s confession “I am poor and needy” (v. 5) anticipates the first Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3). The Gospels are full of the poor and needy who cry to Jesus — blind Bartimaeus calling out and refusing to be silenced (Mark 10:46–52), the Canaanite woman pleading for her daughter (Matthew 15:21–28) — and He does not turn them away.
• The God who will not delay long. The closing petition, “do not delay!” (v. 5), is answered in Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow, which ends with a promise: “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?” (Luke 18:7). The Gospel teaches the church to keep praying Psalm 70 and not lose heart.
• Magnifying God for His salvation. Those who love God’s salvation say evermore that He is great (v. 4). In Luke’s Gospel, Mary responds to the announcement of the Savior with exactly this posture: “My soul magnifies the Lord,” (Luke 1:46). Simeon, holding the child, blesses God for the salvation his eyes have seen (Luke 2:28–32).

Old Testament Connections

Pentateuch

• The superscription “for the memorial offering” connects the psalm with the azkarah, the memorial portion of the grain offering: “and the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.” (Leviticus 2:2). Prayer rises to God like the smoke of the offering (compare Psalm 141:2).
• God’s response to the cry of the needy is established at the exodus: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt” (Exodus 3:7). The God who heard Israel’s groaning (Exodus 2:23–25) is the God David asks to make haste.
• Jacob at the Jabbok models the persistent grip of verse 5: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26). Spurgeon drew on this scene in his sermon on Psalm 70:5.
• God’s promise to Abraham to curse those who curse him (Genesis 12:3) stands behind the prayer that the enemies of God’s anointed be turned back.

Historical Books

• The verb of the superscription, lehazkir, appears in David’s appointment of the Levites “to invoke, to thank, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel.” (1 Chronicles 16:4), showing that petition, thanksgiving and praise belonged together in Israel’s worship.
• David’s years of flight from Saul and later from Absalom (1 Samuel 19–26; 2 Samuel 15–18) supply the kind of setting the psalm presupposes, though no single occasion is named. His refusal to strike Saul (1 Samuel 24:6; 26:9) shows that his prayers against enemies were not private vengeance.
• Nehemiah’s silent prayer before the king (Nehemiah 2:4) is a historical example of the short, urgent cry that Psalm 70:1 models.

Wisdom Literature

• Psalm 40:13–17 is the source of Psalm 70, and comparing the two shows how inspired prayers were adapted for new use.
• The cry “make haste” recurs in Psalm 22:19, Psalm 38:22, Psalm 71:12 and Psalm 141:1; in each the sufferer asks God to hurry to his aid. Psalm 38 shares Psalm 70’s superscription.
• The gloating “Aha, Aha!” appears in Psalm 35:21 and Psalm 40:15.
• “Poor and needy” recurs in Psalm 40:17, Psalm 86:1 and Psalm 109:22, and the king’s duty to defend them is the theme of Psalm 72:12–14.
• Proverbs forbids the very gloating the psalm condemns (Proverbs 24:17–18).

Major Prophets

• The LORD invites His people to “remind” Him: “Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case, that you may be proved right.” (Isaiah 43:26), the posture Henry finds in the superscription.
• Isaiah balances urgent prayer with patient faith: “Whoever believes will not be in haste” (Isaiah 28:16).
• The Servant of the LORD is “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” (Isaiah 53:3), the fullest portrait of the poor and needy sufferer whom God vindicates.

Minor Prophets

• Habakkuk’s complaint, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2), echoes the urgency of Psalm 70, and God’s answer teaches the waiting the psalm requires: “If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:3).
• Ezekiel’s oracles against the nations condemn those who said “Aha!” over Jerusalem’s fall (Ezekiel 25:3; 26:2), showing that God hears the gloating of His people’s enemies.

