1For David.
Who trains my hands for battle,
my fingers for the fray.
2My strength and my bastion,
my fortress and my deliverer.
My shield in which I shelter,
Who tramples down peoples beneath me.
3LORD, what is a human creature that You should know him,
the son of man, that You pay him mind?
4The human is like unto breath,
his days like a passing shadow.
5LORD, tilt Your heavens and come down,
but touch the mountains, that they smoke.
6Crack lightning and scatter them,
send forth Your bolts and panic them.
7Send forth Your hand from on high,
redeem me and save me from the many waters,
from the foreigners’ hand,
8whose mouth speaks falsely,
and whose right hand is a right hand of lies.
9God, a new song I would sing to You,
on a ten-stringed lute I would hymn to You.
10Who grants rescue to kings,
redeems David His servant from the evil sword.
11Redeem me and save me from the foreigners’ hand,
whose mouth speaks falsely,
and whose right hand is a right hand of lies.
12While our sons are like saplings,
tended from their youth;
our daughters, like corner-pillars
hewn for the shape of a palace.
13Our granaries are full,
dispensing food of every kind.
Our flocks are in the thousands,
14Our cattle, big with young.
There is no breach and none goes out,
and no screaming in our squares.
15Happy the people who has it thus,
happy the people whose God is the LORD.
PSALM 144 NOTES
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1. Blessed is the LORD, my rock. From these opening words, this psalm shows a distinct generic kinship with the royal victory hymn that constitutes Psalm 18 (with the image of imperial conquest at the end of verse 2 suggesting that the speaker is a king). Hermann Gunkel once proposed that this poem was an “imitation” of Psalm 18, but, especially because some of the topics it touches on are unlike anything in Psalm 18, it seems more accurate to speak of certain citations from the earlier psalm woven into a different poetic context.
hands . . . fingers. Hands are the obvious body part to train for battle (in poetic parallelism, the more obvious or familiar term almost always occurs in the first verset) because the hand wields the sword. Perhaps the fingers refer to the pulling of the bowstring.
2. My strength. The Masoretic Text has ḥasdi, “my kindness,” which seems unlikely. This translation reads instead, with many scholars, ḥosni, “my strength.”
tramples down. This is the most likely meaning of the verb roded, confused by most translations with rodeh, “to hold sway over.” “Tramples” also accords better with the term used in the analogous verset in Psalm 18:48, “and crushes [wayadber] peoples beneath me.”
3. what is a human creature that You should know him. This whole line is strongly reminiscent of Psalm 8:5. The meditative theme of this and the next verse seems a little out of keeping with a victory psalm but may be justified as an expression of humility on the part of the royal speaker: What is man, king or commoner, that he should be worthy of such glorious beneficence from God?
4. The human is like unto breath. The Israeli scholar Gershon Brin has made the ingenious proposal that the previous verse and this one allude punningly to the first three generations of humankind: ʾadam (“the human,” or “Adam”), hevel (“breath,” or “Abel”), and ben ʾenosh (“the son of man,” or “Enosh”). In a pattern of intensification, this line moves from mere breath to something still more insubstantial, a passing shadow.
5. LORD, tilt Your heavens and come down. This verset cites Psalm 18:10.
6. Crack lightning. The Hebrew, using a cognate accusative, has a strong onomatopoeic sound, broq baraq.
bolts. Lightning flashes, in a variety of ancient mythologies, are imagined as the arrows of the gods. This poem, like Psalm 18, reflects an ancient Near Eastern poetic tradition about warrior gods.
panic them. The reference is to the enemies of the king.
7. Send forth Your hand. This is a characteristic move of biblical literature—first “send forth” in the sense of shooting bolts of lightning, then the identical verb in a different, positive sense of reaching out to help. Thanksgiving for victory merges here with a prayer for (further?) help.
the many waters. Or “the mighty waters,” an archetypal image of death constantly invoked in Psalms.
8. a right hand of lies. Because this is parallel to speaking falsely, many interpreters understand this as raising the right hand to pronounce a false vow—perhaps, if the military context is relevant, in a treaty declaration.
11. Redeem me and save me. This verse repeats the last two versets of verse 7 and the second verset of verse 8, scrambling the order, either as a refrain or through scribal duplication.
12. While. The initial subordinate conjugation ʾasher, which has a variety of functions, is ambiguous, and there is a sudden leap from the plea to be rescued from lying enemies to this idyllic vision of fine sons and daughters and abundant flocks, which concludes the poem. Some scholars have inferred that this is a different poem tacked onto the victory psalm, though it can be argued that peace and prosperity conventionally follow the king’s military triumphs in biblical poetry.
like corner-pillars / hewn for the shape of a palace. The pillars at the corners of a building were often the site of carved ornamentation, so the simile probably invokes this architectural feature as an image of the exquisite shapeliness of the young women.
13. in our fields. The noun ḥutsot typically means “outside areas” in an urban context.
14. There is no breach and none goes out. There are divergent interpretations of what this line refers to. Because of the immediately preceding reference to abundant flocks, it is likely that what the poet has in mind is the safe enclosure of the flocks. There is no breach in the fences that pen in the flocks—hence “none goes out” (a feminine verb, perhaps because the Hebrew for flock, tsoʾn, is feminine).
and no screaming in our squares. The obvious reference is to cries of terror or anguish in time of war. The idyllic picture of flourishing sons and daughters and multiplying flocks is completed by this image of secure, untroubled peace. The psalm that began by thanking God for the gift of victory in battle concludes with a vision of the reign of peace.