Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 144:5
Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
5. The descriptions of Psa 18:9, Psa 104:32 are turned into prayer.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5 8. Prayer that God will appear in His majesty and deliver the Psalmist from his treacherous enemies.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Bow thy heavens, O Lord … – Come to my aid as if the heavens were bent down; come down with all thy majesty and glory. See the notes at Psa 18:9 : He bowed down the heavens also, and came down. What it is there declared that the Lord had done, he is here implored to do again.
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke – See the notes at Psa 104:32 : He toucheth the hills, and they smoke. It is there affirmed as a characteristic of God that he does this; here the psalmist prays that, as this belonged to God, or was in his power, he would do it in his behalf. The prayer is, that God would come to his relief as if in smoke and tempest – in the fury of the storm.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 144:5
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
The kindling of the heart
It must be striking indeed to any one living in the neighbourhood of a chain of volcanoes to see those mountains which have long lain dormant suddenly tremble and throw up smoke. It must seem to them as though God laid His finger on the mountain peak, and called its hidden forces into activity, as the touch of a musician on the key of an instrument awakes a musical note. Some such scenes, transacted in the moral world, are quite as striking as those which occur in the material world. There are human natures which are cold and impassive, which become full of emotion and glow with heat at the touch of God. It was so at Pentecost. Before that day how faint-hearted, narrow-minded, short-visioned were the apostles. But how changed were they after the cloven tongues had rested on their heads. Fear was banished, their caution had disappeared, trampled down by their zeal, their understandings were illumined, their hearts burned with the fire of love, it was woe to them if they preached not the Gospel. If He do but touch the mountains, they shall smoke. And now, what are we to learn from this? That there are times when God touches the heart, and the emotions are stirred. Perhaps the conscience is agitated by remorse for sin, perhaps with a sudden pang of sorrow for wasted opportunities, perhaps it quakes with fear of the judgments of God, perhaps there comes the flame of Divine love touching the heart, as a taper touches the wick of a candle, bidding it flame. And what then? If the feeling be allowed to be transient, if it be not followed up by an act of will, accepting the call, responding to grace, if it be followed by no resolutions, no struggle for amendment,–then it is the old story of Felix, and Agrippa, and Simon the Sorcerer over again. But, oh! if the touch of the finger of God calls up the long dormant will, if resolutions of amendment are formed, and a struggle be entered on which is to continue through life, then it is the old and beautiful story over again of Magdalen penitent and loving much, of Peter weeping and rising courageous to die for his Lord, of Saul the persecutor becoming Paul the preacher of righteousness, of John Boanerges transformed into the apostle of love. If ever your heart is stirred, at once turn the emotion to account, transform the feeling into practice. Then the feeling does not pass away for ever, it has left its trace, it has stirred your whole being, and has begun to transform your life. The whole mount of your heart will quake with the consciousness of sin, and your affections will smoke altogether as an offering of a sweet savour to God. (S. Baring Gould, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Bow thy heavens] See Clarke on Ps 18:9.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Come down, to help me, before it be too late, remembering what a frail and perishing creature I am.
