Original Meaning
Heading (144:0)
AS WITH EACH OF THE PSALMS in the Psalter’s final Davidic collection (Pss 138–45), the superscription includes the phrase “Of David” (ledawid). There are three other Davidic collections in the Psalter: its Books 1 and 2 contain two large collections that include “David” in the superscriptions (Pss 3–41; 51–72) and culminate with a reference to the “prayers of David” in Psalm 72:20. In Book 5 (Pss 107–45) David reappears in the superscription of two collections. The first one (Pss 108–10) begins Book 5, and the second (Pss 138–45) serves as a concluding collection. The reemergence of David in the superscriptions in Book 5 signals that David has become emblematic of the poor servant who depends entirely on Yahweh for deliverance.6
In Book 5 David is not the warring king seen in earlier psalms (e.g., Ps 18); instead, he is the one in need of God’s deliverance. In the Septuagint the superscription to Psalm 144 has been expanded to include the phrase “against Goliath,” thus connecting this psalm with the heroic story in 1 Samuel 17. Yet, even in that text, David is portrayed as a “boy, glowing with health and handsome” (v. 42)—surely no match for a Philistine giant. In that scene, David appears not as the mighty warrior but as the faithful servant (vv. 34–37).
Bridging Contexts
HEAVENLY DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY. The motif of the divine warrior appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament (cf. Exod 15), as does the motif of Yahweh as the God of heaven (Ps 115). Each metaphor captures a sense of Yahweh that words alone cannot. By referencing Yahweh as the God of heaven, the author confesses Yahweh as the God who stands over all creation (and all powers); he is no regional deity with limited authority but the Creator King enthroned in the heavens, where he stands over his kingdom (i.e., the world) and exercises his reign. This metaphor clearly alludes to the transcendent nature of Israel’s God. The divine-warrior imagery, however, often appears alongside theophanic imagery meant to highlight Yahweh’s salvific immanence—Yahweh comes as the Divine Warrior to deliver his people. As God marches across the earth, the mountains crumble before him, and the nations tremble as he comes to deliver his people (Hab 3:6, 13). A number of texts, particularly in the Psalter, have melded the two images into one by describing Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one enthroned in the heavens yet who acts decisively to deliver his people. The frequency of this metaphor in the Psalter is somewhat surprising, with nearly 25 percent of all metaphors in the Psalter alluding to heavenly divine-warrior imagery.20
Clearly the psalmists found in this metaphorical image a rich vein from which to draw their theological confessions.
New song. As noted above, the mention of a “new song” occurs relatively infrequently in the Old Testament, where the phrase appears only seven times (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). As similarly in Psalm 144, the theme of a new song and the metaphor of the heavenly divine warrior appear together in the other six texts, thus suggesting a close association between the two elements. A “new song” must always be heard in the light of Israel’s confession of Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior. It is Yahweh’s role as such that even makes this singing possible. In Psalm 33, for example, the psalm begins with a threefold call to praise, with the last call instructing the community to “sing to him a new song.” In the remainder of the poem the psalmist confesses that Yahweh looks down “from heaven” (Ps 33:13) and sees all mankind. But the heavenly Divine King is at work foiling the plans of the nations and thwarting those of the peoples (v. 10). No king is safe from the heavenly Divine King/Warrior when he comes to deliver his people (v. 16, 19). Similarly, in Psalms 96 and 98 the call to sing a new song appears in connection with Israel’s praise of Yahweh as the Divine King who stands over all creation, yet both psalms confess that Yahweh comes to “judge the earth” (Pss 96:13; 98:9). And likewise in Isaiah 42:10, the prophet calls the people to sing “a new song” but then announces that Yahweh will “march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal” (v. 13).
When analyzed together, several characteristics pertaining to the “new song” emerge from these seven texts. Erhard Gerstenberger catalogs three signficiant “criteria” for the “new song” in the Old Testament. More than comprising merely form-critical observations about the structure of the psalms themselves, Gerstenberger’s analysis reminds us of the theological heft found in the concept of the “new song.” According to Gerstenberger, the “new song” was “intoned against death and evil in order to support and make possible full human life.”21
Second, these psalms were voiced within the lives of communities rather than as individual meditations. What was confessed within the new songs had implications for all God’s people and the nations writ large (e.g., Pss 96; 98; 149). And third, the “new song” “anticipates boldly, against all evidence, the coming of God’s liberation, the new and just world.”22
The phrase “new song” occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9; 14:3). The meaning associated with a “new song” in the Old Testament extends into these New Testament texts, but through the filter of Jesus Christ. According to Revelation 5, a new song is to be sung because of the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:13). Through his victory a “new and just world” will be experienced, one in which people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” will become “a kingdom and priests to serve our God” (vv. 9–10).
As noted in the Original Meaning section above, when referencing a “new song,” the authors are not referring to a “new” composition or a freshly composed work. Instead, by declaring a “new song” they are making a fundamental claim about God and his ways in the world. The God of the “new song” is the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one who comes to make all things new.23
Contemporary Significance
AS WE HAVE NOTED ABOVE, Psalm 144 makes considerable use of earlier psalms, most notably Psalms 8, 18, and 32. This use and reuse of earlier psalms reflects the elasticity of psalmic poetry; its language and themes are malleable to a myriad of contexts. In Psalm 144 the poet has taken elements of Psalms 8 and 18 and reworked them to address the theological and existential crises faced by the postexilic community. Yet, among the goals of biblical interpretation, merely identifying the sources used by the psalmist is not enough. We must ask, why and to what end did he use them? Here with respect to the use of both Psalms 8 and 18, the writer of Psalm 144 has adapted earlier psalmic texts to create a thoroughly theocentric perspective. As noted above, Psalm 8 actually praises humanity’s creation, yet in Psalm 144 the psalmist has borrowed the same question from that psalm and arrived at a negative assessment of human power. In arriving at that conclusion, the poet is also conversely asserting the necessity for a demonstration of God’s power. Verses 5–8 allude to that display of power as the psalmist adapts specific elements from Psalm 18 and makes them part of his petition—part of his plea for Yahweh to act.
Psalm 144’s use of both Psalms 8 and 18 feeds into the larger concern related to the “new song.” While humans have no power, God does. Those in the postexilic period understood well their own plight, and they understood well the source of their redemption. If the members of the Jerusalem community understood that they were little more than a “breath” or “fleeting shadow,” then they recognized well that there was no hope for them. But if their confession of hope rested fully and entirely with the heavenly Divine Warrior, the very God of Israel, the one who could deliver them from the “hands of foreigners,” then there was hope indeed. There was reason to sing a “new song” and to believe that the world as experienced is not the world as intended.
When we read and sing Psalm 144, we are invited to make that same claim. We are asked to renounce our sense of self-sufficiency and the hubris associated with claims of self-deliverance. We are asked to acknowledge what we know to be true—we are mere “fleeting shadows.” Because we know what we are, we must lean fully into who he is—the Divine King (Ps 145), the heavenly divine warrior, our Rock and Shield. Because he is that God, because he is our God, we have reason to sing a new song.
