But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who long for your saving help always say, “The Lord is great!” (70:4 NIV)
We continue our study in Psalm Seventy. David next prays against his enemies three times. There was nothing wrong in David doing this, since he was asking for justice. The apostle Paul makes a similar statement in 2 Timothy 4:14. However, there is a different perspective that we learn in the new covenant. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:43-45 NIV). The Lord Jesus wants us to be merciful people.
Verses two through four do show the character of the ungodly, especially in their attitude to the people of God. They want to kill and to ruin and to abuse those who love the Lord. See Romans 1:29-31. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful (CSB; cf. Romans 3:13-16).
David provides an insight about their end. Yes, they appear to be winning now, and they think that they are! But their end will be shame and confusion and disgrace. For all eternity they will be disgraced while God’s now disgraced people will be exalted (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). The ungodly may rejoice now and say, “Aha! Aha!” But their glory will be turned into shame. They settle for far too little.
David turns the psalm in another direction and offers two requests for the godly. First, let us notice two characteristics of the godly.
- They seek the Lord. Notice the contrast with the malicious quest of the wicked (70:2). All God’s people know the Lord—all know the Shepherd’s voice and come boldly and personally to the Holy One as Father. But it is also true that we are on a lifelong spiritual adventure of knowing Him who is gloriously infinite. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death (Philippians 3:10 NIV).
- They love God’s salvation. There are three senses in which this is true. They love it in the sense of delighting in it. The wicked do not share this delight. They love the way of salvation—that it is a way of grace, not works. They love the Savior (Isaiah 62:11; Luke 2:25-32; 1 Peter 1:10-11).
In David’s requests for the godly we can see the essence of a true relationship with God. It is to exalt God’s name. It is to rejoice and be glad in the Lord (Philippians 3:1; 4:4; Romans 14:17-18). Why do we rejoice in the Lord? We do because he is the greatest good. To know him is to know true happiness.
- God is the universal A person may have a number of excellent qualities, but God has all excellent qualities.
- God is unmixed Every earthly pleasure has some gall mixed with the honey, but God is perfect.
- God is satisfying Fresh joys come from him constantly (John 7:37f).
- God is delicious “There is a certain sweetness about God’s person which delights, nay, rather, ravishes the soul.” 1 Pt 1:8
- God is superlative There is none like him. Is 40:18,25
- God is eternal He lasts forever with no change.
David speaks of the saint’s lack of merit as a reason that God should answer. “Poverty and necessity are very good pleas in prayer to a God of infinite mercy…” (Henry). We should remember that when we are weak, they we are strong (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Here is the proper perspective of Romans 8:37. Yes, we are “more than conquerors”, but it is “through him”.
Compare the first and the last verses with Psalm 139:1, 23-24, where the perspectives are reversed. Prayer in both places is based on what we know of God’s character, whether as Omniscient or as Helper.
Grace and peace, David