A heading and five verses, and all five of them are already in the book: Psalm 70 verses 2 to 6 are Psalm 40 verses 14 to 18 again, under a different heading and with a short list of changes. This page gives the changes rather than reprinting the other page, so read it next to Psalm 40 and the edits are the lesson. On its own the psalm is the shortest complete cry for help in the collection. It states no case, gives no reason, and asks for nothing but speed: hurry in verse 2, do not be late in verse 6.
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1
לַמְנַצֵּחַ לְדָוִד
לְהַזְכִּיר
לַמְנַצֵּחַ
lam-na-TZE-ach
for the choirmaster
לְדָוִד
le-da-VID
of David
For the leader. Of David.
לְהַזְכִּיר
le-haz-KIR
to bring to remembrance
To bring to remembrance.
Psalm 40 heads its page with the ordinary word for a psalm. Here the third word is a verb instead, an infinitive with no stated object, and the only other heading in the book that carries it is Psalm 38.
The first half has no verb at all. Psalm 40 supplies one, be pleased, before the divine name; here it is gone, and the only finite verb in the verse is the imperative at the very end, which the reader has to carry back over the whole line.
Let them be shamed and disgraced, those who seek my life;
יִסֹּגוּ
yi-so-GU
let them fall back
אָחוֹר
a-CHOR
backward
וְיִכָּלְמוּ
ve-yi-kal-MU
and let them be humiliated
חֲפֵצֵי
cha-fe-TZEI
those who delight in
רָעָתִי
ra-a-TI
my ruin
let them fall back and be humiliated, those who want my ruin.
Four jussive verbs and two participial phrases naming who they fall on. The enemies are described only by what they want, never by what they are, and both descriptions are built the same way: a construct participle plus a noun with the suffix my.
Let them turn back on the heels of their own shame,
הָאֹמְרִים
ha-om-RIM
those who say
הֶאָח
he-ACH
aha
הֶאָח
he-ACH
aha
those who say: aha, aha.
The two middle words are an idiom, literally on the heel of, used for what follows something as its consequence. Their shame is not the punishment here, it is the thing that walks them backwards.
and let those who love Your rescue always say: God be magnified.
The mirror of verses 3 and 4, with the same grammar turned the other way: four more jussives, and the seekers of verse 3 answered by seekers of a different object. The one thing the psalm asks anyone to say is not about the speaker.
The verse repeats the imperative of verse 2 and then says the same thing again as a negative, do not be late, which closes the psalm on timing rather than on rescue. No outcome is reported and nothing is promised in return.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Five verses in a ring. Verse 2 asks for speed, verse 6 asks for speed twice more, and between them stand two wishes pointing in opposite directions: verses 3 and 4 send the pursuers backwards, verse 5 sends the seekers into song. Nothing is narrated. There is no pit, no illness, no accusation, no vow, none of the machinery a lament usually carries, which is why the psalm can be said by anyone. The self description in עָנִי (a-ni, v.6) and וְאֶבְיוֹן (ve-evi-on, v.6) is the closest thing to a reason given, and it is a status rather than an event.
רמז · Remez: allusion
The edits against Psalm 40 verses 14 to 18, in order. Verse 2 drops the opening verb be pleased and begins with אֱלֹהִים (e-lo-him, v.2) where Psalm 40 has the four letter name. Verse 3 is two words shorter: it loses together after the first pair of verbs, and it loses the infinitive to sweep it away after נַפְשִׁי (naf-shi, v.3). Verse 4 opens with יָשׁוּבוּ (ya-shu-vu, v.4), let them turn back, where Psalm 40 has a similar looking verb from another root meaning let them be appalled, and it drops the word to me after הָאֹמְרִים (ha-om-rim, v.4). Verse 5 adds a conjunction to וְיֹאמְרוּ (ve-yom-ru, v.5), reads אֱלֹהִים (e-lo-him, v.5) where Psalm 40 reads the four letter name, and spells the noun in יְשׁוּעָתֶךָ (ye-shu-a-te-cha, v.5) with an opening yod where Psalm 40 opens it with a taw, two forms of the same word for rescue. Verse 6 is the largest change: Psalm 40 says the Lord will take account of me, this psalm says אֱלֹהִים (e-lo-him, v.6) חוּשָׁה (chu-sha, v.6) לִּי (li, v.6), God hurry to me; the noun in עֶזְרִי (ez-ri, v.6) is the shorter form of the one Psalm 40 uses; and the psalm closes on יְהֹוָה (a-do-nay, v.6), the four letter name, where Psalm 40 closes on my God.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
Psalms 42 to 83 are the stretch of the book in which the word God stands where the four letter name stands elsewhere, and this psalm sits inside that stretch while Psalm 40 sits outside it. The same pairing occurs at Psalms 14 and 53. So the substitutions listed above are a property of the collection each copy landed in, not a copyist nodding, and the remaining changes are the kind of variation that singing a text produces. Which copy is earlier is disputed and the text does not decide it: the piece can be read as an excerpt lifted out of Psalm 40 and given a heading of its own, or as an independent poem that Psalm 40 absorbed as its second half. Its placement argues for a use of its own, since the psalm that follows it carries no heading at all and begins mid appeal.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
The subject of this psalm is time. Every other lament asks God to change a situation; this one asks only that the answer not arrive late, and the two ends of it, חוּשָׁה (chu-sha, v.2) and תְּאַחַר (te-a-char, v.6), are the same request stated once positively and once as a prohibition. Read that way the heading matters, because a verb of remembering with no object is not asking God to recall a fact but asking to be held in mind at all, which is the same request as speed in another register. Poor and needy in עָנִי (a-ni, v.6) and וְאֶבְיוֹן (ve-evi-on, v.6) then reads as a description of a vessel with nothing of its own to draw on, and the only outcome the psalm names for itself is that others say God be magnified.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).