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Psalm 144

Prayer for National Deliverance and Security

Of David.

1

Blessed be the L ord, my rock,

who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;

2

my rock and my fortress,

my stronghold and my deliverer,

my shield, in whom I take refuge,

who subdues the peoples under me.

 

3

O L ord, what are human beings that you regard them,

or mortals that you think of them?

4

They are like a breath;

their days are like a passing shadow.

 

5

Bow your heavens, O L ord, and come down;

touch the mountains so that they smoke.

6

Make the lightning flash and scatter them;

send out your arrows and rout them.

7

Stretch out your hand from on high;

set me free and rescue me from the mighty waters,

from the hand of aliens,

8

whose mouths speak lies,

and whose right hands are false.

 

9

I will sing a new song to you, O God;

upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,

10

the one who gives victory to kings,

who rescues his servant David.

11

Rescue me from the cruel sword,

and deliver me from the hand of aliens,

whose mouths speak lies,

and whose right hands are false.

 

12

May our sons in their youth

be like plants full grown,

our daughters like corner pillars,

cut for the building of a palace.

13

May our barns be filled,

with produce of every kind;

may our sheep increase by thousands,

by tens of thousands in our fields,

14

and may our cattle be heavy with young.

May there be no breach in the walls, no exile,

and no cry of distress in our streets.

 

15

Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall;

happy are the people whose God is the L ord.


3. O Jehovah! what is man, etc. He amplifies the goodness shown by God by instituting a comparison. Having declared how singularly he had been dealt with, he turns his eyes inward, and asks, “Who am I, that God should show me such condescension? “He speaks of man in general; only the circumstance is noticeable that he commends the mercy of God, by considering his lowly and abject condition. In other places he mentions grounds of humiliation of a more personal or private nature, — here he confines himself to what has reference to our common nature; and though even in discussing the nature of man there are other reasons he might have specified why he is unworthy of the regard and love of God, he briefly adverts to his being like the smoke, and as a shadow. 259259     “Et mesmes combion qu’en espluchant la nature des hommes il eust peu toucher d’autres choses, pour lesquelles ils sont indignes. — neantmoins,” etc. — Fr. We are left to infer that the riches of the divine goodness are extended to objects altogether unworthy in themselves. We are warned, when apt at any time to forget ourselves, and think we are something when we are nothing, that the simple fact of the shortness of our life should put down all arrogance and pride. The Scriptures, in speaking of the frailty of man, comprehend whatever is necessarily connected with it. And, indeed, if our life vanish in a moment, what is there stable about us? We taught this truth also — that we cannot properly estimate the divine goodness, unless we take into consideration what we are as to our condition, as we can only ascribe to God what is due unto him, by acknowledging that his goodness is bestowed upon undeserving creatures. The reader may seek for further information upon this point in the eighth Psalm, where nearly the same truth is insisted upon.

5. O Jehovah! bow thy heavens. After extolling, as was due, the great goodness of God, he requests him to furnish such help for the preservation of the kingdom as was necessary in the present exigency. As formerly we saw that he had gloried in God with a heroical courage, so here he makes use of the same lofty terms in his prayers, That he would bow the heavens — that he would make the mountains to smoke — disturb the air with thunderings — and shoot forth arrows; forms of speech by which, doubtless, he would put away from him all the obstacles which stand between us and a believing apprehension of the omnipotence of God, and from which we find it so difficult to emerge. He employs almost the same phraseology in the eighteenth Psalm, but it is in praising God for help already extended, and to signify that he had been preserved from above in a wonderful and unusual manner. For although such signs as he mentions might not always occur when God interposed in his behalf, he had good ground to celebrate what had happened to him of an unexpected kind, by reference to extraordinary phenomena. In the passage before us his purpose is different. Threatened by destruction of various kinds, which might overwhelm his mind with despair, he would realize the wonderful power of God, before which all obstacles of a worldly kind must necessarily give way. We may be certain at least that he indulged in this figurative phraseology for a good reason, that he might not confine deliverance to human remedies; for nothing could be more preposterous at such a time than to measure divine power by ordinary rules.


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