Ps. 40.13 (short, but central)

“Please / deliver me / O Yhwh – O Yhwh / hasten to my help”. There is not a great deal to comment on in this single verse except to say that the lack of comment should not diminish the fact that it is the purpose for the psalm. This whole liturgical enactment by the king, in the midst of the great congregation, has led up to this moment and this plea for deliverance. To highlight the urgency the verse is acrostic: 1) please deliver me 2) O Yhwh; 2a) O Yhwh 1a) hasten to my help. The verse seems to operate, in the context of the psalm, like the beginning again of the cycle of redemption: just as the previous verse left off with the king’s “heart failing”, so too now at this lowest point does he call out to Yhwh so as to reengage the act of deliverance he has so many (too many; vs. 5) experienced in the past. It is, incidentally, for this reason why the psalm will end on this note as well: “Yet I am poor and needy; think on me, O Yhwh; you are my help and my rescue; do not delay O my god.” And, it goes almost without saying due to your constant emphasis on it, but this deliverance is one that entails the entire flock. The fact that these words would be spoken in the context of a liturgy is important as, when the king pronounced these words, those who are his sheep would enter into this plea just as much as if they were witnessing an oncoming lion and hoping their shepherd would be empowered by Yhwh to defend them.