Psalm 144:15

The psalm opens with David praising the LORD as his strength, his fortress and his deliverer in battle (Psalm 144:1–2). He marvels that God should take any notice of man at all: “LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!” (Psalm 144:3–4). He then asks God to reach down from on high and rescue him from his enemies (Psalm 144:5–8).

Verse 11 takes up that prayer again, and its words about the enemies’ mouth and right hand already stood in verse 8. It closes the first part of the psalm, David’s prayer for victory and deliverance (Psalm 144:1–11). From verse 12 the king looks past the battle to the life of his nation. Verses 12, 13 and 14 each open with “That our”, so the blessings they describe hang on the rescue asked for in verse 11. When God protects his people from their enemies, their homes, fields and streets can flourish.

“Rid me, and deliver me” puts two verbs side by side to make one urgent cry. The first, pâtsâh, “rid”, is a root Strong’s defines as to rend or open, especially the mouth, and also to deliver or rid, which is its sense here: to set free. The second, nâtsal, “deliver”, means to snatch away and rescue. David asks for a rescue that only God can give, and the Psalms praise him as exactly that, a fortress and a deliverer (Psalm 18:2).

The danger is “the hand of strange children”. The hand, yâd, stands for power and control, so to be in an enemy’s hand is to be in his power. “Strange children” is b’nei nekâr, “sons of the foreigner”. The word bên is the ordinary word for a son, and nêkâr means foreign or a foreigner, a person of another nation. These are foreign enemies of the king and his people, and David prays as a king at war.

What makes these enemies so dangerous is said in the rest of the verse. “Whose mouth speaketh vanity”: the mouth, peh, is the organ of speech, used for solemn oaths and declarations as well as everyday talk. Vanity, shâvᵉʼ, is emptiness, what is worthless or false, and the word can also mean ruin and lying. It is the word in the commandment against taking the LORD’s name “in vain” (Exodus 20:7). Their words have nothing true behind them, like the flattering lips and proud boasting of Psalm 12:2–4.

“And their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.” The right hand, yâmîyn, is the strong hand, and in Israel it was the hand raised in swearing an oath and held out to seal an agreement. Their right hand is sheqer, falsehood, a lie or a sham. So when they swear or give their hand on a promise, the pledge itself is false. Repeating “right hand” drives the point home: the hand that ought to guarantee their word is a lie as well. Their mouth and their hand together cover all they say and all they promise.

The LORD hates this. Among the things he hates, Proverbs lists “a lying tongue” and “a false witness that speaketh lies” (Proverbs 6:16–19). Jesus teaches that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34), so false speech comes from a false heart. He calls the devil a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44), and behind every enemy who deals in lies stands that first deceiver. Paul tells believers to put away lying and speak truth with their neighbour (Ephesians 4:25), so the people God rescues from liars are to be people of truth themselves.

The first blessing David asks for his nation is its children. “That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth.” The sons, bên, are the young men of the nation. The plants, nâṭîyaʻ, are established, thriving plants, and they are “grown up” (gâdal, to become great) while still in their youth (nâʻûwr). The prayer is for young men who are strong, well rooted and fruitful early in life. In a nation of farmers and vineyards, healthy plants meant life and harvest, and sons carried on the family line, inherited and worked the land and served in its defence, so their growth was the nation’s future. Isaiah speaks of God’s people in the same picture, as trees of righteousness planted by the LORD (Isaiah 61:3).

“That our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.” The daughters, bath, are the young women, and Strong’s derives both bath and bên from the verb “to build”. The corner stones, zâvîyth, are the corners of a building, the carefully cut stones at its angles that bear its weight and keep its walls true. “Polished” is châṭab, a verb for chopping or carving, used of wood, and here of stone cut and finished with care. The palace, hêykâl, is a large public building, a palace or a temple, and “similitude”, tabnîyth, means a structure, model or likeness. So the daughters are pictured as carved stone at the corners of a royal building, both essential to it and beautiful in it. Finely worked stone of this kind belonged to Israel’s greatest buildings, the temple Solomon built (1 Kings 6) and his own palace (1 Kings 7). Land usually passed to sons, and daughters held the household together, joined families in marriage and passed on the faith at home.

Children are a gift from the LORD: “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD” (Psalm 127:3–5). Proverbs speaks of training up a child in the way he should go (Proverbs 22:6). Among the blessings God promised Israel for obedience were children, harvests and peace in the land (Deuteronomy 28:1–14), and this verse asks for the first of them.

Verse 13 turns to food and flocks. Israel lived from its fields and herds, so a good year meant grain stored up and sheep multiplying, and a bad one meant hunger. The garners, mezev, are granaries or storehouses, where grain was kept for the lean months, and the prayer is that they may be mâlêʼ, full. “All manner of store” uses zan, a kind or sort, so the storehouses are to hold food of every kind.

Then come the sheep, tsôʼn, which gave meat, milk and wool and the animals offered in worship. They are to “bring forth thousands and ten thousands”, and in Hebrew both are verbs. The first, ʼâlaph, means to bring forth thousands, with the sheep themselves as its subject. The second, râbab, means to increase, to multiply by tens of thousands. The numbers are a way of saying that the flocks grow past counting. “In our streets” (chûwts) speaks of the open places outside, the fields and pastures or the open ground of the towns, so the flocks are to be seen everywhere.