Original Meaning
The Psalmist Praises God (144:1–2)
THE PSALM OPENS WITH A SERIES of descriptive statements meant to highlight the relationship between the psalmist and his God. The relational nature of the comments is emphasized by the repeated use of first-person singular language (“me,” “my”); the terms together appear nine times in the opening two verses, not counting the first-person form of the verb in verse 2c (“I take refuge”). The psalmist draws much of his imagery from Psalm 18. The opening line, “Praise be to the LORD my Rock,” is drawn from Psalm 18:2, 46. The phrase “who trains my hands for war” in Psalm 144:1b is drawn from Psalm 18:34, and much of the remainder of the language in Psalm 144:2 compares to that found in Psalm 18:2.
Praise be to the LORD. The Hebrew word for “praise” comes from the root brk, a term that occurs more than four hundred times throughout the Old Testament. Depending on the context, usage, and form, the Hebrew term can mean “to praise,” “to bless,” or even “to greet.” Barak can refer to encounters between humans (Gen 27:30; Deut 33:1; 2 Sam 6:20), but more often it relates to God’s dispensing of blessings to his people or his creation (cf., commentary on Ps 134).7
In Psalm 144:1a and 2b the psalmist exhorts the community to “bless” Yahweh. While the idea of God’s blessing his people seems logical, the reverse—the idea of the people’s blessing God—seems counterintuitive. Other ancient Semitic traditions expressed similar reservations about the idea of who could bless whom and decided that the deity was the one who granted blessing but never the one who received blessing. By contrast, in the Old Testament Yahweh not only appears as the subject of the verb “to bless” but also can function as the object of the verb, as evidenced in this psalm. Obviously, barak functions differently depending on whether Yahweh is the subject or the object of the verb. The NIV has attempted to capture this difference by rendering barak as “to praise” when Yahweh is the object of the verb and humans are the subject (as in Ps 134:1a, 2b). The Septuagint understood the different nuance being communicated in this use of barak and so rendered the Hebrew term with eulogeō, “to speak well of,” as a servant would speak well of his or her superior. Within the framework of a covenant, or even a patron-client relationship, the master or lord would bestow favor on the servant, and in return the servant would speak well of, or “bless,” the master. The use of hesed in Psalm 144:2a underscores the covenantal nature of this relationship. In the Old Testament, God bestows blessings on his people and, in return, his people speak well of God; they bless or praise God.
“My people” or “peoples.” Verse 2d contains a text-critical note that does shape the interpretation of the opening strophe and explains the difference in translations. The Masoretic Text reads, “who subdues my people [‘ammi] under me.” Hossfeld and Zenger read with the Hebrew text and contend that verse 2d refers to some type of internal unrest among those in Yehud.8
This reading raises two issues. Thematically, the psalm is not concerned with internal unrest but with the oppression experienced at the hands of foreign peoples (vv. 7, 11). The second issue involves the relationship between Psalms 144 and 18. The phrase found in Psalm 144:2b is also found in Psalm 18:47, but in that instance the word ‘ammim (“peoples”) appears instead of ‘ammi, “my people.” The use of ‘ammim (“peoples”) in that context clearly refers to external threats. Several Hebrew manuscripts, Aquila’s Greek translation, the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QPsa), the Syriac, and the Targum all read ‘ammim (“peoples”). The NIV’s translation follows these textual witnesses.
Bridging Contexts
HEAVENLY DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY. The motif of the divine warrior appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament (cf. Exod 15), as does the motif of Yahweh as the God of heaven (Ps 115). Each metaphor captures a sense of Yahweh that words alone cannot. By referencing Yahweh as the God of heaven, the author confesses Yahweh as the God who stands over all creation (and all powers); he is no regional deity with limited authority but the Creator King enthroned in the heavens, where he stands over his kingdom (i.e., the world) and exercises his reign. This metaphor clearly alludes to the transcendent nature of Israel’s God. The divine-warrior imagery, however, often appears alongside theophanic imagery meant to highlight Yahweh’s salvific immanence—Yahweh comes as the Divine Warrior to deliver his people. As God marches across the earth, the mountains crumble before him, and the nations tremble as he comes to deliver his people (Hab 3:6, 13). A number of texts, particularly in the Psalter, have melded the two images into one by describing Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one enthroned in the heavens yet who acts decisively to deliver his people. The frequency of this metaphor in the Psalter is somewhat surprising, with nearly 25 percent of all metaphors in the Psalter alluding to heavenly divine-warrior imagery.20
Clearly the psalmists found in this metaphorical image a rich vein from which to draw their theological confessions.
New song. As noted above, the mention of a “new song” occurs relatively infrequently in the Old Testament, where the phrase appears only seven times (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). As similarly in Psalm 144, the theme of a new song and the metaphor of the heavenly divine warrior appear together in the other six texts, thus suggesting a close association between the two elements. A “new song” must always be heard in the light of Israel’s confession of Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior. It is Yahweh’s role as such that even makes this singing possible. In Psalm 33, for example, the psalm begins with a threefold call to praise, with the last call instructing the community to “sing to him a new song.” In the remainder of the poem the psalmist confesses that Yahweh looks down “from heaven” (Ps 33:13) and sees all mankind. But the heavenly Divine King is at work foiling the plans of the nations and thwarting those of the peoples (v. 10). No king is safe from the heavenly Divine King/Warrior when he comes to deliver his people (v. 16, 19). Similarly, in Psalms 96 and 98 the call to sing a new song appears in connection with Israel’s praise of Yahweh as the Divine King who stands over all creation, yet both psalms confess that Yahweh comes to “judge the earth” (Pss 96:13; 98:9). And likewise in Isaiah 42:10, the prophet calls the people to sing “a new song” but then announces that Yahweh will “march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal” (v. 13).
When analyzed together, several characteristics pertaining to the “new song” emerge from these seven texts. Erhard Gerstenberger catalogs three signficiant “criteria” for the “new song” in the Old Testament. More than comprising merely form-critical observations about the structure of the psalms themselves, Gerstenberger’s analysis reminds us of the theological heft found in the concept of the “new song.” According to Gerstenberger, the “new song” was “intoned against death and evil in order to support and make possible full human life.”21
Second, these psalms were voiced within the lives of communities rather than as individual meditations. What was confessed within the new songs had implications for all God’s people and the nations writ large (e.g., Pss 96; 98; 149). And third, the “new song” “anticipates boldly, against all evidence, the coming of God’s liberation, the new and just world.”22
The phrase “new song” occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9; 14:3). The meaning associated with a “new song” in the Old Testament extends into these New Testament texts, but through the filter of Jesus Christ. According to Revelation 5, a new song is to be sung because of the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:13). Through his victory a “new and just world” will be experienced, one in which people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” will become “a kingdom and priests to serve our God” (vv. 9–10).
