Anticipated Blessing
Psalm 144:1–15
Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord! Psalm 144:15
The final section of Psalm 144 anticipates the blessing the king expects God to give his kingdom after those who are threatening him are defeated. The psalm’s prayer for deliverance is a confident prayer leading to the vision of future blessing. David is sure that when the deliverance is given, the blessing will be realized.
The blessing begins with the family as the foundation of any strong society (v. 12). It advances to the people’s prosperity (v. 13), then to the security of the city (v. 14). Finally, the blessing is anchored in its only adequate source, God, which is why the psalm ends by saying that the greatest blessing of all is to have Jehovah as one’s God.
How different this blessing is from the world’s way of thinking! Most people want the blessings of these last verses but they suppose they can have them without God. People are not made to be alone. People need people, and most people dream of a loving, supportive family in which they can prosper and attain their potential, but without God the family has no strength and relationships are frequently destroyed. The collapse of the American family in our day is one proof of the effects of godlessness. People also want to prosper. Who does not? They want their work to go well and their bank accounts to grow, but even when this happens, they are still insecure and find that things alone do not satisfy them. Finally, people want to be safe, but when the culture is crumbling, as ours is, they know they are not secure and that violence and even death can strike them from nearly any source at any moment.
Having Jehovah as our God does not in itself immediately guarantee these blessings, for we live in a fallen world. Even David did not experience uninterrupted blessings. The families of believers also fail, as David’s did; we do not always live utterly free from want; we are often in physical danger, as David was when he wrote this psalm. But we are blessed by God all the same. Besides, to know God is the greatest of all blessings, and knowing and serving God is the best and surest path to every other blessing.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.