The last verse of Psalm 70 is what I call the psalmist's most basic beliefs or persuasion. It has two parts: 1) that he is "poor and needy"; and 2) that God is his "help and deliverer.”
Yesterday we looked at the first two of David’s prayers in Psalm 70. The first was for himself (that he might experience a quick deliverance). And the second was for his enemies (that they might be ashamed and confused). Today we'll look at the third prayer.
What do you do in such desperate times? The answer for those who know God is to pray, turning to God. For however desperate the situation seems to us, we can know that it is never desperate for God, but rather is under his control. This is why Paul told the Philippians, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6, 7).
What is immediately apparent about Psalm 70 is that the writer is in serious trouble and that he is calling on God to help him quickly before it is too late. We do not know what his trouble was, though it clearly had to do with enemies who were not only mocking him, saying, “Aha! Aha!” (v. 3), but were also seeking to take his life (v. 2). With the exception of the years in which David was hiding from King Saul and the time, much later, when he was forced to flee Jerusalem due to the rebellion of his son Absalom, we do not know what these specific dangers might have been. But we discern from this as well as from other psalms that David faced such dangers much of the time.
For the second time in our study of the psalms we come to a psalm that is a virtual repetition of words found earlier. The first time this happened was more obvious, because it involved the almost exact duplication of an earlier psalm, namely, the duplication of Psalm 14 as Psalm 53. This psalm we are looking at repeats only a portion of an earlier psalm. It is a repetition of verses 13-17 from Psalm 40. Nevertheless, it is a repetition, which makes us ask about the relationship between the two psalms as well as question whether there is any reason for the several slight differences that exist.
