The Bible

 

Psalms 70

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1 Make haste, O God, to deliver me; Make haste to help me, O LORD.

2 Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul: let them be turned backward, and put to confusion, that desire my hurt.

3 Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, aha.

4 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let God be magnified.

5 But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying.

   

Commentary

 

Exploring the Meaning of Psalms 70

By Julian Duckworth

A Help Me button on a wall.

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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #414

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414. (14) Love or the will can be similarly elevated and admit from heaven such matters as are matters of warmth if it loves its partner in the same degree. We have already shown in the preceding discussion and here and there above that the intellect can be elevated into the light of heaven and draw from it wisdom. Moreover, we have also shown here and there that love or the will can be equally elevated, if it loves such matters as are matters of the light of heaven, or matters of wisdom. However, love or the will cannot be elevated by any measure of honor, glory or material gain as its end, but by a love of useful service, not so much for its own sake, but for the sake of the neighbor. And because this love is bestowed only from heaven by the Lord, and is bestowed by the Lord when a person refrains from evils as being sins, therefore it is by these means that love or the will can be elevated also, and apart from these means it cannot be.

The will's love, however, is elevated into the warmth of heaven, whereas the intellect is elevated into the light of heaven, and if both are elevated, a marriage of the two takes place there, which we call the heavenly marriage, because it is a marriage of heavenly love and wisdom. That is why we say that love is elevated also if it loves its partner wisdom in the same degree. Love for the neighbor from the Lord is the love proper to wisdom, or the genuine love proper to the human intellect.

The case is the same as with light and warmth in the world. Light is possible without warmth, and possible in conjunction with warmth. It is without warmth in wintertime, and accompanied by warmth in summertime; and when warmth exists in conjunction with light, then all things flourish. The light in a person corresponding to the light of winter is wisdom without its love, while the light in a person corresponding to the light of summer is wisdom accompanied by its love.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.