Discovery BoxPsalms 144:4-8 
Context144:4 People 1 are like a vapor,
their days like a shadow that disappears. 2
144:5 O Lord, make the sky sink 3 and come down! 4
Touch the mountains and make them smolder! 5
144:6 Hurl lightning bolts and scatter them!
Shoot your arrows and rout them! 6
144:7 Reach down 7 from above!
Grab me and rescue me from the surging water, 8
from the power of foreigners, 9
144:8 who speak lies,
and make false promises. 10
1 tn Heb “man,” or “mankind.”
2 tn Heb “his days [are] like a shadow that passes away,” that is, like a late afternoon shadow made by the descending sun that will soon be swallowed up by complete darkness. See Ps 102:11.
3 tn The Hebrew verb נָטָה (natah) can carry the sense “to [cause to] bend; to [cause to] bow down.” For example, Gen 49:15 pictures Issachar as a donkey that “bends” its shoulder or back under a burden. Here the
4 tn Heb “so you might come down.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose after the preceding imperative. The same type of construction is utilized in v. 6.
5 tn Heb “so they might smolder.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose after the preceding imperative.
6 sn Arrows and lightning bolts are associated in other texts (see Pss 18:14; 77:17-18; Zech 9:14), as well as in ancient Near Eastern art (see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” [Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983], 187).
7 tn Heb “stretch out your hands.”
8 tn Heb “mighty waters.” The waters of the sea symbolize the psalmist’s powerful foreign enemies, as well as the realm of death they represent (see the next line and Ps 18:16-17).
9 tn Heb “from the hand of the sons of foreignness.”
10 tn Heb “who [with] their mouth speak falsehood, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.” The reference to the “right hand” is probably a metonymy for an oath. When making an oath, one would raise the hand as a solemn gesture. See Exod 6:8; Num 14:30; Deut 32:40. The figure thus represents the making of false oaths (false promises).
