Psalms 144

Psalms 144:1-15

Psalms 144THIS is a kind of supplement or counterpart to Psalms 18 in which the view there taken of David’s personal experience is applied to the anticipated case of his successors. The design thus assumed accounts for the position of the psalm in the collection. That its being placed precisely here is not fortuitous, may be inferred from its furnishing a kind of link between the urgent entreaties of the preceding psalms and the triumphant praise of those which follow. The Davidic origin of this psalm is as marked as that of any in the psalter. The accumulation of Davidic phrases is confined to the first part, while the last is independent and original, a fact entirely inconsistent with the supposition of a later compilation. The Psalmist thanks God for his protection of himself and of mankind in general, Psalms 144:1-4, prays for deliverance from present dangers, Psalms 144:5-8, expresses his confident anticipation of a favourable answer, Psalms 144:9-10, renews his prayer, not only for himself but for the chosen people, Psalms 144:11-14, and felicitates them that they are such, Psalms 144:15.

1. (Psalms 144:1) By David. Blessed be Jehovah, my Rock, the (one) training my hands for fight, my fingers for war. See above, on Psalms 18:34; Psalms 18:46, where most of these expressions have already been explained. Fight and war are both verbs and nouns in English, but the Hebrew words are nouns with the article prefixed. David here begins by referring all the successes of himself and his successors to Jehovah.

2. (Psalms 144:2) My mercy and my fortress, my high place, and a deliverer for me, my shield and (he) in whom I trust, the (one) subduing my people. No less than five of these descriptive epithets are taken from a single verse of Psalms 18, viz. ver. 3 (2). Peculiar to the place before us is my mercy, i.e. my God of mercy. The benefit of these relations to Jehovah David claims not merely for himself but for his royal race, which was closed and yet perpetuated in the Messiah. He in whom I trust, literally and in him I trust. My people, in its widest sense, including Israel and the Gentiles who were to be added to the kingdom of David under the reign of the Messiah. Compare Psalms 18:43; Psalms 18:47 with the parallel passages in 2 Samuel.

3. (Psalms 144:3) Jehovah, what (is) man, that thou shouldst know him, the son of man, that thou shouldst think of him? The greatness of God’s goodness is enhanced by a view of man’s insignificance and unworthiness. The original construction seems to be, what is man? (nothing), and (yet) thou knowest him, etc. To know is here to recognise as being in existence, to take notice of. The first man is the generic term, the second one denoting weakness. See above, on Psalms 8:4, and compare 2 Samuel 7:18.

4. (Psalms 144:4) Man to vanity is like; his days (are) as a passing shadow. He cannot therefore be a worthy object, in himself, of the divine regard and favour. With the first clause compare Psalms 39:5-6; Psalms 62:9; with the second, Psalms 102:11; Psalms 103:15.

5. (Psalms 144:5) Jehovah, bow thy heavens and come down; touch the mountains and let them smoke. With the first clause compare Psalms 18:9. What God is there described as doing, he is here besought to do again. With the last clause compare Psalms 104:32. Mountains, in all such connections, would necessarily suggest the idea of states and kingdoms. See above, on Psalms 46:2-3.

6. (Psalms 144:6) Lighten lightning and scatter them; send out thy arrows and confound them. The first word in Hebrew is a verb occurring nowhere else, and composed of the same radicals with the common word for lightning which immediately follows. For the meaning of the other terms, see above, on Psalms 18:14, and compare the parallel passage, 2 Samuel 22:14, with which the writer of the psalm before us was certainly acquainted, as appears from his occasional use of its peculiar readings.

7. (Psalms 144:7) Send thy hands from on high; rid me and free me from (the) many waters, from the hand of aliens. With the first clause compare Psalms 18:16. For hand we have here the plural hands, and for the two verbs there used two substantially equivalent, the first of which has the sense here given to it only in this place and the cognate languages,. and is therefore well represented by the less usual English word rid. With the last clause, compare Psalms 18:44-45, where the phrase sons of strangeness (or of foreign parts) has been explained already.

8. (Psalms 144:8) Whose mouth speaks fraud, and their right hand (is) a right hand of falsehood. The word translated fraud is properly a negative meaning vanity or emptiness, but applied to the want of moral goodness and especially of truth. See above on Psalms 24:4. The right hand is mentioned in allusion either to the practice of swearing with uplifted hand (Psalms 106:26), or to that of striking hands in bargains (2 Kings 10:15). There seems to be reference, in this verse, to the feigned obedience of the enemy, Psalms 18:44.

9. (Psalms 144:9) O God, a new song I will sing to thee; with a lyre of ten (strings) I will play (or make music) to thee. See above, on Psalms 33:2-3, where David exhorts others to do what he here resolves and vows to do himself. The new song still implies a new occasion for it, so that he here begins to anticipate the answer to his foregoing prayers.

