Psalm 144
My prayer for success
God has my back
Of David. [1]
1I thank the LORD, the solid rock I count on.He prepares me for war,
And gives me strength for each battle I fight.
2He’s my reliable helper, my best defense,
My shield, and my safehouse.
And he conquers nations that will serve me.
Why does God bother with humans?
3LORD, why do you bother with humans?They’re just mortals. Why care about them at all?
4Human life is just a breath of air.
It comes and goes quickly,
Like a disappearing shadow.
5Yet LORD, you open heaven and come. [2]
You touch the mountains, which ignite in smoke.
6Flashes of lightning scatter the enemy.
Bolts of thunder send them running.
7You reach down from the sky,
In a rescue mission,
Saving me from the deep water.
8And you save me from foreigners
Who won’t tell the truth
And who can’t keep a promise if they had to.
Break out the ten-string
9I’ve got a new song to sing for you, God.And I’m breaking out the ten-string harp. [3]
10You’re the reason kings win battles.
You saved David from death by a sword.
11Save me, now, from these foreigners.
They lie when they open their mouths.
And they make promises only to break them.
Wish list for happiness
12May our sons grow upLike seedlings into trees.
And our daughters rise up
like pillars in a palace.
13May our warehouses fill
With all kinds of food.
And may our flocks grow into the thousands.
May tens of thousands fill our fields.
14May our cattle stay healthy.
And may no one attack us,
Break into our cities,
And leave us crying in the street.
15If people are fortunate enough
To have all that going on,
They’re one happy bunch of humans.
And the LORD is their God.
Footnotes
The subtitle wasn’t part of the original psalm. And the possible byline “of David,” isn’t necessarily a byline. The vague phrase could mean the song was written by David, about David, or was inspired by David. Almost half of the psalms are attributed to David in this way, 73 of 150. Ancient Jewish history tells of David playing a lyre and writing songs. For one, he wrote a song of mourning at the battlefield death of King Saul and his sons: “How have the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19-27 New American Standard Bible). An ancient Jewish scroll from about the time of Jesus, discovered among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, reports that David wrote 3,600 songs.
The songwriter doesn’t say what stories he’s referring to in verses 5-8. But it could sound like the story of God delivering Moses and the Hebrew ancestors of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. God spoke to those refugees of the Exodus from the heights of Mount Sinai, with smoke on the mountain, accompanied by thunder and lightning (Exodus 19). And God created an escape route for them through a body of water known as the Reed Sea, sometimes translated as the Red Sea (Exodus 14).
This could be a lute, a harp, or a smaller harp-like lyre. The Hebrew word describing the instrument is nebel.
Discussion Questions
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