Psalm 71

Psalms 71:1-3

This psalm carries no title in the Hebrew text at all, one of a small number of untitled psalms in the book, and its opening three verses repeat Psalm 31:1-3 almost word for word, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust down through thou art my rock and my fortress. The bench reads the borrowing as deliberate, an older man drawing on words he had prayed since youth rather than composing new ones for a new trouble. Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort pictures God not as a single rescue but as a dwelling returned to again and again over a long life.

Psalms 71:4-6

Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked names the present danger plainly before the psalm turns to its own history with God. By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels reaches back further than any adult trouble, a trust that predates the psalmist's own memory of choosing it. Henry reads verse 6 as the ground for verse 4's plea: the God who has carried him from before birth is asked to finish what he began, not to abandon a lifelong work near its end.

Psalms 71:7-9

I am as a wonder unto many reads as a man whose long life under God's hand has become a public spectacle, whether admired or doubted the verse does not say. Let my mouth be filled with thy praise turns spectacle into testimony, praise the psalmist wants his whole life to be filled with rather than only his words. Cast me not off in the time of old age is the psalm's central plea and the reason many read it as an old man's prayer, asking that the God who has carried him from the womb not set him down now that his strength is failing.

Psalms 71:10-11

Mine enemies speak against me shows the danger is not only physical but a conspiracy of talk against a man now less able to defend himself. Their taunt is given in full at verse 11, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him, the same charge Psalm 22's mockers bring, that visible weakness proves God has walked away. The psalm answers the taunt not by arguing with the enemies directly but by returning to prayer, which the bench reads as the wiser reply to an accusation prayer itself will settle.

Psalms 71:12-13

O God, be not far from me repeats the plea of verse 4 in different words, distance from God being the danger the psalm returns to more than any other. O my God, make haste for my help answers the taunt of verse 11 with urgency rather than argument, asking God to prove the mockers wrong by acting rather than by being defended in speech. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul asks that the shame the enemies aimed at the psalmist return instead upon them, the same reversal the imprecatory psalms use elsewhere.

Psalms 71:14-16

But I will hope continually turns from petition to resolve, the psalmist choosing hope as an act of will set directly against the taunt just answered. I will go in the strength of the Lord God announces a going forward rather than a standing still, age not read as an excuse to stop declaring what God has done. Even of thine only closes verse 16 with a claim of exclusivity, the righteousness the psalmist will mention being God's alone and not any achievement of his own long life.

Psalms 71:17-18

taught me from my youth: O God, thou hast taught me from my youth reaches back to match verse 5's hope from my youth, a whole life read as one unbroken lesson under God's own teaching. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not is the psalm's clearest statement of its own occasion, an old man's plea not to be set aside now that the years he spent learning have brought him to the point of teaching others. Until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come gives the reason old age still matters, the last task left undone being to hand the lesson forward.

Psalms 71:19-21

Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things answers the plea for one more generation's teaching with praise already offered in advance, the pattern the psalm has followed throughout of praising before the rescue is seen. Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again names hardship without softening it, the same voice that pleaded against enemies now naming trouble as something God himself showed him. From the depths of the earth is read by some of the bench as a figure for the grave itself, the psalmist's hope reaching as far as death and beyond it rather than stopping at present relief.

Psalms 71:22-24

I will also praise thee with the psaltery names an instrument as well as a voice, praise the psalmist intends to make with everything available to him, thy truth naming God's own reliability as the subject of the song itself. My lips shall greatly rejoice, and my soul, which thou hast redeemed closes the personal argument where it began, redemption answering the trust professed in verse 1. The last word belongs to the enemies named across the psalm, for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek my hurt, the taunt of verse 11 answered at last not by argument but by the reversal the psalm asked for.