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144. Psalm 144

¹ Praise be to the LORD my Rock,
   who trains my hands for war,
   my fingers for battle.
² He is my loving God and my fortress,
   my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
   who subdues peoples Many manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Aquila, Jerome and Syriac; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text subdues my people under me.

    ³ LORD, what are human beings that you care for them,
   mere mortals that you think of them?
⁴ They are like a breath;
   their days are like a fleeting shadow.

    ⁵ Part your heavens, LORD, and come down;
   touch the mountains, so that they smoke.
⁶ Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy;
   shoot your arrows and rout them.
⁷ Reach down your hand from on high;
   deliver me and rescue me
from the mighty waters,
   from the hands of foreigners
⁸ whose mouths are full of lies,
   whose right hands are deceitful.

    ⁹ I will sing a new song to you, my God;
   on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you,
¹⁰ to the One who gives victory to kings,
   who delivers his servant David.

   From the deadly sword ¹¹ deliver me;
   rescue me from the hands of foreigners
whose mouths are full of lies,
   whose right hands are deceitful.

    ¹² Then our sons in their youth
   will be like well-nurtured plants,
and our daughters will be like pillars
   carved to adorn a palace.
¹³ Our barns will be filled
   with every kind of provision.
Our sheep will increase by thousands,
   by tens of thousands in our fields;
    ¹⁴ our oxen will draw heavy loads. Or our chieftains will be firmly established
There will be no breaching of walls,
   no going into captivity,
   no cry of distress in our streets.
¹⁵ Blessed is the people of whom this is true;
   blessed is the people whose God is the LORD.

13. Our recesses full, etc. Some read storehouses, ²⁷²²⁷² מזוינו, Our garners. This word is to be found in Scripture only once, but it has most probably the same root as זוית, and it may denote primarily our corners, and then our garners; because garners or storehouses were usually at the ends or corners of edifices.” — Phillips and I would not reject this meaning. But as the word comes from the same root with זוה, zavah, which is rendered corner in the previous verse, it seems more agreeable to the etymology to translate the words as I have done — “that the recesses or corners were full.” The participle מפיקים, mephikim, some take transitively, and read producing, but the meaning comes to the same thing, that abundance of every blessing flowed from all the corners, expression מזן אל-זן, mizan el-zan, ²⁷³²⁷³ Literally, “from kind to kind.” seems to me to denote the variety and manifold nature of the blessings, rather than, as some interpreters think, so abundant a produce as would issue in the different species being mixed, and forming a confused heap owing to the unmanageable plenty. We have no need to have recourse to this strained hyperbole, and the words as they stand evidently do not favor that sense, for had a confused heap been meant, it would have read simply זן זן, zan. The meaning in short is, that there prevailed amongst the people such plenty, not only of wheat, but all kinds of produce, that every corner was filled to sufficiency with every variety.