New Testament Fulfillment

Gospels and Acts

• Jesus prays with urgency in Gethsemane, repeating the same words (Matthew 26:44), and is mocked at the cross with the cry of Psalm 70:3 (Mark 15:29).
• The mockers taunt Him with the language of deliverance (Matthew 27:43), and God answers by raising Him from the dead (Acts 2:24).
• Jesus blesses the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) and promises that God will not delay long over His elect (Luke 18:7).
• At Pentecost many who had joined in the derision were cut to the heart and turned to the Lord (Acts 2:36–41), an answer to the prayer that shame might lead to seeking God.

Paul’s Epistles

• Christ became poor that we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9), and His strength is made perfect in our weakness: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
• When we do not know how to pray, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” (Romans 8:26).
• Believers hand all vengeance to God (Romans 12:19) and bring every need to Him in prayer (Philippians 4:6).
• God exalted the humiliated Christ so that every knee will bow (Philippians 2:9–11), the final turning back of every mocker.

General Epistles and Revelation

• Christ “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears,” (Hebrews 5:7) and now lives to intercede: “he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25).
• Because of Him the needy may “find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16), and say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6).
• The apparent delay of God is explained: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:9).
• The martyrs under the altar cry to the “Sovereign Lord, holy and true,” (Revelation 6:10) for justice, and the Bible’s last prayer is the church’s version of Psalm 70:5: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

Redemptive-Historical Context

Psalm 70 is a small window onto the whole story of redemption. In creation, God made humanity to depend on Him, to receive every good from His hand and to answer with praise. The woman was made as a helper (ezer) for the man (Genesis 2:18), but above both stood the God who is the true Help of His creatures. In the fall, humanity turned from dependence to self-reliance, and the result was a world of enemies, mockery and need. Cain’s hatred of Abel (Genesis 4:8) began the long history of those who “seek my life” (v. 2) and “delight in my hurt” (v. 2). Every cry of the poor and needy since then is an echo of the fall.

In redemption, God did not wait for humanity to climb back to Him. He came down. He heard Israel’s groaning in Egypt (Exodus 3:7), raised up judges and kings, and made a covenant with David (2 Samuel 7:12–16). Yet the Davidic king himself prayed as a beggar. Psalm 70 shows that the anointed one through whom God would bless His people was a needy man, hunted and mocked, crying “make haste.” That paradox could not be resolved by David. It was resolved in Jesus Christ, the Son of David, who became poor (2 Corinthians 8:9), was mocked with the “Aha” of the passers-by (Mark 15:29), prayed with loud cries and tears (Hebrews 5:7), and was heard. God did not delay: on the third day He raised Him and set Him at His right hand (Acts 2:24, 33). In Christ the prayer of Psalm 70 is answered in its deepest sense. The mockers are turned back, those who seek God rejoice, and the poor and needy One is exalted as the Help and Deliverer of all who call on Him.

The psalm also establishes patterns for understanding God’s dealings with His people. God’s people are often poor and needy before they are delivered; God’s help often seems slow before it comes; God’s deliverance of one becomes the joy of many; and God turns the shame intended for His servants back upon those who intended it. These patterns run from Joseph (Genesis 50:20) through David to Christ and His church.

The psalm also holds the already and not yet of the New Covenant. Already, Christ has been delivered and exalted, and in Him every believer is united to the One whose prayer was heard. Already the Spirit helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26), and we may come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). Not yet, however, have all enemies been turned back; the church is still mocked, still poor in many ways, still waiting. That is why the psalm ends with “do not delay!” (v. 5) rather than with a song of victory. The New Testament keeps that ending open, closing with the prayer “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20). At the consummation, the last enemy will be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26), the poor will inherit the kingdom, and all who love God’s salvation will say evermore, without interruption or shadow, that God is great.

