Psalms 144:7

7 Stretch out your hands from above. Snatch me, and rescue me from raging waters and from foreigners' hands.

Psalms 144:7 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 144:7

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 Revelation 17:15 ) ( Isaiah 8:7 Isaiah 8:8 ) ( Jeremiah 51:42 ) . 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 ( Psalms 18:4 ) ( Psalms 69:1 Psalms 69:2 ) ; 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 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, ( Psalms 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 Acts 4:28 ) ( Matthew 23:33 ) ; such as Juvenal calls ^F12 "filii morum", who inherited the vices of their fathers.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Satyr. 14. v. 52.

Psalms 144:7 In-Context

5 O LORD, bend your heaven low, and come down. Touch the mountains, and they will smoke.

6 Hurl bolts of lightning, and scatter them. Shoot your arrows, and throw them into confusion.

7 Stretch out your hands from above. Snatch me, and rescue me from raging waters and from foreigners' hands.

8 Their mouths speak lies. Their right hands take false pledges.

9 O God, I will sing a new song to you. I will sing a psalm to you on a ten-stringed harp.