And they shall smoke; or, that they may smoke; or, and let them smoke, as Sinai did at thy glorious appearance, Exo 19:18. This is a figurative and poetical description of Gods coming to take vengeance upon his enemies, which is continued in the next verse.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down,…. The heavens, which the Lord has made, and where he dwells; and which are under his influence, and he can cause to incline or bow at his pleasure: and which literally may be said to bow, particularly the airy heavens, when these are filled with clouds heavy with rain, and hang low, ready to fall upon the earth, and being rent, let down showers on it: and mystically may design storms of wrath gathering over the heads of ungodly men, and revealed from heaven against them. Or rather, as connected with the phrase, “and come down”, denotes some appearance or manifestation of God; either for the help and assistance of his people; or in a way of vengeance against their enemies; or both: and which descent must be understood in consistence with the omnipresence of God; and supposes his habitation to be on high, and is expressive of regard to the persons and affairs of men on earth; and is by some considered as a prayer for the incarnation of Christ, which is sometimes signified by coming down from heaven; not by change of place, nor by bringing an human nature, soul or body, down with him from heaven; but by the assumption of our nature; and which was greatly wished, prayed, and longed for, by the Old Testament saints The Targum is,
“O Lord, bow the heavens, and manifest thyself;”
see Ps 18:9;
touch the mountains, and they shall smoke; as Mount Sinai did when the Lord descended on it, Ex 19:18; see Ps 104:32; These, according to Kimchi, signify mighty kings, strong as mountains: so kingdoms are sometimes called; as the Babylonian empire is called a mountain, a destroying and burnt mountain, Zec 4:7. Such kings and kingdoms rose up like mountains against Christ, when here incarnate; and against his Gospel, and the ministry of it by his apostles; as the kingdom and nation of the Jews, and the whole Pagan empire: but these, by a touch of his almighty power, have vanished into smoke, Ps 2:1 Re 8:8.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The deeds of God which Ps 18 celebrates are here made an object of prayer. We see from Psa 18:10 that , Psa 144:5, has Jahve and not the heavens as its subject; and from Psa 18:15 that the suffix em in Psa 144:6 is meant in both instances to be referred to the enemies. The enemies are called sons of a foreign country, i.e., barbarians, as in Psa 18:45. The fact that Jahve stretches forth His hand out of the heavens and rescues David out of great waters, is taken verbatim from Psa 18:17; and the poet has added the interpretation to the figure here. On Psa 144:8 cf. Psa 12:3; Psa 41:7. The combination of words “right hand of falsehood” is the same as in Psa 109:2. But our poet, although so great an imitator, has, however, much also that is peculiar to himself. The verb , “to send forth lightning;” the verb in the Aramaeo-Arabic signification “to tear out of, rescue,” which in David always only signifies “to tear open, open wide” (one’s mouth), Psa 22:14; Psa 66:14; and the combination “the right hand of falsehood” (like “the tongue of falsehood” in Psa 109:2), i.e., the hand raised for a false oath, are only found here. The figure of Omnipotence, “He toucheth the mountains and they smoke,” is, as in Psa 104:32, taken from the mountains that smoked at the giving of the Law, Exo 19:18; Exo 20:15. The mountains, as in Psa 68:17 (cf. Psa 76:5), point to the worldly powers. God only needs to touch these as with the tip of His finger, and the inward fire, which will consume them, at once makes itself known by the smoke, which ascends from them. The prayer for victory is followed by a vow of thanksgiving for that which is to be bestowed.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
5. O Jehovah! bow thy heavens. After extolling, as was due, the great goodness of God, he requests him to furnish such help for the preservation of the kingdom as was necessary in the present exigency. As formerly we saw that he had gloried in God with a heroical courage, so here he makes use of the same lofty terms in his prayers, That he would bow the heavens — that he would make the mountains to smoke — disturb the air with thunderings — and shoot forth arrows; forms of speech by which, doubtless, he would put away from him all the obstacles which stand between us and a believing apprehension of the omnipotence of God, and from which we find it so difficult to emerge. He employs almost the same phraseology in the eighteenth Psalm, but it is in praising God for help already extended, and to signify that he had been preserved from above in a wonderful and unusual manner. For although such signs as he mentions might not always occur when God interposed in his behalf, he had good ground to celebrate what had happened to him of an unexpected kind, by reference to extraordinary phenomena. In the passage before us his purpose is different. Threatened by destruction of various kinds, which might overwhelm his mind with despair, he would realize the wonderful power of God, before which all obstacles of a worldly kind must necessarily give way. We may be certain at least that he indulged in this figurative phraseology for a good reason, that he might not confine deliverance to human remedies; for nothing could be more preposterous at such a time than to measure divine power by ordinary rules.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) Come down.The theophany for which the psalmist prays is described in the classic language for such manifestations taken from Psa. 18:9; Psa. 18:13; Psa. 18:16-17; Psa. 18:43; Psa. 18:45, with reminiscences of Psa. 104:32; Exo. 19:18. But there are touches of originality, as in the next clause.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Bow come down This appeal shows that David badly as he has done feels himself to be the rightful king of Israel. He, as such, may claim the help of Jehovah. The language is as if the deliverance from Egypt were in the writer’s mind, when the Lord looked out in flames upon Pharaoh and his host, but brought his people out of the great waters of the Red Sea.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 144:5. Bow thy heavens See 2 Samuel 8 and 2Sa 22:10. The images here are taken from the promulgation of the law on mount Sinai.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
In every sense this prayer is striking, and beautiful in whatever sense it be considered; whether as the prayer of the church for the Lord to come down in the power of the Spirit, to bruise Satan, and sin, and the world, under the feet of his people; or as the earnest longing and hope of the church, for the Lord Jesus’s second coming, without sin, unto salvation.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 144:5 Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
Ver. 5. Bow thy heavens, O Lord ] Come to my help suddenly and seasonably, as it were out of an engine, .
