1 Blessed be Jehovah my rock, who trains my hands for battle,
My fingers for war;
2 My loving-kindness and my fortress, my high tower and my deliverer,
My shield and He in whom I take refuge,
Who subdues my people under me.
3 Jehovah, what is man, that Thou takest knowledge of him?
The son of frail man, that Thou takest account of him?
4 Man—he is like to a breath,
His days are like a shadow passing away.
5 Jehovah, bow Thy heavens and come down,
Touch the mountains that they smoke.
6 Lighten lightning and scatter them,
Shoot Thy arrows and confound them.
7 Stretch Thy hands from on high,
Pluck me [out] and deliver me from many waters,
From the hands of the sons of the alien,
8 Whose mouth speaks falsehood,
And whose right hand is a right hand of lies.
9 O God, a new song will I sing to Thee,
On a ten-stringed harp will I harp to Thee,
10 Who giveth salvation to kings,
Who snatches David His servant from the evil sword.
11 Pluck me [out] and deliver me from the hand of the sons of the alien,
Whose mouth speaks falsehood,
And whose right hand is a right hand of lies.
12 So that (? or Because) our sons [may be] as plants,
Grown tall in their youth;
Our daughters like corner-pillars,
Carved after the fashion of a palace;
13 Our granaries full, giving forth kind after kind [of supply];
Our flocks producing thousands,
Producing tens of thousands in our fields;
14 Our kine heavy with young;
No breach and no sally,
And no [battle-] cry in our open spaces.
15 Happy the people that is in such a case!
Happy the people whose God is Jehovah!
The force of compilation could no further go than in this psalm, which is, in the first eleven verses, simply a réchauffé of known psalms, and in vv. 12-15 is most probably an extract from an unknown one of later date. The junctions are not effected with much skill, and the last is tacked on very awkwardly (ver. 12). It is completely unlike the former part, inasmuch as there the speaker is a warlike king praying for victory, while in the latter the nation sings of the tranquil blessings of peaceful expansion. The language of the later portion is full of late forms and obscurities. But the compiler's course of thought is traceable. He begins by praising Jehovah, who has taught him warlike skill; then adoringly thinks of his own weakness, made strong by God's condescending regard; next prays for complete victory, and vows fresh praises for new mercies; and closes with a picture of the prosperity which follows conquest, and is secured to Israel because Jehovah is its God.
Vv. 1, 2, are echoes of Psalm xviii. 2, 34, 46, with slight variations. The remarkable epithet "My loving-kindness" offends some critics, who emend so as to read "My stronghold"; but it has a parallel in Jonah ii. 9, and is forcible as an emotional abbreviation of the fuller "God of my loving-kindness" (Psalm lix. 10). The original passage reads "people," which is the only appropriate word in this connection, and should probably be read in ver. 2c.
Psalm viii. supplies the original of vv. 3, 4, with a reminiscence of Psalm xxxix. 5, and of Psalm cii. 11, from which comes the pathetic image of the fleeting shadow. The link between this and the former extract seems to be the recognition of God's condescension in strengthening so weak and transient a creature for conflict and conquest.
The following prayer for further Divine help in further struggles is largely borrowed from the magnificent picture of a theophany in Psalm xviii. 9, 14-16. The energetic "Lighten lightning" is peculiar to this psalm, as is the use of the word for "Pluck out." The description of the enemies as "sons of the alien" is like Psalm xviii. 44, 45. As in many other psalms, the treachery of the foe is signalised. They break their oaths. The right hand which they had lifted in swearing is a lying hand. The vow of new praise recalls Psalms xxxiii. 2, 3, and xcvi. 1, xcviii. 1. Ver. 10 is a reproduction of Psalm xviii. 50. The mention of David's deliverance from the "evil sword" has apparently been the reason for the LXX. referring the psalm to the victory over Goliath—an impossible view. The new song is not here sung; but the psalm drops from the level of praise to renew the petition for deliverance, in the manner of a refrain caught up in ver. 11 from ver. 7. This might make a well-rounded close, and may have originally been the end of the psalm.