Psalm 144:6

Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Cast forth lightning.—Literally, lighten lightning, the verb being quite peculiar to this place.

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

Cast forth lightnings, and scatter them - See the notes at Psalm 18:14 : "He sent out his arrows, and scattered them." The allusion there is to lightning. The psalmist prays that; God would do now again what he had then done. The Hebrew here is, "Lighten lightning;" that is, Send forth lightning. The word is used as a verb nowhere else.

Shoot out thine arrows ... - So in Psalm 18:14 : "He shot out lightnings." The words are the same here as in that psalm, only that they are arranged differently. See the notes at that place.

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

Thy thunderbolts, which oft accompany the lightnings and thunder.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Cast forth lightning, and scatter them,.... The mountains, the kings and kingdoms of the earth; the enemies of David, and of Christ, and of his people; particularly the Jews, who have been scattered all over the earth by the judgments of God upon them; cast forth like lightning, which is swift, piercing, penetrating, and destructive;

shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them; or, "trouble them" (k); as the Targum, Septuagint, and Arabic versions, nearer to the Hebrew: these also design the sore judgments of God, the arrows of famine, pestilence, and sword; which fly swiftly, pierce deeply, cut sharply, and, like fiery darts, give great pain and trouble. So Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret them of the decrees which come down from heaven, as Aben Ezra does Psalm 144:5, by "lightning" Arama understands the flame of fire which comes out with thunder; and by "arrows" the thunderbolt, which he calls a stone hardened in the air like iron.

(k) "ac turba eos", Tigurine version; "et conturba eos", Cocceius, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

{e} Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.

(e) By these manner of speeches he shows that all the hindrances in the world cannot prevent God's power, which he apprehends by faith.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. Lighten lightning, and scatter them:

Send forth thine arrows, and discomfit them.

A variation of Psalm 18:14, corresponding again more closely to the text of 2 Samuel 22:15. Them must refer to the enemies who are in the Psalmist’s mind, though he has not expressly mentioned them.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thins arrows, and destroy them (comp. Psalm 18:14). Psalm 144:6

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.