As noted in the Original Meaning section above, when referencing a “new song,” the authors are not referring to a “new” composition or a freshly composed work. Instead, by declaring a “new song” they are making a fundamental claim about God and his ways in the world. The God of the “new song” is the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one who comes to make all things new.23
Contemporary Significance
AS WE HAVE NOTED ABOVE, Psalm 144 makes considerable use of earlier psalms, most notably Psalms 8, 18, and 32. This use and reuse of earlier psalms reflects the elasticity of psalmic poetry; its language and themes are malleable to a myriad of contexts. In Psalm 144 the poet has taken elements of Psalms 8 and 18 and reworked them to address the theological and existential crises faced by the postexilic community. Yet, among the goals of biblical interpretation, merely identifying the sources used by the psalmist is not enough. We must ask, why and to what end did he use them? Here with respect to the use of both Psalms 8 and 18, the writer of Psalm 144 has adapted earlier psalmic texts to create a thoroughly theocentric perspective. As noted above, Psalm 8 actually praises humanity’s creation, yet in Psalm 144 the psalmist has borrowed the same question from that psalm and arrived at a negative assessment of human power. In arriving at that conclusion, the poet is also conversely asserting the necessity for a demonstration of God’s power. Verses 5–8 allude to that display of power as the psalmist adapts specific elements from Psalm 18 and makes them part of his petition—part of his plea for Yahweh to act.
Psalm 144’s use of both Psalms 8 and 18 feeds into the larger concern related to the “new song.” While humans have no power, God does. Those in the postexilic period understood well their own plight, and they understood well the source of their redemption. If the members of the Jerusalem community understood that they were little more than a “breath” or “fleeting shadow,” then they recognized well that there was no hope for them. But if their confession of hope rested fully and entirely with the heavenly Divine Warrior, the very God of Israel, the one who could deliver them from the “hands of foreigners,” then there was hope indeed. There was reason to sing a “new song” and to believe that the world as experienced is not the world as intended.
When we read and sing Psalm 144, we are invited to make that same claim. We are asked to renounce our sense of self-sufficiency and the hubris associated with claims of self-deliverance. We are asked to acknowledge what we know to be true—we are mere “fleeting shadows.” Because we know what we are, we must lean fully into who he is—the Divine King (Ps 145), the heavenly divine warrior, our Rock and Shield. Because he is that God, because he is our God, we have reason to sing a new song.
Original Meaning
Reflection on the Human Condition (144:3–4)
IN THE SECOND STROPHE THE PSALMIST turns to consider the nature of the human condition. In verse 3 he borrows language from Psalm 8:4, but in that psalm the answer to the question is vastly different. In Psalm 8 God is mindful of humans and cares for them because he has “made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor” (v. 5). That claim is followed in verse 6 with the statement that God has made them to rule over creation, he has “put everything under their feet.” In short, Psalm 8 praises humans both for their position and their power. In Psalm 144, however, the answer to the same question differs considerably. Rather than drawing from Psalm 8 and celebrating the status of humans, the writer of Psalm 144 turns to a different motif found in Scripture. He confesses that human life is like a “breath” (hebel), the same word that appears throughout the book of Ecclesiastes (cf. Eccl 1:2) and a word that stresses the ephemerality of life. Psalm 144:4b echoes that assertion by likening human life to a shadow (tsel).9
Together these claims provide a rationale for the confession in verses 1–2 and the petitions that follow in verses 3–8. Because humans are little more than a breath and a shadow, they must rely fully on another as their fortress and stronghold. And similarly, because humans are little more than a breath and a shadow, they do not posses the strength or vigor to withstand the aggression of hostile forces (vv. 3–8). In such circumstances, neither a breath nor a shadow can offer the protection and strength found in a rock (v. 1a).
Bridging Contexts
HEAVENLY DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY. The motif of the divine warrior appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament (cf. Exod 15), as does the motif of Yahweh as the God of heaven (Ps 115). Each metaphor captures a sense of Yahweh that words alone cannot. By referencing Yahweh as the God of heaven, the author confesses Yahweh as the God who stands over all creation (and all powers); he is no regional deity with limited authority but the Creator King enthroned in the heavens, where he stands over his kingdom (i.e., the world) and exercises his reign. This metaphor clearly alludes to the transcendent nature of Israel’s God. The divine-warrior imagery, however, often appears alongside theophanic imagery meant to highlight Yahweh’s salvific immanence—Yahweh comes as the Divine Warrior to deliver his people. As God marches across the earth, the mountains crumble before him, and the nations tremble as he comes to deliver his people (Hab 3:6, 13). A number of texts, particularly in the Psalter, have melded the two images into one by describing Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one enthroned in the heavens yet who acts decisively to deliver his people. The frequency of this metaphor in the Psalter is somewhat surprising, with nearly 25 percent of all metaphors in the Psalter alluding to heavenly divine-warrior imagery.20
Clearly the psalmists found in this metaphorical image a rich vein from which to draw their theological confessions.
New song. As noted above, the mention of a “new song” occurs relatively infrequently in the Old Testament, where the phrase appears only seven times (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). As similarly in Psalm 144, the theme of a new song and the metaphor of the heavenly divine warrior appear together in the other six texts, thus suggesting a close association between the two elements. A “new song” must always be heard in the light of Israel’s confession of Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior. It is Yahweh’s role as such that even makes this singing possible. In Psalm 33, for example, the psalm begins with a threefold call to praise, with the last call instructing the community to “sing to him a new song.” In the remainder of the poem the psalmist confesses that Yahweh looks down “from heaven” (Ps 33:13) and sees all mankind. But the heavenly Divine King is at work foiling the plans of the nations and thwarting those of the peoples (v. 10). No king is safe from the heavenly Divine King/Warrior when he comes to deliver his people (v. 16, 19). Similarly, in Psalms 96 and 98 the call to sing a new song appears in connection with Israel’s praise of Yahweh as the Divine King who stands over all creation, yet both psalms confess that Yahweh comes to “judge the earth” (Pss 96:13; 98:9). And likewise in Isaiah 42:10, the prophet calls the people to sing “a new song” but then announces that Yahweh will “march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal” (v. 13).
When analyzed together, several characteristics pertaining to the “new song” emerge from these seven texts. Erhard Gerstenberger catalogs three signficiant “criteria” for the “new song” in the Old Testament. More than comprising merely form-critical observations about the structure of the psalms themselves, Gerstenberger’s analysis reminds us of the theological heft found in the concept of the “new song.” According to Gerstenberger, the “new song” was “intoned against death and evil in order to support and make possible full human life.”21
Second, these psalms were voiced within the lives of communities rather than as individual meditations. What was confessed within the new songs had implications for all God’s people and the nations writ large (e.g., Pss 96; 98; 149). And third, the “new song” “anticipates boldly, against all evidence, the coming of God’s liberation, the new and just world.”22
The phrase “new song” occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9; 14:3). The meaning associated with a “new song” in the Old Testament extends into these New Testament texts, but through the filter of Jesus Christ. According to Revelation 5, a new song is to be sung because of the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:13). Through his victory a “new and just world” will be experienced, one in which people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” will become “a kingdom and priests to serve our God” (vv. 9–10).
