Psalms of David
Psalm 70 is the same as Psalm 40 verses 13-17. The psalm previou to it, Psalm 69, also mentions the miry bog or bog hole, so there is a connection between that psalm and this one.
I started looking at the Psalms in Book 1 of the Psalms just over a year ago, in July 2022. By coincidence, my church, Holy Trinity Church, Huddersfield, is looking at a small selection of psalms during our services in the summer of 2023, and Psalm 40 will be preached at the services of Sunday 30th July, the day before this post will be published.
I could wait and see what is preached, but no, what I write about will be different. My autistic brain looks for patterns and structure in things, and I expect what I write to be different from what is preached. There is always room to hear a different voice. There is more than one way to look at scripture.
So I write this, my autistic mind’s take on and will also add my notes on the sermon, either as a footnote at the end of this post or if it is longer, as a separate post. (Edit to add: It is a separate post.)
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Psalms in Book 1 (Psalms 1 to 41) are primarily personal songs, so I will look at how they apply to us personally. Social and communal aspects of life and work do not come in until the later books of Psalms.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The books of Psalms are roughly themed like this:
Book 1: Psalms 1 – 41: God is beside us.
Book 2: Psalms 42 – 72: God goes before us
Book 3: Psalms 73 – 89: God is all around us.
Book 4: Psalms 90 – 106: God is above us.
Book 5: Psalms 107 – 150: God is among us.
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
40 I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
4 Blessed is the man who makes
the Lord his trust,
who does not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after a lie!5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told.6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”9 I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
ever preserve me!
12 For evils have encompassed me
beyond number;
my iniquities have overtaken me,
and I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head;
my heart fails me.(Psalm 70 starts here.)
13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!
Psalm 40 ESVUK
O Lord, make haste to help me!
14 Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether
who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonour
who delight in my hurt!
15 Let those be appalled because of their shame
who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”
16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
say continually, “Great is the Lord!”
17 As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God!
In areas of rough grazing, bog holes often appear. David, the king who was previously a shepherd would be aware of this and would have las to haul a sheep or lamb out of a hole such as this after heavy rain. I have included a picture of a bog hole above. Bog holes would have been less common in Israel than they are on the moors between Huddersfield and Manchester I know very well, but this phenomenon can happen anywhere there are sheep, rain and rough grazing. God pulling David out of the miry bog is. in my opinion, an illusion of God as a Shepherd. Psalm 40 would be an excellent companion to Psalm 23 which begins, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
The structure is interesting too. It may look like a chiasm at first sight, but common words cannot be found, at least by me, that link verses 1-4 to verses 11-17. There is however a clear chiasm in verses 5-10. A chiasm, meaning crossing over, is a form used in nearly all Psalms and is a repetition of similar ideas in the reverse sequence. “I will proclaim and tell,” says verse 5 linking to, “I have told the glad news,” in verse 9 and “I have spoken of your faithfulness,” in verse 10. Proclain and told, tell and spoken are the same words in Hebrew with the tence changed, In the same way, ‘delighted’ in verse 6 is repeated as ‘delight’ in verse 8. Verse 7 is a central section.
In the middle of a song about God’s help in trouble, we have a Messianic section written in the first person. Hebrews 10 quotes Psalm 40:6-7 as showing that the sacrifice of Christ is greater than the sacrifice of animals as it is sufficient for all people for all time. Despite some commentators saying the whole of the Psalm is Messianic, I am unconvinced as verse 12 says, “My iniquities have overtaken me,” Jesus was not being punished for his own sins.
It is so easy to see that a passage in the Old Testament is about Jesus without looking at the overall context of what it would have meant to the original hearers. Finding out what that would be is difficult, as it is from ancient times, but we can look for a Jewish view:
Rabbi Jack Abramowitz likens the Psalm to the Jews crossing the Red Sea and the praise that came afterwards. David does not hold back on telling of G-d’s good works because G-d does not hold back on his kindness. The last seven verses getting darker, says Rabbi Abramowitz, is because David is in trouble again. Previously David had to be patient, now he is desperate. “those who faithfully pursue G-d should be rewarded with joy in Him and always praise Him for His salvation. We must constantly rely upon G-d to succeed. He helps us and gets us out of trouble – we only ask that, since He will do so anyway, He do it soon!” David’s patience has run dry.
What God has given David is the ability to receive rebuke, as with the rebuke of Nathan following the incident with Bathseba, allowing David to draw nearer to God. Like David. we must constantly rely on God to succeed.
David’s current metaphorical bog hole is sucking him down, so like a stuck sheep he calls for his shepherd to pull him out.
< Psalm 39 | Psalm 40 part 1 | Psalm 40 part 2 >
< Psalm 69 | Psalm 70 | Psalm 71 >
< Psalm 39 | Psalms of David | Psalm 41 >
< Psalm 69| Psalms of David | Psalm 86 >
Making an ass of myself 