Psalms 108: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The singer tells God his heart is steady and promises to praise him with music among the nations, because God's loving faithfulness reaches higher than the sky. He asks God to rescue those God loves. He then quotes God's own words claiming the territories on both sides of the Jordan and the neighboring nations of Moab, Edom, and Philistia. The psalm ends with a question about who will lead an attack on Edom, a complaint that God has rejected the army, and a statement that only God's help is worth anything.

Claim by Claim

1. 108:1
   • The speaker addresses God.
   • The speaker's heart is fixed and steady.
   • The speaker declares he will sing and make music of praise.
   • The speaker will praise with his glory, that is, with his whole self.
2. 108:2
   • The speaker calls the harp and the lyre to awake.
   • The speaker declares he will awaken the dawn.
3. 108:3
   • The speaker will praise the LORD among the peoples.
   • The speaker will sing praises to the LORD among the nations.
4. 108:4
   • God's covenant mercy is great, higher than the heavens.
   • God's faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
5. 108:5
   • The speaker asks God to be exalted above the heavens.
   • The speaker asks that God's glory be over all the earth.
6. 108:6
   • The purpose is that those whom God loves may be rescued.
   • The speaker asks God to save with his right hand.
   • The speaker asks God to answer him.
7. 108:7
   • God has spoken in his holiness.
   • The speaker says he will rejoice.
   • The speaker says he will divide Shechem.
   • The speaker says he will measure out the valley of Succoth.
8. 108:8
   • Gilead belongs to the speaker.
   • Manasseh belongs to the speaker.
   • Ephraim is the defense of the speaker's head.
   • Judah is the speaker's ruler's staff.
9. 108:9
   • Moab is the speaker's washbasin.
   • The speaker will throw his sandal over Edom.
   • The speaker will shout in triumph over Philistia.
10. 108:10
    • The speaker asks who will bring him into the fortified city.
    • The speaker asks who will lead him into Edom.
11. 108:11
    • The speaker asks whether it is not God himself, who has rejected them.
    • The speaker asks whether God will not go out with their armies.
12. 108:12
    • The speaker asks God to give them help against the adversary.
    • The help of man is worthless.
13. 108:13
    • Through God they will act with valor.
    • God is the one who will trample down their enemies.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

108:1

This psalm is almost entirely made up of lines that also appear in two earlier psalms: verses 1–5 repeat Psalm 57:7–11, and verses 6–13 repeat Psalm 60:5–12. Reusing and recombining older material this way was a normal practice in Hebrew poetry. Where the King James has "even with my glory," the Hebrew word usually means "honour" or "weight"; many readers take it here to mean the singer's own self or soul, the noblest part of a person, hence "with everything I am."

108:2

The two instruments are the *nevel* and the *kinnor*, both stringed instruments played by plucking; the King James calls them "psaltery and harp." "I will wake up the dawn" means the singer will be up and playing before first light, so that his music rouses the morning rather than the morning rousing him. The King James "I myself will awake early" softens the image.

108:3

To praise someone means to say out loud how good they are. LORD in big letters is God's own name, the special name he told his people.

108:4

"Faithful love" translates the Hebrew *hesed*, the loyal, committed kindness owed within a binding relationship, closer to steadfast loyalty than to affection. The King James renders it "mercy."

108:5

Glory means how great and shining and important someone is.

108:6

The right hand is the sword hand, and standard ancient shorthand for a person's power in action. "The people you love" is a single word in Hebrew meaning "your beloved ones", the nation as a whole, not one individual.

108:7

"His holy place" is God's sanctuary, the temple, where oracles were delivered. What follows in verses 7–9 is God speaking, not the psalmist. Shechem lay in the hill country west of the Jordan; the Valley of Succoth lay east of it. Naming one on each side is a way of claiming the whole land. "Measure out" refers to surveying territory with a measuring line, the action of a conqueror parcelling out land he now owns.

108:8

These are territories of Israel's tribes: Gilead and Manasseh east of the Jordan, Ephraim and Judah west of it. Ephraim was militarily strong, hence "helmet", the King James "strength of mine head" translates the same idea. The King James "lawgiver" for Judah renders a Hebrew word meaning a ruler's staff or scepter, the badge of the tribe that held the kingship.

108:9

Three foreign nations, each named with a deliberately humiliating image. Moab, east of the Dead Sea, is reduced to the basin a man washes his feet in. Throwing a sandal onto a piece of ground was a legally recognized gesture of taking possession of it (compare Ruth 4:7), so Edom, south-east of the Dead Sea, becomes property. Philistia was the coastal territory of the Philistines, on the south-west, Israel's long-standing military rival. Together the three ring Israel on every side.

108:10

The fortified city is an Edomite stronghold, probably Bozrah or Sela, built high in rock country and very hard to take. The question is not despairing but practical: who will get the army inside?

108:11

Defeat in battle was understood as a sign that God had withdrawn his backing. "Marching out with our armies" reflects the ancient expectation that a nation's God went to war alongside its troops; his absence, not the enemy's strength, is what the psalm treats as the problem.

108:12

In 1611, "vain" meant empty or useless. It does not mean proud here. The line says human help is worth nothing compared to God's.

108:13

"Valiantly" means bravely. To "tread down" is to step on and crush, a picture of the winner standing over a beaten enemy.