Psalm 144:5-15

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.^[a]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.

Psalm 144:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 144

\\<>\\. This psalm was written by David; not on account of the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, by a spirit of prophecy, as Theodoret; but on his own account, after he was come to the throne, and was king over all Israel; and was delivered from the was between him and Israel, and from the war of the Philistines, as Kimchi observes, having gained two victories over them: or it was written between the two victories, and before he had conquered all his enemies; since he prays to be delivered from the hand of strange children, Ps 144:7,11. R. Obadiah thinks it was written on the account of his deliverance from Absalom and Sheba; but the former is best. Some copies of the Septuagint, and also the Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions, have in their titles these words, ``against Goliath;'' and so Apollinarius; as if it was written on account of his combat with him, and victory over him; but this clause is not in the Hebrew Bibles; nor could Theodoret find it in the Septuagint in the Hexapla in his time. The Syriac inscription is still more foreign to the purpose, ``a psalm of David, when he slew Asaph the brother of Goliath.'' R. Saadiah Gaon interprets this psalm of the times of the Messiah; and there are several things in it which are applicable to him.

Cross References

• 1. Psalms 18:9; Isaiah 64:1
• 2. S Genesis 11:5; S Psalms 57:3
• 3. Psalms 104:32
• 4. Habakkuk 3:11; Zechariah 9:14
• 5. S Psalms 59:11; S Psalms 68:1
• 6. Psalms 7:12-13; Psalms 18:14
• 7. S 2 Samuel 22:17
• 8. Psalms 3:7; S Psalms 57:3
• 9. Psalms 69:2
• 10. S Psalms 18:44
• 11. Psalms 12:2; Psalms 41:6
• 12. Genesis 14:22; Deuteronomy 32:40
• 13. S Psalms 36:3
• 14. S Psalms 28:7; S Psalms 96:1
• 15. Psalms 33:2-3; S Psalms 71:22
• 16. S 2 Samuel 8:14
• 17. Psalms 18:50
• 18. S Job 5:20
• 19. Psalms 3:7; S Psalms 25:20
• 20. S Psalms 18:44
• 21. Psalms 41:6-7
• 22. Psalms 12:2; S Psalms 36:3; Psalms 106:26; Isaiah 44:20
• 23. Psalms 92:12-14; S Psalms 128:3
• 24. Song of Songs 4:4; Song of Songs 7:4
• 25. Proverbs 3:10
• 26. Proverbs 14:4
• 27. 2 Kings 25:11
• 28. Isaiah 24:11; Jeremiah 14:2-3
• 29. Deuteronomy 28:3; Psalms 33:12

Footnotes

• [a] Or "our chieftains will be firmly established"