A prayerful song of David, and David’s Lord anticipating the prosperity which Jehovah brings to His own

David paints a picture in vv. 12-15, of a society that is ordered under God. Righteousness exalteth a nation, and that only happens when God is its Lord. Prosperity, both temporal and spiritual, is a blessed result of commitment to the true God. Multi-culturalism and humanism only produce dissension and dissatisfaction. On his ascension to the throne, David, who was taken from a pastoral occupation to be a military commander and king, attributed all his abilities to God’s tuition. Similarly, our spiritual warfare is conducted under God’s direction and His spiritual armour. Human nature is but dust, and yet the grace of God is able to recreate into vessels of honour. What is man indeed? Which thought the Hebrew letter applies to Christ (Heb.2:6). Salvation is given of God (v. 10), and is of the Lord, and can even be experienced by kings. Certainly it was true of the King of kings, when “He cried unto Him, He heard,” and knew deliverance (Ps.22:24). He could also declare, “The King in thy salvation how greatly shall He rejoice” (Ps.21:1).

-Pastor Jeff O’ Neil

Recommended Tune: Arnold

Psalm 144

¹O blessed ever be the LORD,
Who is my strength and might,
Who doth instruct my hands to war,
My fingers teach to fight.

²My goodness, fortress, my high tow’r,
Deliverer, and shield,
In whom I trust: who under me
My people makes to yield.

³LORD, what is man, that thou of him
Dost so much knowledge take?
Or son of man, that thou of him
So great account dost make?

⁴Man is like vanity; his days,
As shadows, pass away.
⁵LORD, bow thy heav’ns, come down, touch thou
The hills, and smoke shall they.

⁶Cast forth thy lightning, scatter them;
Thine arrows shoot, them rout.
⁷Thine hand send from above, me save;
From great depths draw me out;

And from the hand of children strange,
⁸Whose mouth speaks vanity;
And their right hand is a right hand
That works deceitfully.

⁹A new song I to thee will sing,
Lord, on a psaltery;
I on a ten-string’d instrument
Will praises sing to thee.

¹⁰Ev’n he it is that unto kings
Salvation doth send;
Who his own servant David doth
From hurtful sword defend.

¹¹O free me from strange children’s hand,
Whose mouth speaks vanity;
And their right hand a right hand is
That works deceitfully.

¹²That, as the plants, our sons may be
In youth grown up that are;
Our daughters like to corner-stones,
Carv’d like a palace fair.

¹³That to afford all kind of store
Our garners may be fill’d;
That our sheep thousands, in our streets
Ten thousands they may yield.

¹⁴That strong our oxen be for work,
That no in-breaking be,
Nor going out; and that our streets
May from complaints be free.

¹⁵Those people blessed are who be
In such a case as this;
Yea, blessed all those people are,
Whose God JEHOVAH is.