AUGUST 1, 2024
“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.” (Psalm 144:1-2)
Its title is “Of David,” and its language is of David if language can belong to any man. As we might say of any poem, “This is of Tennyson,” or “This is of Shakespeare,” we may say, “This is of David.” Nothing could lead one to ascribe this song to anybody but David. Alexander Maclaren well says, “The Davidic origin of this psalm is as marked as that of any in the book.” It is to God that the mighty warrior sings when he extols Him as his strength and stay in the verses we’ll cover today.
He cannot contain his gratitude, bursting into a loud note of praise. When the heart is in the right state, it must praise God and cannot be restrained. His utterances gush forth as waters from a living spring. With all his strength, David blesses the God of his strength. We ought not to receive so excellent grace to resist evil, to defend truth, and to conquer error without knowing Who gave it to us and rendering Him the glory of it. Not only does the Lord give strength to His saints, but He is their strength. The strength is made theirs because God is theirs. God is full of power, and He becomes the power of those who trust Him.
All wisdom and skill are from the Lord, and He deserves to be gratefully extolled for them. David was, appropriately, called a “man of war” due to being immensely successful in his battles. He does not trace this to his ability but to be taught and strengthened for the war and the fight. If the Lord deigns to have a hand in such unspiritual work as fighting, surely, He will help us to proclaim the gospel and win souls. We should bless His name with even greater intensity of heart. We will be pupils, and He shall be our Master, and if we ever accomplish anything, we will give our Instructor hearty blessing.
This first verse is full of the mercy shown to David, which is the subject of a grateful song. God is now his strength and is still teaching him. We ought to make a point of presenting praise while yet blessing Him. The verse is also preeminently practical and full of the actual life of every day. Of course, most of David’s days were spent in camps and conflicts, but David has his peculiar help from God, who praises Him accordingly. This tends to make the harmony of heaven perfect when all the singers take their parts; if we all followed the same score, the music would not be so full and rich.
In verse 2, the psalmist multiplies metaphors to praise his God. My goodness and my fortress, he denotes Him. The word for goodness signifies mercy. Whoever we may be, we need mercy only found in the infinite God. Indeed, the Lord has been merciful to many of us in a thousand different ways! He is goodness itself, and He has been unbounded goodness to us. We have no goodness, but the Lord has become goodness to us. So is He also our fortress and safe abode: in Him, we dwell behind impregnable ramparts and immovable bastions. We cannot be driven out or starved out, for our fortress is prepared for a siege; it is stored with abundant food, and a well of living water is within it. Kings usually think much of their fenced cities, but King David relies upon his God, Who is more to him than fortresses could have been. The believer finds themselves secure from harm in Him. Our trust rests in our God for everything: He never fails us, and we feel boundless confidence in Him. Let us praise the Lord with the zeal of David!
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