Today's Featured Psalm
Psalm 144

Read this Psalm

Of David.

1 Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
   who trains my hands for war,
   and my fingers for battle;
2 he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
   my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield and he in whom I take refuge,
   who subdues peoples under me.

3 O LORD, what is man that you regard him,
   or the son of man that you think of him?
4 Man is like a breath;
   his days are like a passing shadow.

5 Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down!
   Touch the mountains so that they smoke!
6 Flash forth the lightning and scatter them;
   send out your arrows and rout them!
7 Stretch out your hand from on high;
   rescue me and deliver me from the many waters,
   from the hand of foreigners,
8 whose mouths speak lies
   and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

9 I will sing a new song to you, O God;
   upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,
10 who gives victory to kings,
   who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.
11 Rescue me and deliver me
   from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies
   and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

12 May our sons in their youth
   be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
   cut for the structure of a palace;
13 may our granaries be full,
   providing all kinds of produce;
may our sheep bring forth thousands
   and ten thousands in our fields;
14 may our cattle be heavy with young,
   suffering no mishap or failure in bearing;
may there be no cry of distress in our streets!
15 Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall!
   Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!

Scripture taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Psalm Devotional
Pray His Praises!

“Past praise provides present prayer” is the logic of this psalm. David is very intentionally using the praise of Psalm 18 (see 2 Sam. 22) as the motive and substance of his prayer. A quick scan of marginal references will show the substantial connections. Since the Lord God is unchanging in his attributes and faithful in the loyal love of His covenant, David asks that He do for him here and now what He did for him then and there. Namely, he asks the Lord to deliver him from all His enemies on every side and to lead him into a place of peace and prosperity. In Christ, the Son of David, we can do the same.

David begins at the beginning. He declares the Lord’s proven goodness to deliver His people (vv. 1–2) and confesses his own need and unworthiness of such goodness (vv. 3–4).

In the hope of help nourished by praise, David now makes his request. He asks the Lord to reveal Himself by restraining the powers that are envious of His people (v. 5; see 68:16) and by dissipating their schemes against him (v. 6). He asks that the Lord would take him in hand (John 10:28–29) out of the hands of hostile foreigners who would do him harm—those whose hands had sworn an oath to leave him in peace, raising their right hands to heaven, but falsely (v. 8).