Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 144:1

Whole Psalm. The psalm, in its mingled tones of prayer and praise, is a fit connecting link between the supplicatory psalms which go before, and the strains of thanksgiving which follow it. —Speaker's Commentary.

Whole Psalm. After six psalms of sorrowful prayer in distress, we have now a psalm of praise and thanksgiving for God's gracious answer to supplications; and also a psalm of intercession. The present psalm bears a strong resemblance to David's last song in 2Sa 22:51 and to Ps 18:1-50. Here we have a vision of Christ rejoicing; —after his passion —risen in glory, and having ascended in triumph, and pleading for us at the right hand of God. —Christopher Wordsworth.

Whole Psalm. This psalm is ruled by the numbers ten and seven. Ten verses complete the first part of the psalm, which falls into two divisions. The first portion contains, in Ps 144:1-2, ten attributes of God, —three and seven, the seven divided into four and three. In like manner it contains ten requests to God in Ps 144:5-7, divided precisely as the attributes. To this significance of the number ten for the first part, allusion is pointedly made in Ps 144:9. Seven blessings are prayed for in the second part, four in Ps 144:12-13, (valiant sons, beautiful daughters, full storehouses, numerous flocks), and three in Ps 144:14 (labouring oxen, no breach and diminution, no cry). The whole contains, apart from the closing epiphonem, which, as usual, stands outside the formal arrangement, seven strophes, each of two verses.

An objection has been brought against the Davidic authorship from the "traces of reading" it contains. But one would require to consider more exactly, what sort of reading is here to be thought of. It is only the psalms of David which form the ground work of this new psalm. But that it is one of David's peculiarities to derive from his earlier productions a foundation for new ones, is evident from a variety of facts, which, if any doubt must still be entertained on the subject, would obtain a firm ground to stand upon in this psalm, which can only have been composed by David. The way and manner of the use made of such materials is to be kept in view. This is always of a spirited and feeling nature, and no trace anywhere exists of a dead borrowing. That we cannot think here of such a borrowing; that the appropriation of the earlier language did not proceed from spiritual impotence, but rested upon deeper grounds, is manifest from the consideration of the second part, where the dependence entirely ceases, and where even the opponents of the Davidic authorship have not been able to overlook the strong poetical spirit of the time of David. They betake themselves to the miserable shift of affirming, that the Psalmist borrowed this part of the psalm from a much older poem now lost. —E.W. Hengstenberg.

Blessed be the LORD. A prayer for further mercy is fitly begun with a thanksgiving for former mercy; and when we are waiting upon God to bless us, we should stir up ourselves to bless him. —Matthew Henry.