What Does Psalms 142:6 Mean?

"Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low! Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me!" The attend-to-my-cry is the same give-ear petition of the previous psalms — the request for directed divine hearing at this specific moment. The being-brought-very-low (daloti meod, I have become very thin, I have been reduced to almost nothing) is the honest assessment of David's situation: the cave, the isolation, the faint spirit, the no-one-at-his-right have brought him to the point of very-lowness. And the they-are-too-strong-for-me is the honest military assessment: the persecutors have more resources, more social support, and more sustained energy than David can match. The case for divine rescue is the inadequacy of human resources plus the covenant right to call on the one who is adequate.

The deliver-me-from-my-persecutors request is the whole psalm's practical bottom line. Everything else — the pouring out, the telling, the claiming of the LORD as refuge and portion — serves this request. The psalmist is asking that the one who knows the way where hidden traps lie, who is the portion when no portion remains, who attended to Aaron and Levi in the temple — this one would attend now to the psalm's very-low-brought-down voice and deliver from what is too strong for the creature to address alone.

Matthew 26:39 gives Jesus's very-low-brought-down moment: "And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.'" The deliver-me-from-my-persecutors of Psalm 142:6 and the let-this-cup-pass of Matthew 26:39 are the honest faces of the same creature-before-Creator prayer — the bring-very-low reality submitted to the one who can deliver, with the trust that the Father who heard the prayer would answer it in the way the Father sees best, which in Jesus's case was resurrection through the cross rather than deliverance from it.