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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.

14. Our oxen, etc. The Hebrew word סבל, sabal, is properly to carry. Accordingly some understand מסובלים, mesubbalim, to mean robust, ²⁷⁴²⁷⁴ מסבלים, burdened, viz. with flesh, according to Pagninus, who has onusti carne. The root is סכל, and the form is the pual participle, which occurs only in this place. Compensis has paraphrased it: santi et ferendis oneribus apti. Perhaps burdened oxen may be a phrase equivalent to our beasts of burden such as are strong and adapted to carry burdens; and here the prayer of the Psalmist is, that they may be eminently fitted for this service.” — Phillips as unless they were strong oxen they would not be fit for carriage, or bearing burdens. Others think they are spoken of as laden with fat. There is no need for insisting upon this point, as it does not affect the main scope of the passage. It may be more important to notice, that God’s fatherly care of his people is celebrated on the account that he condescends to attend to every the smallest matter which concerns their advantage. As in the verse before he had ascribed the fruitfulness of the herds and flocks to God’s goodness, so now the fattening of their oxen, to show that there is nothing relating to us here which he overlooks. As it would signify little to have abundance of everything unless we could enjoy it, he takes notice of it as another part of the Lord’s kindness that the people were peaceable and quiet. By breach I have no doubt that he alludes to hostile incursions, that there was no enemy to break in upon them through demolished gates or walls. By goings out it is surprising that any should understand exile, that the people were not torn away from the bounds of their native country. All he means simply is, in my opinion, that there was no necessity of sallying out to repel an enemy, none offering violence or molestation. To the same effect is the expression, as to any crying in the streets, the effect of a sudden tumult. The meaning is, accordingly, that there was no disturbance in the cities, because God kept enemies at a distance.