Touch the mountains
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 144:5-8
5Bow Your heavens, O Lord, and come down;
Touch the mountains, that they may smoke.
6Flash forth lightning and scatter them;
Send out Your arrows and confuse them.
7Stretch forth Your hand from on high;
Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters,
Out of the hand of aliens
8Whose mouths speak deceit,
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
Psa 144:5-8 This strophe is a series of prayer requests. It is surprising in light of Psa 144:1-4. The psalmist asserts YHWH’s power and presence in the first strophe but pleads for His deliverance in this one.
Note the imperatives and imperfects used in an imperatival sense.
1. bow, Psa 144:5 (lit. bend) – BDB 639, KB 692, Hiphil imperative
2. come down, Psa 144:5 – BDB 432, KB 434, Qal imperfect but used as imperatival prayer request
3. touch, Psa 144:5 – BDB 619, KB 668, Qal imperative, cf. Psa 104:32
4. flash forth, Psa 144:6 – BDB 140, KB 162, Qal imperative
5. scatter (i.e., arrows on alien invaders), Psa 144:6 – BDB 806, KB 918, Hiphil imperfect used as imperatival prayer request
6. send out, Psa 144:6 – BDB 1018, KB 1511, Qal imperative
7. confuse, Psa 144:6 – BDB 243, KB 251, Qal imperfect used as imperatival prayer request
8. stretch forth, Psa 144:7 – same as #6
9. rescue (lit. open, cf. Psa 144:11), Psa 144:7 – BDB 822, KB 953, Qal imperative
10. deliver me, Psa 144:7 – BDB 664, KB 717, Hiphil imperative
Psa 144:5-7 These verses use Holy War imagery to request YHWH’ presence and power in battle. He will either
1. train and empower the Israeli soldiers (Psa 144:1)
2. fight on Israel’s behalf as in the conquest of Canaan under Joshua (Psa 144:6)
Psa 144:6
NASBconfuse them
NKJVdestroy them
NRSV, NJBrout them
TEVsend them running
LXXthrow them into disarray
There are two possible Hebrew roots.
1. , BDB 243, KB 251, rout, cf. 2Sa 22:15; Psa 18:14
2. , KB 242, confuse, this one has Holy War connotation, cf. Jos 10:10; Jdg 4:15; 1Sa 7:10; 2Ch 15:6
Psa 144:7 Notice great waters is parallel to the hand of aliens. The imagery is from
1. chaos of creation, cf. Job 41:1-11; Psa 74:12-17; Isa 51:9-10; see Special Topic: Waters
2. invasion, cf. Psa 18:16-17; Isa 17:12-14; Isa 28:2; Jer 51:34
3. death, cf. Psa 18:4-6
Psa 144:8 The aliens (BDB 648) are characterized as those who lie. One’s words reveal one’s heart. This seems to refer to international treaties or possibly court testimony under oath (cf. Gen 14:22; Deu 32:40; Psa 106:26; Isa 44:20). YHWH is true to His word (cf. Psa 144:2 a), but pagans and some Israelites are not! See Special Topic: Human Speech .
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Psa 144:5-8
Psa 144:5-8
“Bow thy heavens, O Jehovah, and come down:
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
Cast forth lightning, and scatter them;
Send out thine arrows and discomfit them.
Stretch forth thy hand from above;
Rescue me, and deliver me out of great waters,
Out of the hand of aliens;
Whose mouth speaketh deceit,
And whose right hand is a a right hand of falsehood.”