As noted in the Original Meaning section above, when referencing a “new song,” the authors are not referring to a “new” composition or a freshly composed work. Instead, by declaring a “new song” they are making a fundamental claim about God and his ways in the world. The God of the “new song” is the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one who comes to make all things new.23
Contemporary Significance
AS WE HAVE NOTED ABOVE, Psalm 144 makes considerable use of earlier psalms, most notably Psalms 8, 18, and 32. This use and reuse of earlier psalms reflects the elasticity of psalmic poetry; its language and themes are malleable to a myriad of contexts. In Psalm 144 the poet has taken elements of Psalms 8 and 18 and reworked them to address the theological and existential crises faced by the postexilic community. Yet, among the goals of biblical interpretation, merely identifying the sources used by the psalmist is not enough. We must ask, why and to what end did he use them? Here with respect to the use of both Psalms 8 and 18, the writer of Psalm 144 has adapted earlier psalmic texts to create a thoroughly theocentric perspective. As noted above, Psalm 8 actually praises humanity’s creation, yet in Psalm 144 the psalmist has borrowed the same question from that psalm and arrived at a negative assessment of human power. In arriving at that conclusion, the poet is also conversely asserting the necessity for a demonstration of God’s power. Verses 5–8 allude to that display of power as the psalmist adapts specific elements from Psalm 18 and makes them part of his petition—part of his plea for Yahweh to act.
Psalm 144’s use of both Psalms 8 and 18 feeds into the larger concern related to the “new song.” While humans have no power, God does. Those in the postexilic period understood well their own plight, and they understood well the source of their redemption. If the members of the Jerusalem community understood that they were little more than a “breath” or “fleeting shadow,” then they recognized well that there was no hope for them. But if their confession of hope rested fully and entirely with the heavenly Divine Warrior, the very God of Israel, the one who could deliver them from the “hands of foreigners,” then there was hope indeed. There was reason to sing a “new song” and to believe that the world as experienced is not the world as intended.
When we read and sing Psalm 144, we are invited to make that same claim. We are asked to renounce our sense of self-sufficiency and the hubris associated with claims of self-deliverance. We are asked to acknowledge what we know to be true—we are mere “fleeting shadows.” Because we know what we are, we must lean fully into who he is—the Divine King (Ps 145), the heavenly divine warrior, our Rock and Shield. Because he is that God, because he is our God, we have reason to sing a new song.
Original Meaning
Petitions to Yahweh (144:5–8)
GIVEN THE HUMAN CONDITION, as expressed in verses 3–4, the psalmist petitions Yahweh for deliverance from the present threat (i.e., “the hands of foreigners”). In these verses the language and imagery draws considerably from Psalm 18, but they have been adapted to address the current plight.
Part your heavens, LORD, and come down. In light of the present threat, the psalmist petitions for a theophany, for the inbreaking of God’s manifest presence in the world. In Book 5 of the Psalter the poets have repeatedly referred to God’s locale as being in the heavens or even above the heavens (e.g., Pss 113; 115), a claim meant to reinforce Israel’s confession that Yahweh is the Divine King over all creation. In Psalm 144 the psalmist envisions Yahweh as the God of the heavens, but he seeks to close that spatial distance by calling upon Yahweh to part the heavens and come down (v. 5). The descriptive language that follows clearly invokes imagery associated with the Sinai theophany in Exodus 19. When Yahweh appeared on Sinai, “smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace” (v. 18).10
The sending forth of lightning coupled with images of archery is frequently employed in other theophanic texts (cf. Hab 3). Together the images signal that not only has Yahweh made himself present with his people, but he has also come as the Divine Warrior prepared to defend them.
Reach down your hand. The image in verse 7a reinforces both the perceived spatial distance as well as Yahweh’s capacity to “come down” (v. 5a). Although the NIV follows a number of English translations by rendering the word “hand” as singular, the Hebrew is plural, “hands.”11
This change may seem innocuous enough not to warrant a comment, but the shift from the expected singular to the plural in Hebrew suggests an important theological move being made by the psalmist. Typically, the noun “hand” appears in the singular when referring to God’s capacity to help his people, and in this sense the noun functions as a cipher for the power of God (cf. Deut 5:15). But when the hands (plural) of God are mentioned, reference is being made to God’s creative work (cf. Pss 8:6; 143:5), and even more to God’s creative power to bring order out of chaos. In making this slight change (i.e., from singular to plural), the psalmist sought to “represent the theophanic YHWH also as the creator God.”12
Hands of foreigners. In Psalm 18 the poet asked Yahweh to rescue him from his enemies and those who “hate him.” In Psalm 144 the psalmist has narrowed the terminology considerably in explaining that the threat is miyyad bene-nekar, literally, “from the hand of the sons of the foreigner.” The word nekar (“foreign”) occurs with great regularity in the Hebrew Bible and most often functions adjectivally with ’elohim, “foreign gods.” The phrase that appears in Psalm 144:7, 11 (“sons of a foreigner,” bene-nekar) occurs only eighteen times in the Hebrew Bible, with the highest concentration appearing in Isaiah 56–66, frequently with overt political connotations (e.g., Isa 60:10).13
The threat facing the psalmist, and arguably the entire community (cf. Ps 144:12–14), comes from foreign powers that oppress them.
Mighty waters. The phrase “from the hands of the sons of a foreigner” (miyyad bene-nekar) stands in parallel to the previous phrase mimmayim rabbim, literally, “from the many waters.” The direct allusion to foreign powers, then, is filtered through the first image of the “many waters.” As similarly to the imagery in Psalm 124, the writer of Psalm 144 employs the metaphor of “many waters” in an effort to recast the present threat in cosmological terms. As J. J. M. Roberts has suggested, such cosmological themes are fundamental to Israel’s construction of the identity of Yahweh. These cosmological themes articulate Yahweh’s rule over the world. Roberts explains, “It is these primeval, cosmogonic victories of Yahweh that the psalmist cites, not the exodus or the conquest of Canaan, as a motivation to stir Yahweh to act against the historical enemies that now threaten the people of God.”14
The cosmological language employed reinforces the significance of the threat and once more affirms that Israel’s only hope against such powers rests with Yahweh alone.
Bridging Contexts
HEAVENLY DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY. The motif of the divine warrior appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament (cf. Exod 15), as does the motif of Yahweh as the God of heaven (Ps 115). Each metaphor captures a sense of Yahweh that words alone cannot. By referencing Yahweh as the God of heaven, the author confesses Yahweh as the God who stands over all creation (and all powers); he is no regional deity with limited authority but the Creator King enthroned in the heavens, where he stands over his kingdom (i.e., the world) and exercises his reign. This metaphor clearly alludes to the transcendent nature of Israel’s God. The divine-warrior imagery, however, often appears alongside theophanic imagery meant to highlight Yahweh’s salvific immanence—Yahweh comes as the Divine Warrior to deliver his people. As God marches across the earth, the mountains crumble before him, and the nations tremble as he comes to deliver his people (Hab 3:6, 13). A number of texts, particularly in the Psalter, have melded the two images into one by describing Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one enthroned in the heavens yet who acts decisively to deliver his people. The frequency of this metaphor in the Psalter is somewhat surprising, with nearly 25 percent of all metaphors in the Psalter alluding to heavenly divine-warrior imagery.20
Clearly the psalmists found in this metaphorical image a rich vein from which to draw their theological confessions.
