Psalm 144: The Center is Found at the End

• Read Psalm 144 from the ESV.
• Read my Psalm 144 poem from A New Song.

———————————————————————-

There are so many things to be said about this psalm, but I’m afraid only the nerdiest of us might enjoy them. Here is a list of the things that I notice when reading Psalm 144:

• Psalm 144 compares the fragility of humanity (v 3-4) with the overwhelming power of God (v 5-7),
• Psalm 144 repeats a “rescue prayer” (v 7, 11),
• Psalm 144 is arranged in a chiasmus (I told you it was sort of nerdy!),
• The center point of Psalm 144 is the phrase “I will sing a new song to you, O God!” (v 9-10),
• Psalm 144 seems to serve as THE culminating psalm of the entire book of The Psalms,
• Psalm 144’s conclusion resurrects the themes found in Psalm 1 and Psalm 2.

Essentially, Psalm 144 is like a highlight reel of the book of Psalms. Psalm 144 includes nearly every theme found in the 150 psalms:

• It speaks of the God of gods – Jehovah, Yahweh, YHWH – whose power makes the earth smoke and shake;
• It describes man as a breath or a shadow, yet we are still valued by God;
• It describes the enemies of the righteous as ones speaking falsehood;
• It tells that believers in God are harassed;
• It tells that the wicked will be destroyed;
• It declares that the righteous will be blessed.

Psalm 144 covers it all!

But for all that Psalm 144 declares, one glaring thing stands out. There is only one thing in Psalm 144 which describes man’s response to God. God is the one who trains us and protects us; God is the one whose steadfast love covers us; God is the one who regards man as something of value; God is the one who scatters our enemies; God is the one who blesses our children and future generations; God is the one who does it all…except for one thing: praise. We praise God.

It’s a fairly inequitable transaction if you think about it. God does all this work of protecting us, loving us, blessing us, keeping us, and on and on, and all we do in response to his work is to praise him. If we were to put this into economic terms, God provides the nation, the armies, the police, the farmland, the housing, the transportation – everything you can imagine helping humanity to grow and prosper – and we send him a Thank You card. Deal done!

To make this all seem a bit more extreme, God does everything even though we have turned our backs on him and continue to sin daily. We seek for wisdom in our own ways; we look to receive our own praise; we find ways to elevate ourselves; we build our own walls of protection keeping others out who really need help; we are selfish, brutish beasts rarely looking up from our own hands to acknowledge the truth that nothing we have ever done can ever be attributed to our own power and intellect. Furthermore, nothing we ever do will last. We are like a vapor, passing away almost before we are fully formed. And there are still a good number of us who will go to the grave with our fist clenched as if to say to God that he never did anything for us. But in their anger, they never realize their fist is clenched onto one of the greatest lies ever told. Since the Garden of Eden, we have been under the delusion that we can find wisdom on our own and that we can make a name for ourselves. But we can’t, and we can’t.

The wisdom of man is foolishness compared to the wisdom of God.
The strength of man is like a vapor compared to the power of God’s very presence.
And the name of man offers nothing compared to the name of God.

The very center of Psalm 144 – which is perhaps the main point of The Psalms in general – is that we respond to God’s great works by singing a new song to him! We respond with praise!

I’ve written about this in A New Song, so I will simply say that when The Psalms declare that we are to sing a new song it doesn’t merely mean that we are to sing The Psalms. Certainly, that can be part of it, but I think it is much much more than that. Think back with me to the Garden when God had just made all of the animals and he had Adam stand in one place before God brought all the animals before him. The scripture curiously says that God did this so as “to see what he would name them.” God created everything in the universe and then asked Adam to respond by naming the creation. That’s a dog. That’s a goat. That’s an emu. That’s a duck-billed platypus. Adam’s response to God’s work is to speak words and name his works. And isn’t that what praise is? Speaking and naming the works of God.

Sometimes his works provide us shelter; sometimes food; sometimes children; sometimes work; sometimes travel; sometimes healing; whatever it is that God does, by naming it and attributing it to God we praise him. In this sense, we become like pre-fall Adam when we praise God for the works of his hand.

In the center of Psalm 144 we find the phrase, “I will sing a new song to you, O God.” This is the ideological center of Psalm 144. It is the ideological center of The Psalms. It is the ideological center of The Bible. But, is it the ideological center of your life? When you see the works of God, do you praise him for them? Let those around you hear the new song you are singing as you praise God for his work in your life!