Delitzsch’s concise paraphrase of these four verses is, “May Jahve then be pleased to grant a victory this time also over the boastful lying enemies.
“The mountains shall smoke … lightnings … arrows” (Psa 144:5-6). “The prayer is that God would come to his relief as if in smoke and tempest – in the fury of a storm.
“Out of great waters … out of the hand of aliens” (Psa 144:7). The serious threat against Israel, “Is here described first as `great waters’ and then, more literally, as pressure from foreign powers who think nothing of breaking solemn treaties.” Addis agreed that “Verse 7 here can only mean foreigners.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 144:5. The Lord’s absolute mastery of the heavens (regions of the air and planets and the earth (mountains) is the thought in this verse.
Psa 144:6. Having such control of the universe, David concluded that God could use the elements therein to chastise his enemies. It could be done by using the lightning, having the effect of arrows upon the foes of him and other good men.
Psa 144:7. Send thine hand has about the same meaning as if David has said to the Lord, “lend a helping hand.” Great waters is a symbol refers many afflictions. Strange children re fers to people outside of the Jewish nation.
Psa 144:8. One word in the definition of vanity in the original is “uselessness.” The strange children of the preceding verse are the ones who speak these vain or useless words. Most people are right-handed and hence would be always regarded stronger for evil if they used their right hand for that purpose. When it is used figuratively as it is here, it means that outsiders are guilty of great falsehood.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Bow: Psa 18:9, Isa 64:1, Isa 64:2
touch: Psa 104:32, Exo 19:18, Nah 1:3-6, Hab 3:3-6, Heb 12:18
Reciprocal: Exo 19:11 – the Lord Deu 32:22 – foundations 2Sa 22:10 – bowed Psa 18:8 – went Psa 29:7 – flames Psa 57:3 – send Psa 97:4 – His Psa 108:6 – save Psa 115:16 – heaven Amo 9:5 – toucheth Hab 3:11 – at the light of thine arrows they went Zec 9:14 – his Act 7:34 – and am
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 144:5-8. Bow thy heavens and come down To help me before it be too late, remembering what a frail and perishing creature I am. David having celebrated his victories over some of his enemies, and extolled the mercy and goodness of God, to whom he ascribed the achievement of them, now proceeds to request a further manifestation of the omnipotent arm in his favour against other hostile forces, which still threatened his country upon his accession to the throne. Touch the mountains and they shall smoke As Sinai did at thy glorious appearance, Exo 19:18. This is a figurative and poetical description of Gods coming to take vengeance on his enemies, which is continued in the next verse. The images used are taken from the promulgation of the law on Sinai. Cast forth lightning and scatter them Namely, the enemies of David and Judah, such as the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians: see 2Sa 5:8. Shoot out thine arrows Thy thunderbolts, or lightnings, as before; and destroy them Totally: for these weapons of thine are irresistible. Send thy hand Thy power; from above For from thence we look for help; deliver me out of great waters Which are ready to overflow me, namely, the multitude of enemies, which assault me on all sides; from the hand of strange children Either of the heathen nations, or of the rebellious Israelites. Whose mouth speaketh vanity Empty boasts, or vain threatenings which come to nothing; or false and deceitful promises and professions of friendship, which they cannot, or do not, make good; and their right hand, a right hand of falsehood For, with that hand, as with a pledge, they confirmed the treaties of peace, and leagues of friendship made with Israel, all which they had perfidiously broken. Lifting up the hand was the usual ceremony at the taking of an oath, Gen 14:22. So that this clause seems to be a repetition of the sense contained in the former: agreeably to which the Chaldee interprets the former part of the verse to mean a false oath; and the Arabic renders the latter part thus; and their oath is an oath of iniquity. Dodd.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
144:5 {d} Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
(d) He desires God to continue his graces, and to send help for the present need.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The psalmist described God’s intervention-in the present battle David faced-in terms of nature. In the past, God had used rain, thunder, lightning, and hail to give His people victory (Joshua 10; Judges 4-5; et al.). David seems to have been appealing for a similar deliverance. He viewed the enemy army as an overwhelming flood from which he requested deliverance.