New song. As noted above, the mention of a “new song” occurs relatively infrequently in the Old Testament, where the phrase appears only seven times (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). As similarly in Psalm 144, the theme of a new song and the metaphor of the heavenly divine warrior appear together in the other six texts, thus suggesting a close association between the two elements. A “new song” must always be heard in the light of Israel’s confession of Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior. It is Yahweh’s role as such that even makes this singing possible. In Psalm 33, for example, the psalm begins with a threefold call to praise, with the last call instructing the community to “sing to him a new song.” In the remainder of the poem the psalmist confesses that Yahweh looks down “from heaven” (Ps 33:13) and sees all mankind. But the heavenly Divine King is at work foiling the plans of the nations and thwarting those of the peoples (v. 10). No king is safe from the heavenly Divine King/Warrior when he comes to deliver his people (v. 16, 19). Similarly, in Psalms 96 and 98 the call to sing a new song appears in connection with Israel’s praise of Yahweh as the Divine King who stands over all creation, yet both psalms confess that Yahweh comes to “judge the earth” (Pss 96:13; 98:9). And likewise in Isaiah 42:10, the prophet calls the people to sing “a new song” but then announces that Yahweh will “march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal” (v. 13).
When analyzed together, several characteristics pertaining to the “new song” emerge from these seven texts. Erhard Gerstenberger catalogs three signficiant “criteria” for the “new song” in the Old Testament. More than comprising merely form-critical observations about the structure of the psalms themselves, Gerstenberger’s analysis reminds us of the theological heft found in the concept of the “new song.” According to Gerstenberger, the “new song” was “intoned against death and evil in order to support and make possible full human life.”21
Second, these psalms were voiced within the lives of communities rather than as individual meditations. What was confessed within the new songs had implications for all God’s people and the nations writ large (e.g., Pss 96; 98; 149). And third, the “new song” “anticipates boldly, against all evidence, the coming of God’s liberation, the new and just world.”22
The phrase “new song” occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9; 14:3). The meaning associated with a “new song” in the Old Testament extends into these New Testament texts, but through the filter of Jesus Christ. According to Revelation 5, a new song is to be sung because of the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:13). Through his victory a “new and just world” will be experienced, one in which people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” will become “a kingdom and priests to serve our God” (vv. 9–10).
As noted in the Original Meaning section above, when referencing a “new song,” the authors are not referring to a “new” composition or a freshly composed work. Instead, by declaring a “new song” they are making a fundamental claim about God and his ways in the world. The God of the “new song” is the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one who comes to make all things new.23
Contemporary Significance
AS WE HAVE NOTED ABOVE, Psalm 144 makes considerable use of earlier psalms, most notably Psalms 8, 18, and 32. This use and reuse of earlier psalms reflects the elasticity of psalmic poetry; its language and themes are malleable to a myriad of contexts. In Psalm 144 the poet has taken elements of Psalms 8 and 18 and reworked them to address the theological and existential crises faced by the postexilic community. Yet, among the goals of biblical interpretation, merely identifying the sources used by the psalmist is not enough. We must ask, why and to what end did he use them? Here with respect to the use of both Psalms 8 and 18, the writer of Psalm 144 has adapted earlier psalmic texts to create a thoroughly theocentric perspective. As noted above, Psalm 8 actually praises humanity’s creation, yet in Psalm 144 the psalmist has borrowed the same question from that psalm and arrived at a negative assessment of human power. In arriving at that conclusion, the poet is also conversely asserting the necessity for a demonstration of God’s power. Verses 5–8 allude to that display of power as the psalmist adapts specific elements from Psalm 18 and makes them part of his petition—part of his plea for Yahweh to act.
Psalm 144’s use of both Psalms 8 and 18 feeds into the larger concern related to the “new song.” While humans have no power, God does. Those in the postexilic period understood well their own plight, and they understood well the source of their redemption. If the members of the Jerusalem community understood that they were little more than a “breath” or “fleeting shadow,” then they recognized well that there was no hope for them. But if their confession of hope rested fully and entirely with the heavenly Divine Warrior, the very God of Israel, the one who could deliver them from the “hands of foreigners,” then there was hope indeed. There was reason to sing a “new song” and to believe that the world as experienced is not the world as intended.
When we read and sing Psalm 144, we are invited to make that same claim. We are asked to renounce our sense of self-sufficiency and the hubris associated with claims of self-deliverance. We are asked to acknowledge what we know to be true—we are mere “fleeting shadows.” Because we know what we are, we must lean fully into who he is—the Divine King (Ps 145), the heavenly divine warrior, our Rock and Shield. Because he is that God, because he is our God, we have reason to sing a new song.
Original Meaning
Praise and Petition (144:9–11)
THE FOURTH STROPHE CONTAINS a vow of praise followed by a petition. The reason Yahweh deserves praise (v. 10a–b) provides the warrant for the petition offered in verses 10c–11.
I will sing a new song. The reference to a “new song” occurs only seven times in the Old Testament (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). The psalmist’s vow to sing a new song has little to do with his song being a “new” composition; instead, his vow appears to point to a particular understanding or confession about Israel’s God (see below, Bridging Context;.see also the comments on Ps 96:1).
Who gives victories to kings. In Psalm 144:10a–b the psalmist describes Yahweh as “the one who gives victory to kings, who delivers his servant David.” Hossfeld and Zenger, as well as Christoph Buysch, argue that with the use of “kings” in verse 10a the psalmist claims that Yahweh provides victory to all the kings of the world.15
Further, they contend, the psalmist refers to the kings of the nations in verse 10a while verse 10b refers to David and the Davidic dynasty. In support of such a claim, scholars have suggested that the plural form of melek (“king”) appears frequently in the Psalter (e.g., Pss 2:10; 72:10; 102:23; 138:4), and in such contexts the word refers to the kings of earth, thus necessitating a similar rendering in Psalm 144.16
Those following this line of reasoning also point to Psalm 138:4 (“may all the kings of the earth praise you”) and contend that, just as the kings turned to Yahweh in Psalm 138, so also is Yahweh turning to the kings of the earth in Psalm 144 and guaranteeing victory to them. The context of Psalm 144 itself and its intertextual relationship with Psalm 18, however, suggest a different, albeit more straightforward interpretation. Psalm 144:10 draws from Psalm 18:50, and there the psalmist places David in parallel with “his [Yahweh’s] king.” The poet makes a similar move in Psalm 144. The psalmist sings a new song to Yahweh celebrating the victories he has provided for David and the other kings of Israel.