The law promised that the LORD would command his blessing on Israel’s storehouses (Deuteronomy 28:8) and gave rain and harvest among the blessings of obedience (Leviticus 26:4–5). Proverbs links honouring the LORD with the firstfruits to barns filled with plenty (Proverbs 3:9–10). Under Solomon, David’s son, the people of Judah and Israel were many and lived in plenty (1 Kings 4:20). The king’s prayer is for his whole people, and it rests on the truth that people work and plan and God gives the increase.

“That our oxen may be strong to labour.” Oxen pulled the plough, so strong oxen meant fields worked and harvests gathered. Their word, ʼallûwph, has a wide range. It can mean a chief, a friend or companion, or tame cattle, and here it plainly means the oxen of the farm.

“That there be no breaking in, nor going out.” perets is a breach or gap, the break an enemy makes in a city’s defences, so a breaking in is an invasion. The going out is the people being led out of their land as captives, the exile that later fell on Israel and Judah under Assyria and Babylon. The prayer asks for a land kept safe from both.

“That there be no complaining in our streets.” The word behind “complaining”, tsᵉvâchâh, is an outcry, a shriek of anguish or a public lament. The streets and broad places were where a town met, traded and settled its disputes, so streets free of any cry of distress belong to a town spared famine, sickness, injustice and unrest. Isaiah foresees such a city: “the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying” (Isaiah 65:19).

This verse prays for the whole life of a people at once: work, safety and peace together. The Hebrew word for that peace and wholeness is shalom. The prophets speak of the day when swords are beaten into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4) and every man sits under his vine and fig tree (Micah 4:4), and the psalms praise the God who delivers his people from the snare (Psalm 91:3). The same prayer fits a modern city: work for people’s hands, safety from crime and fear, and public places where the poor are cared for and wrongs are put right. It looks ahead to the day when God will wipe away every tear (Revelation 21:4).

“Happy is that people, that is in such a case.” “In such a case” points back to everything in verses 12 to 14: flourishing children, full storehouses, multiplying flocks, strong oxen, safe walls and quiet streets. A people living like that is happy. The word ʼesher means happiness or blessedness, and it is used as an exclamation, “how happy!”, for those who are fortunate and blessed by God.

“Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.” The second line repeats the first and names what lies beneath it. God, ʼĕlôhîym, is plural in form, read as a plural of majesty when it names the true God. The LORD is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of God, tied to the verb “to be”, the name of the God who brought Israel out of Egypt, made his covenant with them and promised to live among them. All the blessings of verses 12 to 14 come from him, so the people who have him as their God have the giver as well as his gifts. Their happiness rests on whose they are, and it holds through hard years as well as good ones, because it rests on the LORD himself.

Another psalm says almost the same words: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” (Psalm 33:12). The first psalm calls blessed the man who delights in the law of the LORD and grows like a tree by the water (Psalm 1:1–3), and Proverbs says, “whoso trusteth in the LORD, happy is he” (Proverbs 16:20). The law set blessing and curse before Israel (Deuteronomy 28), and this psalm sings of the blessing.

Jesus is the truth that the liars of verse 11 lack: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). His words were always true and his deeds always righteous. On the cross he disarmed principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15), and those who belong to him now walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8–9).

The sons and daughters of verse 12 point to the children God gives through faith. To as many as received Christ he gave power to become the sons of God (John 1:12), and all who are Christ’s are heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:26–29). Christ himself is the chief corner stone, rejected by men and chosen by God (1 Peter 2:6–7), and on him the household of God grows into a holy temple, a dwelling of God through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19–22). His people grow like well-rooted plants and bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23).

The full storehouses of verse 13 point to the one who calls himself the bread of life (John 6:35) and to the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8). The flocks multiplying past counting picture the great flock gathered by the good shepherd (John 10:11), and believers have an inheritance that is incorruptible and kept in heaven for them (1 Peter 1:4).

The strength, safety and peace of verse 14 are ours in Christ as well. He gives strength for the work he calls us to (Philippians 4:13). Paul is sure that the love of God in Christ holds us against every power in heaven and earth (Romans 8:38–39), and Jesus says his sheep are held in his hand and in his Father’s hand (John 10:28–29). He is our peace, who has broken down the wall that divided us (Ephesians 2:14).

The happy people of verse 15 are those brought to God through his Son. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Jesus spoke of the blessed in the Beatitudes, the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful and the pure in heart (Matthew 5:3–12). Peter calls the church a chosen generation and a peculiar people, who once were not a people and now are the people of God (1 Peter 2:9–10).

These verses begin with a king in danger from liars and end with a happy people, and the LORD stands at both ends. He is the deliverer who rescues from the false mouth and the false hand, and he is the giver of children, bread, flocks, work, safety and peace. The psalm asks for all of these openly, as good things a king may rightly ask for his people, and so it shows us a God who cares about our homes, our work and our streets.

The last line shows the best gift. The people whose God is the LORD have the giver himself, and their happiness rests on him when the storehouses are full and when they are bare. In Christ that happiness belongs to all who believe, and the psalm’s picture of growing children and quiet streets will be fully seen when God dwells with his people and wipes away every tear.