Devotional Commentary on the Celtic Prayer “Oh Lord, come to our aid” and Ps 70.1

One of the prayers often used in Celtic devotions begins in this way:

Oh Lord, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory be to the One in Three
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever more shall be.

This short introductory and closing phrase for a prayer is an amalgamation of a number of passages from Scripture. This post focuses in the second line: “make haste to help us.” It is the cry one of in distress, one who is at the end of the rope, who sees hope ebbing away and knows no other salvation except from God.

This phrase is found throughout Scripture (cf. Psalm 38.22; 40.13; 69.17; 70.1; and 71.12). Of the seven passages, six of them use the Hebrew word chush—the other uses maher. The first word means simply “to move quickly,” “to come with speed and without tarrying. The second means the same, though it can also have the sense of impetuousness or fleeing from catastrophe.

Psalm 70.1 is the clearest example of the phrase at is is used in Celtic prayer. Literally, it reads something like:

God, deliver me!
Lord, hasten to my aid!

The first word is Elohim in Hebrew, the name for God. The second line begins with a word that is impossible in Hebrew: it is the consonants of the sacred Name of God, YHWH, the name he gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. Over time, the word became so sacred it was not read or spoken out loud. When Jewish readers across the word YHWH while reading Scripture, they said adonai instead. When scribes in the 8th century invented markings to represent vowels, the vowels for  the unspoken word were not know. So vowels fro  the word for “Lord,” adonai, were added to the consonants YHWH, resulting in a word unpronounceable in Hebrew, but usually rendered “Yahweh” in English. (This is also where the English word “Jehovah” comes from.)  This is why it is translated “Lord” in English translations.

So the Psalmist uses two different words to address God: the general word for God, and the word “Lord,” reflecting the holy Name of God that was not to be pronounced. Much like our parents might call for us with our first name and middle name (usually when we are in trouble), the Psalmist seeks God’s attention through repetition of his name.

“Deliver” means to snatch away, as if grabbing a small animal away from the jaws of a wild animal in order to save it. “Aid” or “help” means simply that: a noun describing assistance or succor.

It is strange that the beginning of this Psalm tells us that it is intended for “the memorial offering,” seeing as it is obviously a cry for personal distress against enemies who wish to harm the one praying this Psalm. The Hebrew word, hazkir, can also mean “a remembrance,” as in “remember me” or “hear me” and thus might also be translated “a petition.”

The Psalm is almost exactly the same as Psalm 40.13-17, and has strong connections with Psalm 69 as well—so much so that they may have originally been one Psalm, or at least were intended to be sung or prayed one after the other.

The Psalms are a wonderful education in the practice of prayer. This Psalm inspired a German hymn by Paul Gerhardt in the 1600s, “Herr, dir traue alle Tage” (“Lord, I Trust You Every Day”). Gerhardt also wrote “O Sacred Head”)

See the following prayer books for other prayers in the Celtic Tradition.

William John Fitzgerald. A Contemporary Celtic Prayer Book. Chicago: Acta Pubns, 1998.

J. Philip Newell. Celtic Treasure: Daily Scriptures and Prayer. Grand RapidsL Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005.

Northumbria Community. Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings From the Northumbria Community. Northumbria: Northumbria Community, 2002.