Psalm 144 depicts a crisis at the hands of the “sons of a foreigner,” bene-nekar, a crisis that necessitates the “part[ing] of the heavens” and the direct intervention of Yahweh. The two figures used in verse 10a–b—David and the kings of David’s lineage—serve as a reminder of Yahweh’s faithful intervention in behalf of his people in the past. Yahweh’s faithfulness in the past provides the rationale for the petitions that follow in verses 10c–11.
Bridging Contexts
HEAVENLY DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY. The motif of the divine warrior appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament (cf. Exod 15), as does the motif of Yahweh as the God of heaven (Ps 115). Each metaphor captures a sense of Yahweh that words alone cannot. By referencing Yahweh as the God of heaven, the author confesses Yahweh as the God who stands over all creation (and all powers); he is no regional deity with limited authority but the Creator King enthroned in the heavens, where he stands over his kingdom (i.e., the world) and exercises his reign. This metaphor clearly alludes to the transcendent nature of Israel’s God. The divine-warrior imagery, however, often appears alongside theophanic imagery meant to highlight Yahweh’s salvific immanence—Yahweh comes as the Divine Warrior to deliver his people. As God marches across the earth, the mountains crumble before him, and the nations tremble as he comes to deliver his people (Hab 3:6, 13). A number of texts, particularly in the Psalter, have melded the two images into one by describing Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one enthroned in the heavens yet who acts decisively to deliver his people. The frequency of this metaphor in the Psalter is somewhat surprising, with nearly 25 percent of all metaphors in the Psalter alluding to heavenly divine-warrior imagery.20
Clearly the psalmists found in this metaphorical image a rich vein from which to draw their theological confessions.
New song. As noted above, the mention of a “new song” occurs relatively infrequently in the Old Testament, where the phrase appears only seven times (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). As similarly in Psalm 144, the theme of a new song and the metaphor of the heavenly divine warrior appear together in the other six texts, thus suggesting a close association between the two elements. A “new song” must always be heard in the light of Israel’s confession of Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior. It is Yahweh’s role as such that even makes this singing possible. In Psalm 33, for example, the psalm begins with a threefold call to praise, with the last call instructing the community to “sing to him a new song.” In the remainder of the poem the psalmist confesses that Yahweh looks down “from heaven” (Ps 33:13) and sees all mankind. But the heavenly Divine King is at work foiling the plans of the nations and thwarting those of the peoples (v. 10). No king is safe from the heavenly Divine King/Warrior when he comes to deliver his people (v. 16, 19). Similarly, in Psalms 96 and 98 the call to sing a new song appears in connection with Israel’s praise of Yahweh as the Divine King who stands over all creation, yet both psalms confess that Yahweh comes to “judge the earth” (Pss 96:13; 98:9). And likewise in Isaiah 42:10, the prophet calls the people to sing “a new song” but then announces that Yahweh will “march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal” (v. 13).
When analyzed together, several characteristics pertaining to the “new song” emerge from these seven texts. Erhard Gerstenberger catalogs three signficiant “criteria” for the “new song” in the Old Testament. More than comprising merely form-critical observations about the structure of the psalms themselves, Gerstenberger’s analysis reminds us of the theological heft found in the concept of the “new song.” According to Gerstenberger, the “new song” was “intoned against death and evil in order to support and make possible full human life.”21
Second, these psalms were voiced within the lives of communities rather than as individual meditations. What was confessed within the new songs had implications for all God’s people and the nations writ large (e.g., Pss 96; 98; 149). And third, the “new song” “anticipates boldly, against all evidence, the coming of God’s liberation, the new and just world.”22
The phrase “new song” occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9; 14:3). The meaning associated with a “new song” in the Old Testament extends into these New Testament texts, but through the filter of Jesus Christ. According to Revelation 5, a new song is to be sung because of the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:13). Through his victory a “new and just world” will be experienced, one in which people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” will become “a kingdom and priests to serve our God” (vv. 9–10).
As noted in the Original Meaning section above, when referencing a “new song,” the authors are not referring to a “new” composition or a freshly composed work. Instead, by declaring a “new song” they are making a fundamental claim about God and his ways in the world. The God of the “new song” is the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one who comes to make all things new.23
Contemporary Significance
AS WE HAVE NOTED ABOVE, Psalm 144 makes considerable use of earlier psalms, most notably Psalms 8, 18, and 32. This use and reuse of earlier psalms reflects the elasticity of psalmic poetry; its language and themes are malleable to a myriad of contexts. In Psalm 144 the poet has taken elements of Psalms 8 and 18 and reworked them to address the theological and existential crises faced by the postexilic community. Yet, among the goals of biblical interpretation, merely identifying the sources used by the psalmist is not enough. We must ask, why and to what end did he use them? Here with respect to the use of both Psalms 8 and 18, the writer of Psalm 144 has adapted earlier psalmic texts to create a thoroughly theocentric perspective. As noted above, Psalm 8 actually praises humanity’s creation, yet in Psalm 144 the psalmist has borrowed the same question from that psalm and arrived at a negative assessment of human power. In arriving at that conclusion, the poet is also conversely asserting the necessity for a demonstration of God’s power. Verses 5–8 allude to that display of power as the psalmist adapts specific elements from Psalm 18 and makes them part of his petition—part of his plea for Yahweh to act.
Psalm 144’s use of both Psalms 8 and 18 feeds into the larger concern related to the “new song.” While humans have no power, God does. Those in the postexilic period understood well their own plight, and they understood well the source of their redemption. If the members of the Jerusalem community understood that they were little more than a “breath” or “fleeting shadow,” then they recognized well that there was no hope for them. But if their confession of hope rested fully and entirely with the heavenly Divine Warrior, the very God of Israel, the one who could deliver them from the “hands of foreigners,” then there was hope indeed. There was reason to sing a “new song” and to believe that the world as experienced is not the world as intended.
When we read and sing Psalm 144, we are invited to make that same claim. We are asked to renounce our sense of self-sufficiency and the hubris associated with claims of self-deliverance. We are asked to acknowledge what we know to be true—we are mere “fleeting shadows.” Because we know what we are, we must lean fully into who he is—the Divine King (Ps 145), the heavenly divine warrior, our Rock and Shield. Because he is that God, because he is our God, we have reason to sing a new song.
Original Meaning
Communal Statement of Confidence (144:12–14)
THE PRECISE FUNCTION OF VERSES 12–15 within Psalm 144, including whether they were an original part of the psalm, has received considerable attention. In the first eleven verses of the poem, the language and imagery from Psalm 18 were employed with a dual emphasis on the serious threat of foreign power and the community’s utter reliance on Yahweh for deliverance. Although appropriation of previous traditions does not occur with the same regularity in verses 12–15, the function of the final verses nevertheless appears consistent with that of verses 1–11, namely, the challenging of foreign kings.