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Systematic Theology Connection

Prayer as a Means of Grace

Psalm 70 is prayer in its most concentrated form, and it illustrates nearly every element of the Reformed doctrine of prayer. The Shorter Catechism defines it: “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies” (WSC 98). David offers his desires — rescue, help, the defeat of malice, the joy of the faithful — and all of them are agreeable to God’s revealed will. His confession “I am poor and needy” (v. 5) is the humility the Larger Catechism requires when it teaches that we are to pray “with an awful apprehension of the majesty of God, and deep sense of our own unworthiness, necessities, and sins” (WLC 185). The same answer adds that we pray “with understanding, faith, sincerity, fervency, love, and perseverance, waiting upon him, with humble submission to his will” (WLC 185). Psalm 70 combines fervency (“make haste”) with waiting (“do not delay”), and so displays both halves of that answer.

The Confession places prayer within worship: “Prayer, with thanksgiving, being one special part of religious worship, is by God required of all men” (WCF 21.3). Psalm 70 was given a liturgical rubric for the memorial offering; it was not only a private cry but part of Israel’s public worship.

Prayer is also a means by which God gives grace. He has ordained that He will help His people in answer to their asking (Matthew 7:7–11). The Heidelberg Catechism adds that prayer is “the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 116), and Psalm 70:4 shows petition flowing directly into praise.

The practical implication is that believers should pray often, using Scripture’s own words, in the name of Christ who “always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25). The Shorter Catechism teaches us to draw near to God “as children to a father able and ready to help us” (WSC 100), which is exactly the confidence of “You are my help and my deliverer” (v. 5).

The Providence of God

The cry “make haste” assumes that God governs time and circumstance, and that the timing of deliverance is in His hands. The Westminster Confession teaches that God “doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence” (WCF 5.1). David does not pray to a distant deity who might be unable to help, but to the One who rules the very enemies who seek his life.

Providence also explains the apparent delay that Psalm 70 laments. The Confession acknowledges that “The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave, for a season, his own children to manifold temptations” (WCF 5.5), and among the holy ends of such seasons it names this: “to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself” (WCF 5.5). The poverty and need of verse 5 are, under God’s providence, the very means by which David is driven to cling to God alone. Matthew Henry makes the same point: “Sometimes God seems to delay helping his own people, that he may excite such earnest desires as these” (Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 70:5).

Providence extends to the wicked as well. The enemies’ plans are not outside God’s rule; He can turn them back and bring their own shame upon them (vv. 2–3), and He disposes all things for the good of His people: “As the providence of God doth, in general, reach to all creatures; so, after a most special manner, it taketh care of his church, and disposeth all things to the good thereof” (WCF 5.7). Paul says the same (Romans 8:28).

The practical implications are patience and courage. Believers may cry for speed, because God invites it, while trusting that His timing is wise. They need not fear their enemies, because their enemies are in God’s hand (Genesis 50:20; Acts 4:27–28).

The Glory of God as Man’s Chief End

Psalm 70:4 gives the redeemed a saying to repeat evermore: “God is great!” (v. 4). This is the Reformed doctrine of the chief end of man in a single phrase. The Shorter Catechism begins: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” (WSC 1). Psalm 70:4 joins both halves. Those who seek God “rejoice and be glad in you” (v. 4) — they enjoy Him; and they say that He is great — they glorify Him. The Larger Catechism uses still fuller language: “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever” (WLC 1).

The psalm also shows that God’s glory is the goal of His saving acts. David asks for deliverance, but the purpose of deliverance is that God be magnified. The Lord’s Prayer begins in the same place; in the first petition “we pray that God would enable us and others to glorify him in all that whereby he maketh himself known; and that he would dispose all things to his own glory” (WSC 101). Spurgeon drew the connection in his sermon on this verse: “From beginning to end salvation is of the Lord, therefore, let God be magnified” (Spurgeon, Our Watchword, Sermon No. 1013).

This doctrine guards against two distortions. One makes salvation chiefly about human happiness, so that God becomes a means to our ends. The other makes God’s glory cold and joyless. Psalm 70:4 refuses both: God is glorified in the gladness of those who seek Him (Psalm 115:1; 1 Corinthians 10:31).

