Psalm 144:15

Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Happy.—It is only a narrow and one-sided religion that can see anything out of place in this beatitude of plenty and peace. If we could rejoice with the psalms, fully and without misgiving, in the temporal blessings bestowed by Heaven, we should the more readily and sincerely enter into the depths of their spiritual experience. And the secret of this lies in the full comprehension and contemplation of the beautiful and pleasant as the gift of God.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 144:15. Happy is that people that is in such a case — The fathers, with many others, have supposed these wishes for sons, daughters, corn, sheep, oxen, &c., to be uttered by the strange children, the aliens and idolaters, mentioned Psalm 144:11, but there is no reason for such a supposition. The good things of this world were promised to Israel of old, on condition of their obedience, and were bestowed on them while they observed God’s laws. And national piety and virtue are generally followed by national prosperity; for nations, as such, in their national capacity, are only capable of rewards and punishments in this life. And secular prosperity may fall, and sometimes does fall, to the lot of the righteous, “who are distinguished from the wicked by the use which they make of temporal blessings, when given, and by their meek resignation of them, when taken away. Whatever be the will of God concerning our having or wanting these outward comforts, we know that we have, as the faithful servants of God have had in every age before us, greater and more precious promises, a better and an enduring substance, pleasures that fade not, and riches that fly not away, reserved for us in a heavenly country, and a city that hath foundations.” — Horne. Hence the psalmist corrects the former clause of the verse by adding, Happy is that people whose God is the Lord — As if he had said, It is desirable to have temporal prosperity, but the true and chief happiness of God’s people doth not consist therein, nor in any thing common to them with the people of the world, but in this peculiar privilege, that the living, true, and blessed God is their God by covenant and special relation, and that they enjoy his favour, love, and grace, according to the tenor of the covenant, though they may not have abundance of this world’s goods, but may be in a state of great poverty, reproach, and affliction.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

144:9-15 Fresh favours call for fresh returns of thanks; we must praise God for the mercies we hope for by his promise, as well as those we have received by his providence. To be saved from the hurtful sword, or from wasting sickness, without deliverance from the dominion of sin and the wrath to come, is but a small advantage. The public prosperity David desired for his people, is stated. It adds much to the comfort and happiness of parents in this world, to see their children likely to do well. To see them as plants, not as weeds, not as thorns; to see them as plants growing, not withered and blasted; to see them likely to bring forth fruit unto God in their day; to see them in their youth growing strong in the Spirit. Plenty is to be desired, that we may be thankful to God, generous to our friends, and charitable to the poor; otherwise, what profit is it to have our garners full? Also, uninterrupted peace. War brings abundance of mischiefs, whether it be to attack others or to defend ourselves. And in proportion as we do not adhere to the worship and service of God, we cease to be a happy people. The subjects of the Saviour, the Son of David, share the blessings of his authority and victories, and are happy because they have the Lord for their God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Happy is that people that is in such a case - In such a condition; or, where these things prevail.

Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord - Whose God is Yahweh; who worship and serve Him as their God. The worship of Yahweh - the religion of Yahweh - is "adapted" to make a people happy; peaceful; quiet; blessed. Prosperity and peace, such as are referred to in the previous verses, are, and must be, the result of pure religion. Peace, order, abundance, attend it everywhere, and the best security for a nation's prosperity is the worship of God; that which is most certain to make a nation happy and blessed, is to acknowledge God and to keep his laws.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

PSALM 144

Ps 144:1-15. David's praise of God as his all-sufficient help is enhanced by a recognition of the intrinsic worthlessness of man. Confidently imploring God's interposition against his enemies, he breaks forth into praise and joyful anticipations of the prosperity of his kingdom, when freed from vain and wicked men.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is a correction of the last sentence. This is a very desirable estate; but the true and chief happiness of our Israel doth not consist in these things, which are common to others with us, but in this peculiar privilege, that the true and blessed God is our God by covenant and special relation.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Happy is that people that is in such a case,.... Whose families are in good order and behave well; who enjoy plenty of all good things; whose flocks and herds increase, and who live in peace and prosperity; these are temporal blessings highly valuable, and for which those who have them should be thankful, as being happy in comparison of others that are destitute of them, Deuteronomy 28:3; and especially who besides these are blessed with spiritual blessings, signified by them, and of which these were typical;

yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord; whose God the Lord is, not only by creation, and as he is a common benefactor and preserver, but as their God in covenant, their covenant God and Father in Christ; whom he has loved, chosen, redeemed, adopted, justified, pardoned, regenerated, and sanctified; all which appears to them in effectual calling, is manifested by the application of covenant grace to them, and is witnessed to their spirits by the spirit of God, and which their faith claims an interest in: and these are happy, thrice happy persons; for all that God has are theirs; all his perfections are on their side and for their good; he is their portion, shield, reward, and their all in all; his covenant, its blessings and promises, are all theirs; they have enough, having all things, and can want no good thing; nor need they fear any enemy; the Lord takes care of them, sets a guard about them, resents all injuries done them, prevents the designs of their enemies, makes all things work together for their good, provides all things necessary for them for time and eternity, and will be their God and guide even unto death; covenant interest always continues, and therefore such must be ever happy.

Geneva Study Bible

Happy is that people, that is (n) in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.

(n) And if God does not give to all his children all these blessings, yet he replaces them with better things.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. Happy is the people of Jehovah’s choice, to whom He shews such manifest tokens of His favour in temporal prosperity; and yet more truly happy are they in the spiritual blessing of having Jehovah for their God. He is the source and sum of all true happiness, temporal and eternal.

The second line is from Psalm 33:12, with the substitution of the later form of the relative pronoun sh for asher. See note on p. 739.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Happy is that people, that is in such a case! yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord! The cause of Israel's prosperity is their faithfulness to Jehovah.



Psalm 144:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With reference to the relation of this passage to the preceding, vid., the introduction. אשׁר (it is uncertain whether this is a word belonging originally to this piece or one added by the person who appended it as a sort of clasp or rivet) signifies here quoniam, as in Judges 9:17; Jeremiah 16:13, and frequently. lxx ὢν οἱ υίοὶ (אשׁר בניהם); so that the temporal prosperity of the enemies is pictured here, and in Psalm 144:15 the spiritual possession of Israel is contrasted with it. The union becomes satisfactorily close in connection with this reading, but the reference of the description, so designedly set forth, to the enemies is improbable. In Psalm 144:12-14 we hear a language that is altogether peculiar, without any assignable earlier model. Instead of נטעים we read נטעים elsewhere; "in their youth" belongs to "our sons." מזוינוּ, our garners or treasuries, from a singular מזו or מזוּ (apparently from a verb מזה, but contracted out of מזוה), is a hapaxlegomenon; the older language has the words אסם, אוצר, ממּגוּרה instead of it. In like manner זן, genus (vid., Ewald, Lehrbuch, S. 380), is a later word (found besides only in 2 Chronicles 16:14, where וּזנים signifies et varia quidem, Syriac zenonoje, or directly spices from species); the older language has miyn for this word. Instead of אלּוּפים, kine, which signifies "princes" in the older language, the older language says אלפים in Psalm 8:8. The plena scriptio צאוננוּ, in which the Waw is even inaccurate, corresponds to the later period; and to this corresponds שׁ equals אשׁר in Psalm 144:15, cf. on the other hand Psalm 33:12. Also מסבּלים, laden equals bearing, like the Latin forda from ferre (cf. מעבּר in Job 21:10), is not found elsewhere. צאן is (contrary to Genesis 30:39) treated as a feminine collective, and אלּוּף (cf. שׁור in Job 21:10) as a nomen epicaenum. Contrary to the usage of the word, Maurer, Kצster, Von Lengerke, and F׬rst render it: our princes are set up (after Ezra 6:3); also, after the mention of animals of the fold upon the meadows out-of-doors, one does not expect the mention of princes, but of horned cattle that are to be found in the stalls.

זוית elsewhere signifies a corner, and here, according to the prevailing view, the corner-pillars; so that the elegant slender daughters are likened to tastefully sculptured Caryatides - not to sculptured projections (Luther). For (1) זוית does not signify a projection, but a corner, an angle, Arabic Arab. zâwyt, zâwia (in the terminology of the stone-mason the square-stone equals אבן פּנּהּ, in the terminology of the carpenter the square), from Arab. zwâ, abdere (cf. e.g., the proverb: fı̂'l zawâjâ chabâjâ, in the corners are treasures). (2) The upstanding pillar is better adapted to the comparison than the overhanging projection. But that other prevailing interpretation is also doubtful. The architecture of Syria and Palestine - the ancient, so far as it can be known to us from its remains, and the new - exhibits nothing in connection with which one would be led to think of "corner-pillars." Nor is there any trace of that signification to be found in the Semitic זוית. On the other hand, the corners of large rooms in the houses of persons of position are ornamented with carved work even in the present day, and since this ornamentation is variegated, it may be asked whether מחתּבות does here signify "sculptured," and not rather "striped in colours, variegated," which we prefer, since חטב (cogn. חצב) signifies nothing more than to hew firewood;