The psalm also shifts from first-person singular language (“I,” “me”) to first-person plural language (“we,” “us”). In these verses the community describes their life once Yahweh has rid the land of the oppressive enemies. The postexilic period was marked by famine and hardship; some of the conditions may have been natural (e.g., see Isa 58:11–12; Hag 1:6–11), but others were clearly the result of imperial oppression (e.g., Neh 5:1–5). Jon Berquist, in his work on imperialization, has suggested that central to the formation, administration, and continuation of an empire is its ability to extract resources. Berquist argues that an empire can be decribed as
a large-scale social unit that extracts resources (including labor) from other social units, the colonies. . . . An empire is not a static social unit or a category that a social unit attains once it reaches a certain size and power as compared to its neighbors, or once its military defeats another empire.17
Berquist suggests there are “multiple modes of extraction,” but included among such resources would be food, products, and human capital. In addition, empires may extract resources through taxation, thereby “leading to a decreasing colonial ability to survive.”18
The scarcity of resources and the threat of survival due to mistreatment at the hands of the “sons of a foreigner” (bene-nekar) stand behind the imagery present in Psalm 144:12–14. The psalmist longs for sons and daughters to grow to full stature, like full-grown plants, and to become like beautiful corner pillars on a palace. Likewise, the psalmist wishes that the storehouses, now empty, would provide for the people “with every kind of provision”; that the sheep and cattle would be prolific in their reproduction; and finally, in verse 14c, that there would be “no cry of distress in our streets.” The word tsewahah, “cry of distress,” occurs elsewhere only in Isaiah 24:11 and Jeremiah 14:2; 46:12. In all three instances the meaning is connected to community destruction and situations of depravity at the hands of others.
Bridging Contexts
HEAVENLY DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY. The motif of the divine warrior appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament (cf. Exod 15), as does the motif of Yahweh as the God of heaven (Ps 115). Each metaphor captures a sense of Yahweh that words alone cannot. By referencing Yahweh as the God of heaven, the author confesses Yahweh as the God who stands over all creation (and all powers); he is no regional deity with limited authority but the Creator King enthroned in the heavens, where he stands over his kingdom (i.e., the world) and exercises his reign. This metaphor clearly alludes to the transcendent nature of Israel’s God. The divine-warrior imagery, however, often appears alongside theophanic imagery meant to highlight Yahweh’s salvific immanence—Yahweh comes as the Divine Warrior to deliver his people. As God marches across the earth, the mountains crumble before him, and the nations tremble as he comes to deliver his people (Hab 3:6, 13). A number of texts, particularly in the Psalter, have melded the two images into one by describing Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one enthroned in the heavens yet who acts decisively to deliver his people. The frequency of this metaphor in the Psalter is somewhat surprising, with nearly 25 percent of all metaphors in the Psalter alluding to heavenly divine-warrior imagery.20
Clearly the psalmists found in this metaphorical image a rich vein from which to draw their theological confessions.
New song. As noted above, the mention of a “new song” occurs relatively infrequently in the Old Testament, where the phrase appears only seven times (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). As similarly in Psalm 144, the theme of a new song and the metaphor of the heavenly divine warrior appear together in the other six texts, thus suggesting a close association between the two elements. A “new song” must always be heard in the light of Israel’s confession of Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior. It is Yahweh’s role as such that even makes this singing possible. In Psalm 33, for example, the psalm begins with a threefold call to praise, with the last call instructing the community to “sing to him a new song.” In the remainder of the poem the psalmist confesses that Yahweh looks down “from heaven” (Ps 33:13) and sees all mankind. But the heavenly Divine King is at work foiling the plans of the nations and thwarting those of the peoples (v. 10). No king is safe from the heavenly Divine King/Warrior when he comes to deliver his people (v. 16, 19). Similarly, in Psalms 96 and 98 the call to sing a new song appears in connection with Israel’s praise of Yahweh as the Divine King who stands over all creation, yet both psalms confess that Yahweh comes to “judge the earth” (Pss 96:13; 98:9). And likewise in Isaiah 42:10, the prophet calls the people to sing “a new song” but then announces that Yahweh will “march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal” (v. 13).
When analyzed together, several characteristics pertaining to the “new song” emerge from these seven texts. Erhard Gerstenberger catalogs three signficiant “criteria” for the “new song” in the Old Testament. More than comprising merely form-critical observations about the structure of the psalms themselves, Gerstenberger’s analysis reminds us of the theological heft found in the concept of the “new song.” According to Gerstenberger, the “new song” was “intoned against death and evil in order to support and make possible full human life.”21
Second, these psalms were voiced within the lives of communities rather than as individual meditations. What was confessed within the new songs had implications for all God’s people and the nations writ large (e.g., Pss 96; 98; 149). And third, the “new song” “anticipates boldly, against all evidence, the coming of God’s liberation, the new and just world.”22
The phrase “new song” occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9; 14:3). The meaning associated with a “new song” in the Old Testament extends into these New Testament texts, but through the filter of Jesus Christ. According to Revelation 5, a new song is to be sung because of the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:13). Through his victory a “new and just world” will be experienced, one in which people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” will become “a kingdom and priests to serve our God” (vv. 9–10).
As noted in the Original Meaning section above, when referencing a “new song,” the authors are not referring to a “new” composition or a freshly composed work. Instead, by declaring a “new song” they are making a fundamental claim about God and his ways in the world. The God of the “new song” is the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one who comes to make all things new.23
Contemporary Significance
AS WE HAVE NOTED ABOVE, Psalm 144 makes considerable use of earlier psalms, most notably Psalms 8, 18, and 32. This use and reuse of earlier psalms reflects the elasticity of psalmic poetry; its language and themes are malleable to a myriad of contexts. In Psalm 144 the poet has taken elements of Psalms 8 and 18 and reworked them to address the theological and existential crises faced by the postexilic community. Yet, among the goals of biblical interpretation, merely identifying the sources used by the psalmist is not enough. We must ask, why and to what end did he use them? Here with respect to the use of both Psalms 8 and 18, the writer of Psalm 144 has adapted earlier psalmic texts to create a thoroughly theocentric perspective. As noted above, Psalm 8 actually praises humanity’s creation, yet in Psalm 144 the psalmist has borrowed the same question from that psalm and arrived at a negative assessment of human power. In arriving at that conclusion, the poet is also conversely asserting the necessity for a demonstration of God’s power. Verses 5–8 allude to that display of power as the psalmist adapts specific elements from Psalm 18 and makes them part of his petition—part of his plea for Yahweh to act.
Psalm 144’s use of both Psalms 8 and 18 feeds into the larger concern related to the “new song.” While humans have no power, God does. Those in the postexilic period understood well their own plight, and they understood well the source of their redemption. If the members of the Jerusalem community understood that they were little more than a “breath” or “fleeting shadow,” then they recognized well that there was no hope for them. But if their confession of hope rested fully and entirely with the heavenly Divine Warrior, the very God of Israel, the one who could deliver them from the “hands of foreigners,” then there was hope indeed. There was reason to sing a “new song” and to believe that the world as experienced is not the world as intended.