The practical implication is that every answered prayer should end in praise, and every Christian’s speech should be marked by the habit of naming God’s greatness. Those who love His salvation will want others to see and say what they have seen.

The Humiliation and Exaltation of Christ

The poor and needy king of Psalm 70 is a type of the Son of David, who entered the lowest condition in order to save His people. The Shorter Catechism defines that humiliation: “Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross” (WSC 27). The Larger Catechism adds that He humbled Himself “by conflicting with the indignities of the world, temptations of Satan, and infirmities in his flesh” (WLC 48). The mockers’ “Aha!” (v. 3) is one of those indignities, and it was hurled at Christ on the cross (Mark 15:29).

Christ prayed as the poor and needy one. In the days of His flesh He “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears,” (Hebrews 5:7). He was heard not by escaping death but by passing through it to resurrection. That is His exaltation: “Christ’s exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day” (WSC 28).

The psalm traces the same arc in miniature: from need and mockery to the hope of deliverance and the magnifying of God. It points beyond David to the One in whom the arc is complete (Philippians 2:5–11).

The practical implications are comfort and imitation. Believers who are poor, mocked or waiting may know that their Savior has been there before them and “is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). They may also expect that the path of the Christian, like the path of Christ, runs through humiliation to glory (Romans 8:17).

The Communion of Saints

Psalm 70 moves from “me” (v. 1) to “all who seek you” (v. 4). One believer’s deliverance becomes the joy of the whole company of the faithful. This is the doctrine of the communion of saints. The Westminster Confession teaches that “All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory” (WCF 26.1). Because believers are united to Christ, whose cry was heard and who was raised, they share in the joy of His deliverance.

The Confession continues that the saints, “being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces” (WCF 26.1). When David prays for the gladness of all who seek God, he expresses this mutual communion. Calvin’s comment on the parallel verse is that David “asks nothing for himself individually but what pertains to the whole Church” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:16).

The communion of saints also carries practical duties. The Confession says that saints “are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God” and are bound to be “relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities” (WCF 26.2). The “poor and needy” of verse 5 are not to be left to pray alone; the church is called to be one of the means by which God hastens to help them (Galatians 6:2; James 2:15–16).

The practical implications are that believers should share their burdens and their answered prayers with one another, rejoice when others are delivered, pray for the needy in the congregation, and give tangibly to relieve them (Romans 12:15; 1 Corinthians 12:26).

The Last Judgment

The prayer that the mockers be “put to shame and confusion” and “turned back” (vv. 2–3) looks forward to the day when God will judge the world in righteousness. The Westminster Confession states: “God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father” (WCF 33.1). In that day the prayer of Psalm 70 will be fully answered: those who delighted in the hurt of God’s people and refused to repent will be turned back in final shame, and those who sought God will rejoice.

The Confession explains that God has appointed this day for “the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice, in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient” (WCF 33.2). Psalm 70:4 anticipates the first; Psalm 70:2–3 the second. The judgment is not vindictive but righteous, for it is administered by Christ, who prayed for His enemies (Luke 23:34).

The doctrine of the last judgment is also the reason believers can leave vengeance to God (Romans 12:19). The Confession teaches that Christ would have us persuaded of that day “for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity” (WCF 33.3). That is exactly the consolation David reaches for in Psalm 70.

Finally, the closing petition of the psalm, “do not delay!” (v. 5), matches the Confession’s closing words: Christ keeps the day unknown so that His people “may be ever prepared to say, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen” (WCF 33.3). The practical implications are patience under injustice, refusal of personal revenge, earnest evangelism of those who now mock, and a steady longing for Christ’s return (2 Peter 3:9; Revelation 22:20).

