Ps. 86.1-4 (petition and claim)

Bend your ear / O Yhwh / give me an answer
for I am poor / and needy
Protect my life / for I am loyal to you
save your servant / O you, my God
save this one / who trusts in you
Have mercy on me / O my Lord
for I call to you / all day long
Bring joy to the soul / of your servant
for I life up my soul to you / O my Lord. 

From the opening to the closing it is clear that we are in the realm of the petition. It is what bookends the psalm, its alpha and omega. The petitions themselves appear generic at first: “bend your ear”, “protect my life”, “save this one”, “have mercy on me”, “bring joy to the soul…”. These petitions are rather straightforward and are found many times in other psalms. On one level they seem to lack any ‘ingenuity’, as if that was the point (which it isn’t). Instead, the psalmist has gathered to himself the standard phrases of petition and made himself ‘pray the prayer of petition’. While to say these are ‘phrases that work’ might miss the mark on the one hand, it communicates a profound truth on the other. These ‘stock-phrases’ are those that communicate the heart of God’s people. They are living witness of his people’s petition to him and, as such, may seem ‘poor’ from an individual perspective bur very rich from the communal perspective (they betray a type of communal-humility by the psalmist).  “For I…”. 

A second insight is that the psalmist conditions every petition with a justification for God’s listening to the psalmist: “for I am poor and needy”, “for I am loyal to you”, “save this one who trusts in you”, “for I call to you all day long”, “for I lift up my soul to you”. As to the first reason for God’s ear, the ‘poor and needy’ always have a claim upon their kings or lords. It is not merely their act of disinterested mercy, but their obligation to care for these ‘least of all people’. The second reason pertains directly to the relationship between the psalmist and God: I am loyal to you, listen to me and be loyal to me. As to the fourth and fifth, there is the sense of both temporal (all day long) and total (my soul) giving-over of the psalmist to God. To not respond to such a handing-over would be tantamount to abandonment and/or betrayal. The point to all of this is that the psalmist is presenting a claim, and they are particular ones. There is something of a ‘transaction’ that is occurring here (or, is hoped to occur). The psalmist does feel that he deserves to be listened to. Importantly, however, this ‘transaction’ is rooted, fundamentally, in the establishment of justice and righteousness. In other words, the ‘right’ that this psalmist feels he has on God’s ear is not to be found in anything but his experience of injustice and an order that is antithetical to God’s desire for  him. His aligning of himself with the ‘poor and needy’ is to place himself within the category of those suffering underneath the weight of chaos (a force that Yhwh is intimately and utterly against). Much the same goes for his appeal to his faithfulness: his participating within God’s ‘rule’ is a ‘light’ that stands in the midst of an enveloping darkness. As such, his request can be, simultaneously, both entirely personal and have God’s reign in focus. This fact will be key when we move the direct center of the psalm when the psalmist petitions Yhwh: “Teach me, O Yhwh, your way – that I may walk in your faithfulness – unite my heart to fear your name.” (vs. 11).