When we read and sing Psalm 144, we are invited to make that same claim. We are asked to renounce our sense of self-sufficiency and the hubris associated with claims of self-deliverance. We are asked to acknowledge what we know to be true—we are mere “fleeting shadows.” Because we know what we are, we must lean fully into who he is—the Divine King (Ps 145), the heavenly divine warrior, our Rock and Shield. Because he is that God, because he is our God, we have reason to sing a new song.
Original Meaning
Closing Beatitude (144:15)
THE PSALM CONCLUDES WITH two beatitudes concerning the people. In the first one the psalmist announces that “blessed” (’ashre) are the people whose lives reflect that which is described in verses 12–14. The second beatitude (v. 15b) suggests that such a “blessed existence” is only possible because Yahweh is Israel’s God. This second beatitude provides the “crucial lesson” for those who read and hear this psalm: the covenantal faithfulness of God to his people will lead him to put down their enemies (vv. 5–11) and restore their land to prosperity and peace (vv. 12–14).19
Bridging Contexts
HEAVENLY DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY. The motif of the divine warrior appears repeatedly throughout the Old Testament (cf. Exod 15), as does the motif of Yahweh as the God of heaven (Ps 115). Each metaphor captures a sense of Yahweh that words alone cannot. By referencing Yahweh as the God of heaven, the author confesses Yahweh as the God who stands over all creation (and all powers); he is no regional deity with limited authority but the Creator King enthroned in the heavens, where he stands over his kingdom (i.e., the world) and exercises his reign. This metaphor clearly alludes to the transcendent nature of Israel’s God. The divine-warrior imagery, however, often appears alongside theophanic imagery meant to highlight Yahweh’s salvific immanence—Yahweh comes as the Divine Warrior to deliver his people. As God marches across the earth, the mountains crumble before him, and the nations tremble as he comes to deliver his people (Hab 3:6, 13). A number of texts, particularly in the Psalter, have melded the two images into one by describing Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one enthroned in the heavens yet who acts decisively to deliver his people. The frequency of this metaphor in the Psalter is somewhat surprising, with nearly 25 percent of all metaphors in the Psalter alluding to heavenly divine-warrior imagery.20
Clearly the psalmists found in this metaphorical image a rich vein from which to draw their theological confessions.
New song. As noted above, the mention of a “new song” occurs relatively infrequently in the Old Testament, where the phrase appears only seven times (Isa 42:10; Pss 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1). As similarly in Psalm 144, the theme of a new song and the metaphor of the heavenly divine warrior appear together in the other six texts, thus suggesting a close association between the two elements. A “new song” must always be heard in the light of Israel’s confession of Yahweh as the heavenly Divine Warrior. It is Yahweh’s role as such that even makes this singing possible. In Psalm 33, for example, the psalm begins with a threefold call to praise, with the last call instructing the community to “sing to him a new song.” In the remainder of the poem the psalmist confesses that Yahweh looks down “from heaven” (Ps 33:13) and sees all mankind. But the heavenly Divine King is at work foiling the plans of the nations and thwarting those of the peoples (v. 10). No king is safe from the heavenly Divine King/Warrior when he comes to deliver his people (v. 16, 19). Similarly, in Psalms 96 and 98 the call to sing a new song appears in connection with Israel’s praise of Yahweh as the Divine King who stands over all creation, yet both psalms confess that Yahweh comes to “judge the earth” (Pss 96:13; 98:9). And likewise in Isaiah 42:10, the prophet calls the people to sing “a new song” but then announces that Yahweh will “march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal” (v. 13).
When analyzed together, several characteristics pertaining to the “new song” emerge from these seven texts. Erhard Gerstenberger catalogs three signficiant “criteria” for the “new song” in the Old Testament. More than comprising merely form-critical observations about the structure of the psalms themselves, Gerstenberger’s analysis reminds us of the theological heft found in the concept of the “new song.” According to Gerstenberger, the “new song” was “intoned against death and evil in order to support and make possible full human life.”21
Second, these psalms were voiced within the lives of communities rather than as individual meditations. What was confessed within the new songs had implications for all God’s people and the nations writ large (e.g., Pss 96; 98; 149). And third, the “new song” “anticipates boldly, against all evidence, the coming of God’s liberation, the new and just world.”22
The phrase “new song” occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation (Rev 5:9; 14:3). The meaning associated with a “new song” in the Old Testament extends into these New Testament texts, but through the filter of Jesus Christ. According to Revelation 5, a new song is to be sung because of the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:13). Through his victory a “new and just world” will be experienced, one in which people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” will become “a kingdom and priests to serve our God” (vv. 9–10).
As noted in the Original Meaning section above, when referencing a “new song,” the authors are not referring to a “new” composition or a freshly composed work. Instead, by declaring a “new song” they are making a fundamental claim about God and his ways in the world. The God of the “new song” is the heavenly Divine Warrior, the one who comes to make all things new.23
Contemporary Significance
AS WE HAVE NOTED ABOVE, Psalm 144 makes considerable use of earlier psalms, most notably Psalms 8, 18, and 32. This use and reuse of earlier psalms reflects the elasticity of psalmic poetry; its language and themes are malleable to a myriad of contexts. In Psalm 144 the poet has taken elements of Psalms 8 and 18 and reworked them to address the theological and existential crises faced by the postexilic community. Yet, among the goals of biblical interpretation, merely identifying the sources used by the psalmist is not enough. We must ask, why and to what end did he use them? Here with respect to the use of both Psalms 8 and 18, the writer of Psalm 144 has adapted earlier psalmic texts to create a thoroughly theocentric perspective. As noted above, Psalm 8 actually praises humanity’s creation, yet in Psalm 144 the psalmist has borrowed the same question from that psalm and arrived at a negative assessment of human power. In arriving at that conclusion, the poet is also conversely asserting the necessity for a demonstration of God’s power. Verses 5–8 allude to that display of power as the psalmist adapts specific elements from Psalm 18 and makes them part of his petition—part of his plea for Yahweh to act.
Psalm 144’s use of both Psalms 8 and 18 feeds into the larger concern related to the “new song.” While humans have no power, God does. Those in the postexilic period understood well their own plight, and they understood well the source of their redemption. If the members of the Jerusalem community understood that they were little more than a “breath” or “fleeting shadow,” then they recognized well that there was no hope for them. But if their confession of hope rested fully and entirely with the heavenly Divine Warrior, the very God of Israel, the one who could deliver them from the “hands of foreigners,” then there was hope indeed. There was reason to sing a “new song” and to believe that the world as experienced is not the world as intended.
When we read and sing Psalm 144, we are invited to make that same claim. We are asked to renounce our sense of self-sufficiency and the hubris associated with claims of self-deliverance. We are asked to acknowledge what we know to be true—we are mere “fleeting shadows.” Because we know what we are, we must lean fully into who he is—the Divine King (Ps 145), the heavenly divine warrior, our Rock and Shield. Because he is that God, because he is our God, we have reason to sing a new song.
