Does God Care? ** A Prayer for Relief - Psalm 70

Jerry Clower, southern, folk story-teller and comedian, once told a humorous tale of some of his buddies going “coon” hunting. One fellow was known for being able to climb any tree and catch raccoons without shooting them. After having treed a coon, this fellow climbed the tree to knock the coon out of the tree but to his surprise it was not a raccoon but a lynx! After he and the lynx had gone at it for a few minutes, Jerry tells us, the man yelled down to his hunting buddies, “Shoot this thang!” to which a man yelled back, “We can’t; we might hit you!” Having had his fill of the lynx, the man yells back to the men on the ground, “Shoot up here amongst us, cause one of us got to have some relief!” 

Sometimes our troubles are severe and are coming upon us so rapidly that we feel like this poor man - we need relief! In Psalm 70, we read that the psalmist has reached such a place in his experience. In this moving prayer, we read of David’s deep agony as he suffers under the slanderous words and real-life threats of his enemies. Night and day they attack with no rest and no mercy. We are not given a specific situation but only that those who would hurt him do not cease their efforts to defame him. 

Structurally, we see that the prayer can be broken down into three sections, or perhaps, three requests. He prays first for himself, then he prays against his enemies, and lastly, he prays for all those who follow God’s Word. Psalm 70 is parallel with Psalm 40:13-17.