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Reformed Theology

Reformed theology reads Psalm 70 within the one covenant of grace, administered under the Mosaic economy in David’s day and now under the New Covenant in Christ. The God whom David calls “my help and my deliverer” (v. 5) is the same God who has bound Himself to His people in every age, and the church prays this psalm not as a borrowed relic of Israel but as its own prayer book. The “all who seek you” of verse 4 is the one people of God, Israel and the church, gathered in the one Mediator (Galatians 3:29; Ephesians 2:19–22).

The Psalter as the prayer book of Christ and His church. Following Augustine’s reading of the psalms as the voice of the whole Christ, head and body, Reformed interpreters see Psalm 70 first as David’s prayer, then as the prayer of the greater David, and then as the prayer of all united to Him. Geerhardus Vos taught that Israel’s anointed figures bear a promise moving toward Christ. Because Psalm 70 is drawn from Psalm 40, whose central confession Hebrews places on Christ’s lips (Hebrews 10:5–7), the Christological reading arises from the New Testament’s own use of the parent psalm. Gill went so far as to say that “it is right to understand this of him” (Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible, on 70:1), though Calvin and most Reformed commentators keep David’s historical voice in the foreground and see Christ typologically.

Prayer grounded in God’s promise. Calvin insists that pleading with God is not a means of informing or persuading Him but of strengthening faith: the arguments of the psalm are given “not that it is necessary to allege reasons to persuade God, but because it is profitable to confirm our faith by such supports” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:16). This is the Reformed understanding of prayer as a means of grace: God ordains both the end and the means, and the prayers of His people are among the means by which He accomplishes His purposes. The Heidelberg Catechism calls prayer “the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 116), and the Shorter Catechism teaches us to come “as children to a father able and ready to help us” (WSC 100).

The imprecations. Reformed commentators refuse two errors: dismissing these prayers as sub-Christian, and using them to sanctify anger. Calvin’s guard is typical: no one giving loose reins to his passions should “allege the example of David in palliation or excuse” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 40:13). The prayer belongs to the LORD’s anointed and hands judgment to God (Romans 12:19).

Reuse and liturgy. That Psalm 70 is an adapted extract of Psalm 40 supports the Reformed conviction that Scripture itself supplies the forms of worship. Matthew Henry notes that “it may be of use sometimes to pray over the prayers we have formerly made to God upon similar occasions, which may be done with new affections” (Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 70:1). A translator’s note in the Calvin Translation Society’s Harmony of the Law preserves Luther’s complaint about a village priest who mumbled the Latin form of verse 1 while giving orders to his servants, evidence of the verse’s place in the medieval daily office and of the Reformers’ insistence that it be prayed from the heart.

Representative voices. Derek Kidner treats Psalm 70 as an emergency prayer; O. Palmer Robertson notes its place among the closing Davidic laments of Book II; Spurgeon’s sermons Pleading and Our Watchword remain rich Reformed expositions of it.

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Dispensational Theology

Dispensational theology approaches Psalm 70 with its characteristic literal-grammatical hermeneutic and its distinction between God’s program for Israel and His program for the church. Its first concern is to read the psalm in its historical setting: a prayer of David, king of Israel under the Mosaic dispensation (the dispensation of law), facing personal enemies who threatened his life and his throne. The interpretation of the psalm belongs to David and to Israel; the church, living in the dispensation of grace, draws application from it — principles of prayer, dependence and praise — without claiming that the psalm was written about the church.

Interpretation and application. Charles Ryrie emphasized the importance of distinguishing the one interpretation of a passage from its many applications. Applied to Psalm 70, this means that the enemies of verses 2–3 are David’s historical enemies, and the “all who seek you” of verse 4 is the godly community of Israel, while Christians today legitimately learn from David how to pray in urgent need. Dispensational writers share with Reformed writers the conviction that the psalm teaches the believer to bring his poverty to God and to wait for His help (Philippians 4:6; Hebrews 4:16).

