What Does Psalm 70:5 Mean?
But I am bowed low and in want; hurry toward me, O God. You are my help and my escape, O LORD; do not linger.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying.THE KEY
The verse names God as the one who helps from within your need and opens an escape from it.
THE MEANING
Your need gets its full voice: “poor and needy,” then “make haste unto me.” God is named as help and deliverer even while the urgency remains open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that need leaves you with no standing to call on God: the speaker names his poverty and asks directly for God to hurry.
THE ROOT
מְפַלְטִי
məfalləṭî
GROWS FROM
פלט
p-l-ṭ
To escape or bring someone out of danger; to let escape.
“Deliverer” grows from the language of escape: God is named as the one who opens a way out. The root gives the title a concrete movement from being trapped toward getting free.
ALSO GROWS
pālîṭ: One who escapes; a survivor or fugitive.
פָּלִיט
This branch names the one who gets out, showing the deliverer’s work as passage into survival.
pəlēṭāh: Escape; a remnant that escapes.
פְּלֵיטָה
The same root can name the escape itself, so “deliverer” points toward a way out, not just a title.
עָנִי
ʿānî
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
To be bowed down or afflicted; to bring low.
“bowed low” in this verse is ʿānî. “Poor” carries the texture of being brought low or afflicted, rather than a moral verdict on the speaker. Beside “needy,” it lets the cry begin from actual vulnerability.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānāh: To afflict or humble.
עָנָה
This verb shares the root’s sense of being brought low, giving “poor” a lived texture of affliction.
ʿŏnî: Affliction or poverty.
עֳנִי
This noun makes explicit the condition carried in the speaker’s “poor”: lowliness and need.
עֶזְרִי
ʿezrî
GROWS FROM
עזר
ʿ-z-r
To help, support, or aid.
This root links help as an action with help as a source of support. Alongside the separate image of escape in “deliverer,” it presents God as aid within the need and as the one who brings the speaker out.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāzar: To help or support.
עָזַר
The verb shows help as active support, not merely a quality attributed to God.
ʿezrāh: Help or assistance.
עֶזְרָה
This noun shares the root of “my help,” linking the speaker’s direct appeal to the aid itself.
THE PATTERN
Honest need and direct address to God stand together; vulnerability does not silence the cry.
But I am bowed low and in want, yet the Lord plans for me. You are my help and the one who slips me free. My God, do not linger.A Prayer of David. Bend down your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am bowed low and in want.Let us therefore draw near, with open speech, to the throne of favor, that we may receive compassion, and find favor to help in the right moment.THE THREAD
But I am bowed low and in want, yet the Lord plans for me. You are my help and the one who slips me free. My God, do not linger.Psalm 40:17 repeats the same cry and uses the same Hebrew roots for “help” (עזר, ʿ-z-r) and “deliverer” (פלט, p-l-ṭ). Its line “the Lord thinketh upon me” places that urgent request beside the assurance that the speaker is held in God’s attention.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us