10. (Psalms 144:10) The (one) giving salvation to kings; the (one) ridding David his servant from an evil sword. This mode of connecting sentences, by a participle agreeing with a noun in the foregoing context, is a characteristic feature of Psalms 18. The kings particularly meant are the theocratical sovereigns, the royal family of David. Ridding, the participle of the verb so rendered in Psalms 144:7. David (as) his servant, because he is his servant, in the sense repeatedly explained already. See above, on Psalms 143:2; Psalms 143:12.

David speaks of himself by name, not only here but in Psalms 18:50; Psalms 61:6; Psalms 63:11, 2 Samuel 7:26. An evil sword, not only dangerous but wicked. Compare Psalms 22:20).11. (Psalms 144:11) Rid me and free me from the hand of aliens, whose mouth, speaks fraud and whose right hand (is) a right hand of falsehood. In resuming the language of direct petition, the terms of Psa 144:7-8, are studiously repeated, as if to shew that this prayer is parallel to that, and not an addition to it.

12. (Psalms 144:12) So that our sons (may be) as plants grown large in their youth, our daughters as corner-stones hewn (for) the building of the temple. The reminiscences or imitations of Psalms 18 suddenly cease here, and are followed by a series of original, peculiar, and for the most part no doubt antique expressions. On the supposition that the title is correct in making David the author, this is natural enough. On any other supposition it is unaccountable, unless by the gratuitous assumption, that this is a fragment of an older composition, a mode of reasoning by which any thing may be either proved or disproved. The first word in Hebrew is the relative pronoun, and the literal meaning of the clause is, (by) which (or in consequence of which) our sons, etc. The which refers to the deliverance prayed for in the preceding verse.

Grown large, literally magnified or made great. The common version (grown up in their youth) has a paradoxical appearance, arising from the ambiguity of our phrase grown up, which is applied (like the Greek) both to age and stature.

The word translated cornerstones has the same sense in Zechariah 9:15. The corner-stones are mentioned as those which were hewn and polished with peculiar care. Likeness or model would agree better with the usage of the Hebrew word, but its primary sense, as a derivative of the verb to build, is here still more appropriate. Most interpreters give the last word the vague sense of a palace, considered as a splendid building. There is something, however, far more striking in the translation temple, found in the Prayer-Book and the ancient versions. The omission of the article is a poetic licence of perpetual occurrence.

The temple was the great architectural model and standard of comparison, and particularly remarkable for the great size and skilful elaboration of its foundation-stones, some of which, there is reason to believe, have remained undisturbed since the time of Solomon. See Robinson’s Palestine, vol. i. pp. 422-426.

13. (Psalms 144:15) Our garners full, affording from kind to kind; our flocks bearing thousands, multiplied by myriads, in our streets. From kind to kind seems to denote not only variety but regular succession, as expressed in Hengstenberg’s version, one kind after another. Compare Psalms 84:7. The participles in the next clause are highly idiomatic and scarcely reproduciblein any other language. A somewhat similar example occurs above, Psalms 69:31. But there both forms are active, whereas here we have one active and one passive participle, formed directly from the Hebrew words denoting a thousand and a myriad, the last of which is a derivative of the verb to increase or multiply, and would therefore necessarily suggest that idea.

See above, on Psalms 3:6; Psalms 69:17. Streets, though not incorrect, is an inadequate translation of the Hebrew word, which means external spaces, streets as opposed to the inside of houses, fields or country as opposed to a whole town. Here it includes not only roads but fields.

14. (Psalms 144:14) Our oxen loaded— no damage and no loss— and no complaint in our streets. The first particular implies abundance. For the use of oxen as beasts of burden, see 1 Chronicles 12:40. Damage and loss, literally breach and going forth. Complaint, literally cry, but especially for loss of the fruits of the earth. See Isaiah 24:11.

Some give the sentence an entirely different meaning, by supposing the word translated oxen to mean princes, as it does in Zechariah 9:7; Zechariah 12:5-6, and giving the participle joined with it the Chaldee sense of raised erect or upright. Going out then means going out to war, as in Amos 5:3, breach the incursion of an enemy, and cry a war-cry. But the first Hebrew word in question is applied only to the chiefs of Edom (Genesis 36:15), except in the latest books of the Old Testament, such as Zechariah; and we naturally look for oxen after sheep, as in Psalms 8:7.

15. (Psalms 144:15) Happy the people (with) whom (it is) thus! Happy the people whose God (is) Jehovah! The clauses are not antithetical, but equivalent. The people means the (chosen) people, Israel, with whom, in prosperous times, it was thus, and was thus for the very reason that Jehovah was their God.