Psalms 144

Psalms 144:1-15

The Helper of Israel. [A psalm] of David.
“God only” is still the moral of the psalm that follows. He is owned here as the sole Helper of Israel, in language much of which recalls to mind the eighteenth, but with five verses added which give the blessing of Israel now with God, and prepare the way for the praises of that which follows, and which ends the series. Man as before is put in the balance before God, and what is he? The answer is a very different one from that given in the eighth psalm; the stand-point being altogether different.

1. Israel is yet in conflict, but strong in God, and confident of the issue. Jehovah is their Rock and teaches their hands to war and their fingers to fight. He is the real Deliverer in whom they take refuge, and who subdues the peoples under them. Before Jehovah what is man, that He should make account of him? This is, of course, looking at him as the would-be thwarter of God’s purposes. Yet he is merely like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
2. God is besought, therefore, to come down and destroy their enemies, sending from heaven to deliver them from the hand of strangers, men speaking vanity and acting falsehood. Then would they sing a new song to Him; the giver of victory to kings (and not their own might), and rescuing David His servant from the hurtful sword. If this speak typically of any in the latter day, it is suggested by another that “it would be ’the prince’ [of Ezekiel 44:1-31; Ezekiel 45:1-25; Ezekiel 46:1-24]; for there will be a house of David on the earth” at that time (Zechariah 13:1-9). Messiah is of course the true Head; but the language seems more naturally to refer to a merely human ruler.
3. The psalm ends with describing the portion of Israel as the people of Jehovah, beginning with Jehovah’s intervention in power for them: righteously, because of the character of their enemies. This would bring them into the fullness of earthly blessing according to announcements of the law, but of which the law was incompetent to give them possession. “Happy the people in such a case -a people whose God is Jehovah.”