READ IT! - Introduction to Psalms 69-72

Readings for this week

Monday: Psalm 69

Tuesday: Psalm 70

Wednesday: Psalm 71

Thursday: Psalm 72

Friday: Deuteronomy 1

Saturday: Deuteronomy 2

Sunday: Deuteronomy 3

Introduction to Psalms 69-72

Psalm 69

This Davidic psalm begins with a note for “the director of music” that it is to be sung to the tune of a popular song at the time called “Lilies.” This is the same tune used by the Sons of Korah in their wedding song (Psalm 45).

David cries out:

“Save me, O God,

    for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths,

    where there is no foothold.

I have come into the deep waters;

    the floods engulf me.”

And he says:

“But I pray to you, Lord,

    in the time of your favor;

in your great love, O God,

    answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire,

    do not let me sink;

deliver me from those who hate me,

    from the deep waters.

 Do not let the floodwaters engulf me

    or the depths swallow me up

    or the pit close its mouth over me.”

As a shepherd, David would have spent much time in the wilderness and would have had experience with something called "wadis."

In the desert, it doesn't rain very much at all, so you might think that flooding wouldn't be an issue. However, fifty miles to the north of the desert it will rain quite a bit at times in the mountains. The ground in the mountains won't absorb all that water, so the water comes down the mountains and forms canyons in the desert called wadis.

It may be a beautiful sunny day in the desert, but if it's raining in the distant mountains and you're standing in a wadi, you only have minutes before the water will show up and overtake you.

More people die from flash flooding in the deserts of Israel every year than from heat, snakes, and scorpions combined.

David was familiar with the dangers of wadis and as a good shepherd he wouldn't have led his sheep to drink from the waters in the wadis.

It is this fearsome picture of being trapped in a wadi surrounded by flood waters with no way out that David compares with how he has been surrounded by his enemies on every side, and he cannot see a way of escape. In other words, he is absolutely scared to death, and the only hope he has left in the world is intervention from God himself.

Psalm 70

David cries out, “Make haste to help me, O God! May those who seek my life be put to shame. May all who seek you rejoice. O LORD, do not delay.”

Psalm 71

The anonymous author of this psalm writes, “In you, O LORD, I take refuge. Do not forsake me when my strength fails. I will tell of your righteousness. I will praise you, O God.”

Psalm 72

The psalmist says, “Give the king your justice, O God. May he defend the cause of the poor. May all kings fall down before him. Blessed be the LORD!”

Psalm 72 falls at the end of the section of Psalms attributed to David, yet this psalm is also attributed to his son Solomon, so this may mean that the writer is recalling the Davidic covenant and how Solomon started out faithful to the covenant but ended up being unfaithful.

If this is the case, then the writer of the Psalm may in fact be hoping for a future anointed one to rise up from David’s line in order to completely fulfill the requirements of the Davidic promise, which would include the link to the Abrahamic promise in which the Davidic ruler is understood as being the one from the line of Abraham who would cause all nations on earth to be blessed.

This desire for the ideal king who would come and reign as portrayed in the psalms is a significant contributor to the messianism that would later develop in Judaism. This desire arose from a consistent lack of faithful leadership by the Davidic rulers over time.

Another theory is that David wrote the psalm for Solomon for his coronation.