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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.

   

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Exploring the Meaning of Psalms 70

Av 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.

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Apocalypse Revealed #681

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681. And it became blood as though of a dead man, and every living creature in the sea died. This symbolizes the infernal falsity in those people by which every truth in the Word was extinguished, and so also every truth in the church and in faith.

Blood as though of a dead man, or blood oozing and mixed with pus, symbolizes infernal falsity. For blood symbolizes Divine truth, and in an opposite sense, that truth falsified (no. 379). But blood as though of a dead man symbolizes infernal falsity, inasmuch as death symbolizes the extinction of spiritual life, and so a dead man symbolizes something infernal (nos. 321, 525). That every living creature died means symbolically that every truth in the Word, in the church, and in faith was extinguished. For a living creature symbolizes the truth of faith; accordingly a living creature that has died symbolizes the truth of faith extinguished.

A living creature in the Word, or a soul when referring to a human being, symbolizes his spiritual life, which is also the life of his intellect; and because the intellect is formed by truths, and truths have to do with faith, therefore a living creature or soul symbolizes the truth of faith. That this is the symbolic meaning of a living creature or soul can be seen from many passages in the Word, and also from those that mention both soul and heart. The soul and heart plainly mean a person's life, but it is his life in consequence of his will and intellect, or spiritually speaking, in consequence of his love and wisdom, or of his charity and faith; and the life of the will springing from the goodness of love is meant by heart, while the life of the intellect springing from truths of wisdom or of faith is meant by soul. These are meant by soul and heart in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, 33, Luke 10:27; Deuteronomy 6:5; 10:12; 11:13; 26:16; Jeremiah 32:41; and elsewhere. Also in passages which mention heart by itself and soul by itself.

The reason these terms are used comes from the correspondence of the heart with the will and love, and of the soul's action in the lungs with the intellect and wisdom, as may be seem in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, Section Five, where this correspondence is discussed.

  
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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.