Psalm 70 is a short one, with virtually the same wording as Psalm 40's verses 13-17.

It is in four succinct parts.

1: Make haste to help me, God.

2: Deal with whatever wants to hurt me.

3: Let whatever seeks You rejoice and be glad in You.

4: I am poor and needy. Make haste to help me, God; You are my deliverer, do not delay.

This is one of those psalms where much is said in just a few words.

It begins and ends with the repeated chorus, ‘Make haste, O God.’ Spiritually, to make haste is not about a short period of time, but more about the certainty of things. The speaker wants God to act and bring an end to the tension of conflicting states. (Arcana Caelestia 5284)

One clear point is that the speaker has come to see, to know, and to feel, the difference between the kind of thoughts which invade our weakness, our poverty, and our impotence, and those which openly give confidence to trust, to assurance and to reliance on the Lord. ‘Let those who love Your salvation say continually, “Let God be magnified!” (Divine Love and Wisdom 413)

To ‘magnify the Lord’ is in effect to make the Lord magnificent. Spiritually, magnificence is to become aware to the point of awe of how great is the being, purpose and power of the Lord, who is in reality the All in All, in whom we live and move and have our being. One passage in our spiritual teachings says that if we were to think about the size of the Lord, He would be the size of the universe, about which we have only a limited idea. (Heaven and Hell 85)

In speaking about the ploys and cunning of those who seek my life – really who seek to determine that the loves of my life are like theirs – the request is for them to become ashamed and confounded, and so to turn back from this. This view is how the angels in heaven wish anything for those caught up in the delights of evil, that they may even feel ashamed of this and so desist from it. This is also the Divine desire for them, even though the Lord knows how all things will come to pass. (Apocalypse Revealed 681)

The curious phrase, ‘Aha, aha!’ is one which occurs in several psalms and is about the quality in evil which seeks to accuse, to stir up such thoughts of guilt and wrong in a person’s mind and then to confront the person of their culpability.

An interesting shape to this psalm is that it begins and ends personally with the speaker confessing his need to be delivered. In between this, the awareness is of all that goes on in hell and in heaven, almost on the cosmic scale.

5285. Verses 33-36 And now let Pharaoh see ¹ a man with intelligence and wisdom, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him place governors in charge over the land, and let him take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance of corn. And let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and let them store up grain under the hand of Pharaoh - food in the cities; and let them guard it. And let the food be for a reserve for the land, for the seven years of famine which there will be in the land of Egypt, and the land will not be cut off in the famine.

'And now let Pharaoh see' means provision to be made by the natural. 'A man with intelligence and wisdom' means with regard to inflowing truth and good. 'And set him over the land of Egypt' means which will set in order all that is in the natural mind. 'Let Pharaoh do this' means a further provision. 'And let him place governors in charge over the land' means the ordering of general wholes within the natural. 'And let him take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt' means which are to be preserved and then stored away. 'In the seven years of abundance of corn' means which are instilled during the times when truths along with forms of good have been multiplied. 'And let them gather all the food' means all things that have a useful purpose. 'Of these good years that are coming' means which are to be taken in during those times. 'And let them store up grain' means at the same time every good of truth. 'Under the hand of Pharaoh' means for when there is need and the consequent power of disposal in the natural. 'Food in the cities' means such things present in the interior parts of the natural mind. 'And let them guard it' means to be stored away there. 'And let the food be for a reserve for the land' means that it should be kept there for every useful purpose served by the natural. 'For the seven years of famine' means as need arises when there is an absence [of truth]. 'Which there will be in the land of Egypt' means which will exist in the natural. 'And the land will not be cut off in the famine' means lest the person perishes.

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