Psalm 17 is most explicit in its lament over the current circumstances and in its appeal to God to send the messiah. The psalmist begins by recalling how, when God chose David to be king over Israel, God swore to David and to his descendants that the Davidic kingdom would never fall, an allusion to the promise in 2 Samuel 7 of an eternal Davidic dynasty. With Pompey’s invasion of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, though, the psalmist is forced to admit that the kingdom has fallen.