The godly remnant. A distinctive emphasis of classic dispensational interpretation, found in C. I. Scofield’s notes on the Psalms, in J. N. Darby’s Synopsis and especially in A. C. Gaebelein’s commentary on the Psalms, is that many psalms of distress have a prophetic dimension: they voice the experience of the believing remnant of Israel in the future tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7; Matthew 24:21). On this reading, the urgent “make haste” and the closing “do not delay!” (v. 5) anticipate the cry of the faithful Jewish remnant, persecuted by the nations and by apostate Israel, longing for the Messiah’s appearing. The mockers who say “Aha” foreshadow the enemies who will be put to shame at His return, and the rejoicing of those who seek God anticipates Israel’s national joy when the Deliverer comes from Zion (Romans 11:26).

Messianic overtones. Dispensational interpreters such as John Walvoord and J. Dwight Pentecost also recognize that Psalm 40, the parent of Psalm 70, is applied to Christ in Hebrews 10:5–7, and they see the sufferings of David as foreshadowing the sufferings of the Messiah at His first coming. The distinctively dispensational emphasis is on the future, literal fulfillment: the full vindication of the poor and needy and the final turning back of the enemies belong to the millennial kingdom, when the Davidic King reigns on the earth and defends the poor (Psalm 72:12–14; Isaiah 11:4).

Progressive dispensationalism. More recent dispensational scholars, notably Craig Blaising and Darrell Bock, see greater continuity between Israel and the church. They argue that the Davidic covenant has been inaugurated in Christ’s resurrection and session at God’s right hand (Acts 2:30–36), so that the church already shares in the blessings for which Psalm 70 prays, while the full national and earthly fulfillment for Israel awaits Christ’s return.

Points of agreement and difference. Dispensational and Reformed readers agree that Psalm 70 teaches urgent, humble prayer, the defeat of God’s enemies and the joy of the redeemed. They differ chiefly in whether the “all who seek you” of verse 4 finds its fulfillment in one people of God, the church gathered from Jew and Gentile, or in a distinct future for national Israel alongside the church.

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Bibliography

Commentaries

• Barnes, Albert. Notes on the Bible: Psalms. 1834.
• Calvin, John. Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Translated by James Anderson. Calvin Translation Society, 1845–1849.
• Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony. Calvin Translation Society, 1852–1855.
• Gill, John. Exposition of the Entire Bible. 1746–1763.
• Henry, Matthew. Commentary on the Whole Bible. 1706.
• Keil, C. F., and F. Delitzsch. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Psalms. 1857–1878.
• Kidner, Derek. Psalms 1–72. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries.
• Poole, Matthew. Annotations upon the Holy Bible. 1683–1685.
• Robertson, O. Palmer. The Flow of the Psalms.
• The Pulpit Commentary: Psalms. Edited by H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell.

Sermons and Devotional Works

• Spurgeon, C. H. Our Watchword. Sermon No. 1013, preached October 1, 1871. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 17.
• Spurgeon, C. H. Pleading. Sermon No. 1018, preached October 29, 1871. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 17.

Confessional Standards

• The Westminster Confession of Faith. 1646.
• The Westminster Larger Catechism. 1647.
• The Westminster Shorter Catechism. 1647.
• The Heidelberg Catechism. 1563.

Historical and Background Works

• Edersheim, Alfred. The Temple: Its Ministry and Services. 1874.

Theological Works

• Ferguson, Sinclair B. The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction.
• Sproul, R. C. Does Prayer Change Things?
• Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments.

Dispensational Works

• Blaising, Craig A., and Darrell L. Bock. Progressive Dispensationalism.
• Darby, J. N. Synopsis of the Books of the Bible.
• Gaebelein, A. C. The Book of Psalms: A Devotional and Prophetic Commentary.
• Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come.
• Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism.
• Scofield, C. I., ed. The Scofield Reference Bible. 1917.
• Walvoord, John F. The Millennial Kingdom.