(Note: In every instance where חטב (cogn. חצב) occurs, frequently side by side with שׁאב מים (to draw water), it signifies to hew wood for kindling; wherefore in Arabic, in which the verb has been lost, Arab. ḥaṭab signifies firewood (in distinction from Arab. chšb, wood for building, timber), and not merely this, but fuel in the widest sense, e.g., in villages where wood is scarce, cow-dung (vid., Job, at Job 20:6-11, note), and the hemp-stalk, or stalk of the maize, in the desert the Arab. b‛rt, i.e., camel-dung (which blazes up with a blue flame), and the perennial steppe-plant or its root. In relation to Arab. ḥaṭab, aḥṭb signifies lopped, pruned, robbed of its branches (of a tree), and Arab. ḥrb ḥâtb a pruning war, which devastates a country, just as the wood-gathering women of a settlement (styled Arab. 'l-ḥâťbât or 'l-ȟwâṭt) with their small hatchet (Arab. miḥṭab) lay a district covered with tall plants bare in a few days. In the villages of the Merg' the little girls who collect the dry cow-dung upon the pastures are called Arab. bnât ḥâṭbât, בּנות הטבות. - Wetzstein.)

and on the other side, the signification of the Arabic chaṭiba, to be striped, many-coloured (IV to become green-striped, of the coloquintida), is also secured to the verb חטב side by side with that signification by Proverbs 7:16. It is therefore to be rendered: our daughters are as corners adorned in varied colours after the architecture of palaces.

(Note: Corners with variegated carved work are found even in the present day in Damascus in every reception-room (the so-called Arab. qâ‛t) or respectable houses cf. Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Introduction). An architectural ornament composed with much good taste and laborious art out of wood carvings, and glittering with gold and brilliant colours, covers the upper part of the corners, of which a ḳâ‛a may have as many as sixteen, since three wings frequently abut upon the bêt el-baḥǎra, i.e., the square with its marble basin. This decoration, which has a most pleasing effect to the eye, is a great advantage to saloons from two to three storeys high, and is evidently designed to get rid of the darker corners above on the ceiling, comes down from the ceiling in the corners of the room for the length of six to nine feet, gradually becoming narrower as it descends. It is the broadest above, so that it there also covers the ends of the horizontal corners formed by the walls and the ceiling. If this crowning of the corners, the technical designation of which, if I remember rightly, is Arab. 'l-qrnyt, ḳornı̂a, might be said to go back into Biblical antiquity, the Psalmist would have used it as a simile to mark the beauty, gorgeous dress, and rich adornment of women. Perhaps, too, because they are not only modest and chaste (cf. Arabic mesturât, a veiled woman, in opposition to memshushât, one shone on by the sun), but also, like the children of respectable families, hidden from the eyes of strangers; for the Arabic proverb quoted above says, "treasures are hidden in the corners," and the superscription of a letter addressed to a lady of position runs: "May it kiss the hand of the protected lady and of the hidden jewel." - Wetzstein.)

The words האליף, to bring forth by thousands, and מרבּב (denominative from רבבה), which surpasses it, multiplied by tens of thousands, are freely formed. Concerning חוּצות, meadows, vid., on Job 18:17. פּרץ, in a martial sense a defeat, clades, e.g., in Judges 21:15, is here any violent misfortune whatever, as murrain, which causes a breach, and יוצאת any head of cattle which goes off by a single misfortune. The lamentation in the streets is intended as in Jeremiah 14:2. שׁכּכה is also found in Sol 5:9; nor does the poet, however, hesitate to blend this שׁ with the tetragrammaton into one word. The Jod is not dageshed (cf. Psalm 123:2), because it is to be read שׁאדני, cf. מיהוה equals מאדני in Genesis 18:14. Luther takes Psalm 144:15 and Psalm 144:15 as contrasts: Blessed is the people that is in such a case, But blessed is the people whose God is the Lord. There is, however, no antithesis intended, but only an exceeding of the first declaration by the second. For to be allowed to call the God from whom every blessing comes his God, is still infinitely more than the richest abundance of material blessing. The pinnacle of Israel's good fortune consists in being, by the election of grace, the people of the Lord (Psalm 33:12).