1 {To the chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David: to bring to remembrance.} Make haste, O God, to deliver me; Jehovah, [hasten] to my help.
Be pleased, O Jehovah, to deliver me; Jehovah, make haste to my help. Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be turned backward and confounded that take pleasure in mine adversity; Let them be desolate, because of their shame, that say unto me, Aha! Aha! Let all those that seek thee be glad and rejoice in thee; let such as love thy salvation say continually, Jehovah be magnified! But I am afflicted and needy: the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help and my deliverer: my God, make no delay.
{A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.} Jehovah, rebuke me not in thy wrath; neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
And Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me, I pray, choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David to-night; and I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only; and I will bring back all the people to thee. The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: all the people shall be in peace. And the saying was right in the eyes of Absalom, and in the eyes of all the elders of Israel. And Absalom said, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and we will hear also what he says. And Hushai came to Absalom, and Absalom spoke to him saying, Ahithophel has spoken after this manner: shall we carry out his word? If not, speak thou. And Hushai said to Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel has given this time is not good. And Hushai said, Thou knowest thy father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are of exasperated spirit, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field; and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people. Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or some such place; and it will come to pass, when some of them fall at the first, whoever heareth it will say, There has been slaughter among the people that follow Absalom, and even the valiant man whose heart is as the heart of a lion shall utterly melt; for all Israel knows that thy father is a mighty man, and they that are with him are valiant men. But I counsel that all Israel be speedily gathered to thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person. And we shall come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falls on the ground; and of him and of all the men that are with him there shall not be left so much as one. And if he withdraw into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the torrent, until there be not one small stone found there. And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. And Jehovah had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, in order that Jehovah might bring evil upon Absalom. And Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, Thus and thus did Ahithophel counsel Absalom and the elders of Israel; and thus and thus have I counselled. And now send quickly, and tell David saying, Lodge not this night in the plains of the wilderness, but speedily pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people that are with him. And Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed by En-rogel; and the maid went and told them; and they went and told king David, for they might not be seen to come into the city. But a lad saw them, and told Absalom. Then they went both of them away quickly, and came to the house of a man at Bahurim, who had a well in his court; and they went down there. And the woman took and spread the covering over the well's mouth, and spread ground corn on it; and the thing was not known. And Absalom's servants came to the woman to the house, and said, Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan? And the woman said to them, They have gone over the brook of water. And they sought and could not find [them], and returned to Jerusalem. And it came to pass after they had departed, that they came up out of the well, and went and told king David; and they said to David, Arise and pass quickly over the water; for thus has Ahithophel counselled against you.
Draw nigh unto my soul, be its redeemer; ransom me because of mine enemies.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 70
Commentary on Psalms 70 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Cry of a Persecuted One for Help
This short Psalm, placed after Ps 69 on account of the kindred nature of its contents (cf. more especially v. 6 with Psalms 69:30), is, with but few deviations, a repetition of Psalms 40:14. This portion of the second half of Ps 40 is detached from it and converted into the Elohimic style. Concerning להזכּיר , at the presentation of the memorial portion of the mincha , vid., Psalms 38:1. It is obvious that David himself is not the author of the Psalm in this stunted form. The לדוד is moreover justified, if he composed the original Psalm which is here modified and appropriated to a special liturgical use.
We see at once at the very beginning, in the omission of the רצה (Psalms 40:14), that what we have here before us is a fragment of Ps 40, and perhaps a fragment that only accidentally came to have an independent existence. The להצּילני , which was under the government of רצה , now belongs to הוּשׁה , and the construction is without example elsewhere. In Psalms 70:3 (= Psalms 40:15) יחד and לספּותהּ are given up entirely; the original is more full-toned and soaring. Instead of ישׁמּוּ , torpescant , Psalms 70:4 has ישׁוּבוּ , recedant (as in Ps 6:11, cf. Psalms 9:18), which is all the more flat for coming after יסגו אחור . In Psalms 70:4 , after ויאמרים the לי , which cannot here (cf. on the contrary, Psalms 35:21) be dispensed with, is wanting.
ויאמרו instead of יאמרו is unimportant. But since the divine name Jahve is now for once chosen side by side with Elohim , it certainly had a strong claim to be retained in Psalms 70:5 . Instead of תּשׁועתך we have ישׁועתך here; instead of עזרתי , here עזרי . And instead of אדני יחשׁב לי we have here אלהים חוּשׁה־לּי - the hope is turned into petition: make haste unto me , is an innovation in expression that is caused by the taking over of the לי .