#DailyDevotion My Rock, My Merciful One, My Fortress, My Refuge, My Rescuer, & My Shield
Psalm 144 Blessed be the LORD, my Rock, Who trained my hands to fight and my fingers to do battle. 2He is my merciful One, my Fortress, my Refuge and my Rescuer, my Shield in Whom I trust. He makes my people obey me.
This first verse has been used in recent times to justify self-defense. Misinterpretation completely denies or misses the point that David is forming a nation at the Lord appointed him to do which would require warfare. Indeed and David’s first battle against Goliath, it is the lord’s name he invokes to conquer Goliath. If the Christian is to use this verse, it is not for nation building or self-defense against robbers or tyrannical governments but as Paul says in Eph. 6, “12You’re not fighting against flesh and blood but against the rulers, authorities, and lords of this dark world, against the evil spirits that are above. 13This is why you should take God’s whole armor; then you can resist when things are at their worst and having done everything, you can hold your ground.” So here as we pray this psalm, we ask the Lord train us to fight against a spiritual enemies.
He addresses the Lord as “My Rock.” This is the Hebrew word tsur which is used many times in the Psalms to describe God and was first told by God to use this in Deuteronomy. Verse 2 is continuation of the theme of my, My merciful one, my Fortress, my Refuge, my Rescuer, and my Shield. We have seen these themes before many times throughout the Psalms. This Psalm in particular is noted to have a lot of similarities with Psalm 18. You may want to open it up to that and compare the two. The repetition of my is a very gospel saying. Just as the Lord claims us to be His people, We also claim Him to be our God who is these things for us. We trust Him to be these things for us because He claims that for us. David recognizes and it is the Lord’s work that his people obey him. It is the Lord’s work when we obey Jesus the new David.
3O LORD, what is man that you should care about him, the son of man that You should think about him? 4Man is like a vapor, his life like a shadow passing away.
Verse 3 here is certainly reminiscent of Psalm 8:4. It is interesting that in some eight the word for their man is more like mortal “enosh” and then the son of man uses Adam whereas here in Psalm 144 man is Adam and son of man is “ish” or male. This is a thought of many people considering the Christian God, Who is the Creator of all that is seen and unseen, all of the universe. They have a hard time believing that he would actually take interest in us when there is such a vast universe out there. Man is here today and gone tomorrow just like the fog in the morning. Let me know from the opening verses of Genesis the Lord created all these things for mankind.
It is truly difficult for us to comprehend that God would send His only begotten Son into the world to become man to save mankind. It is a marvelous thing that God would sacrifice His Son to make atonement for mankind who rebelled against him. It is only through the preaching of this gospel, the Holy spirit converts our heart that we would dare to believe such a thing and put our trust in it.
Oh Lord, our Rock, our merciful One, our Redeemer, our Refuge, our Shield, and our Fortress, Grant us faith to believe that you are all these things for us as we put our trust in you. Continually give us your good word that we may make battle against our spiritual enemies who wage war against us. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.