Psalm 144:7

Send thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of strange children;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) Rid.—The Hebrew verb means “to tear asunder,” and is used of the gaping of the mouth (Psalm 22:13). The meaning here is got from the cognate Arabic, and Syriac

Strange children.—Literally, sons of the stranger.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

144:1-8 When men become eminent for things as to which they have had few advantages, they should be more deeply sensible that God has been their Teacher. Happy those to whom the Lord gives that noblest victory, conquest and dominion over their own spirits. A prayer for further mercy is fitly begun with a thanksgiving for former mercy. There was a special power of God, inclining the people of Israel to be subject to David; it was typical of the bringing souls into subjection to the Lord Jesus. Man's days have little substance, considering how many thoughts and cares of a never-dying soul are employed about a poor dying body. Man's life is as a shadow that passes away. In their highest earthly exaltation, believers will recollect how mean, sinful, and vile they are in themselves; thus they will be preserved from self-importance and presumption. God's time to help his people is, when they are sinking, and all other helps fail.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Send thine hand from above - Margin, as in Hebrew, "hands." See the notes at Psalm 18:16 : "He sent from above."

Rid me, and deliver me out of great waters - Thus Psalm 18:16 : "He took me, he drew me out of many waters." As God had done it once, there was ground for the prayer that he would do it yet again.

From the hand of strange children - Strangers: strangers to thee; strangers to thy people, foreigners. See Psalm 54:3 : "For strangers are risen up against me." The language would properly imply that at the time referred to in the psalm he was engaged in a warfare with foreign enemies. Who they were, we have no means now of ascertaining.

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

Either of the heathen nations, which envy and hate me; or of the rebellious Israelites, who, though they profess themselves to be the Lord’s people, yet in truth and for their carriage to me are like the barbarous heathens.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Send thine hand from above,.... From the high heavens, as the Targum; that is, exert and display thy power in my deliverance, and in the destruction of my enemies; as follows:

rid me, and deliver me out of great waters; out of great afflictions, which, for quantity and quality, are like many waters, overflowing and overwhelming; see Isaiah 43:2; or out of the hands of enemies, many, mighty, and strong, whom he compares to waters; as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech observe: and so the Targum,

"deliver me from the multitudes or armies, that are like to many waters;''

see Revelation 17:1. It may be applied to the sorrows and sufferings of Christ, the antitype of David, with which he was overwhelmed; to the billows of divine wrath which went over him; to the floods of ungodly men that encompassed him; and to the whole posse of devils, Satan, and his principalities and powers, that attacked him; see Psalm 18:4;

from the hand of strange children; which explains what is meant by "great waters": wicked men chiefly; either Gentiles, the children of a people of a strange nation, and of a strange language, and of strange sentiments of religion, and that worship a strange god: such as the Edomites, Moabites, Philistines, &c. who were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise: or else the Israelites, who were degenerated from their ancestors, such of David's subjects that rebelled against him; so the Ziphims are called strangers that rose up against him, Psalm 54:3; and such were the enemies of Christ, both the Romans, who were Heathens and aliens; and the people of the Jews, his own countrymen, who were a generation of vipers; see Acts 4:27; such as Juvenal calls (l) "filii morum", who inherited the vices of their fathers.

(l) Satyr. 14. v. 52.

Geneva Study Bible

Send thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great {f} waters, from the hand of strange children;

(f) That is, deliver me from the tumults of they who should be my people but are corrupt in their judgment and enterprises, as though they were strangers.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. Stretch forth thine hands from on high:

Rescue me, and deliver me out of many waters, out of the hand of strangers.

From Psalm 18:16; Psalm 18:45, description being again changed to prayer. For hands some MSS and all Ancient Versions read hand. The word rendered rescue is a word used in this sense only here and in Psalm 144:10-11 in the O.T., but common in Aramaic. It is an indication of the late date of the Psalm. Great or many waters are a figure for overwhelming dangers, here particularly the attacks of foreign enemies, or possibly the tyranny of foreign rulers.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - Send thine hand from above; literally, reach out thy hands from on high. Rid me; rather, rescue me. And deliver me out of great waters. "Great waters," or "deep waters," is a common metaphor in the Psalms for serious peril. David's peril at this time was from the hand of strange children; literally, sons of strangers; i.e. foreign foes. Psalm 144:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The deeds of God which Psalm 18 celebrates are here made an object of prayer. We see from Psalm 18:10 that ותרד, Psalm 144:5, has Jahve and not the heavens as its subject; and from Psalm 18:15 that the suffix em in Psalm 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 Psalm 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 Psalm 18:17; and the poet has added the interpretation to the figure here. On Psalm 144:8 cf. Psalm 12:3; Psalm 41:7. The combination of words "right hand of falsehood" is the same as in Psalm 109:2. But our poet, although so great an imitator, has, however, much also that is peculiar to himself. The verb בּרק, "to send forth lightning;" the verb פּצה in the Aramaeo-Arabic signification "to tear out of, rescue," which in David always only signifies "to tear open, open wide" (one's mouth), Psalm 22:14; Psalm 66:14; and the combination "the right hand of falsehood" (like "the tongue of falsehood" in Psalm 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 Psalm 104:32, taken from the mountains that smoked at the giving of the Law, Exodus 19:18; Exodus 20:15. The mountains, as in Psalm 68:17 (cf. Psalm 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.