Psalm 144:8

Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Right hand of falsehood.—Most probably with allusion to the custom (see Psalm 106:26) of raising the right hand in taking an oath.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

144:1-8 When men become eminent for things as to which they have had few advantages, they should be more deeply sensible that God has been their Teacher. Happy those to whom the Lord gives that noblest victory, conquest and dominion over their own spirits. A prayer for further mercy is fitly begun with a thanksgiving for former mercy. There was a special power of God, inclining the people of Israel to be subject to David; it was typical of the bringing souls into subjection to the Lord Jesus. Man's days have little substance, considering how many thoughts and cares of a never-dying soul are employed about a poor dying body. Man's life is as a shadow that passes away. In their highest earthly exaltation, believers will recollect how mean, sinful, and vile they are in themselves; thus they will be preserved from self-importance and presumption. God's time to help his people is, when they are sinking, and all other helps fail.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Those mouth speaketh vanity - Vain things; things not real and true; falsehood; lies. See the notes at Psalm 24:4. The idea is, that what they said had no foundation in truth - no reality. Truth is solid and reliable; falsehood is unreliable and vain.

And their right hand is a right hand of falsehood - The meaning here seems to be that even under the solemnities of an oath, when they lifted up their hands to swear, when they solemnly appealed to God, there was no reliance to be placed on what they affirmed or promised. Oaths were taken by lifting up the right hand as toward God. See Genesis 14:22; Exodus 6:8 (Margin, and Hebrew); Deuteronomy 32:40.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

PSALM 144

Ps 144:1-15. David's praise of God as his all-sufficient help is enhanced by a recognition of the intrinsic worthlessness of man. Confidently imploring God's interposition against his enemies, he breaks forth into praise and joyful anticipations of the prosperity of his kingdom, when freed from vain and wicked men.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Vanity; either,

1. Vain brags and threatenings, which shall come to nothing; or,

2. Vain and deceitful promises, or professions, or friendship. Their right hand; here mentioned either,

1. As it is used in swearing, to note their perjury; or rather,

2. As an instrument of action. Is a right hand of falsehood; deceiving either,

1. Themselves, by being unable to do what they designed; or,

2. Others, by not giving them that help which they promised to them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Whose mouth speaketh vanity,.... Vain words, lies, flatteries, and deceit, Psalm 12:2; when they speak loftily of themselves, and contemptuously of others; when they deliver out threatenings against some, and make fair promises to others; it is all vanity, and comes to nothing;

and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood; their strength and power to perform what they boast of, threaten, or promise, is fallacious, is mere weakness, and cannot effect anything; or their treaties, contracts, and covenants, they enter into and sign with their right hand, are not kept by them; they act the treacherous and deceitful part. The Latin interpreter of the Arabic version renders it, "their oath is an oath of iniquity"; and Ben Balaam in Aben Ezra, and R. Adnim in Ben Melech, say the word so signifies in the Arabic language; and Schultens (m) has observed the same: but the word in that language signifies the right hand as well as an oath, and need not be restrained to that; it is better to take it in the large sense, as Cocceius (n) does; whether they lifted up the hand to pray, or to swear; or gave it to covenant with, to make contracts and agreements; or stretched it out to work with; it was a right hand of falsehood.

(m) Observat. Philolog. p. 195. (n) Lexicon, col. 312.

Geneva Study Bible

Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand {g} of falsehood.

(g) For though they shake hands, they do not keep their promises.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. vanity] i.e. falsehood: cp. Psalm 12:2; Psalm 41:6.

their right hand &c.] Uplifted in swearing a solemn oath. Cp. Psalm 106:26.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Whose mouth speaketh vanity; rather, fraud (comp. Psalm 18:45). A feigned submission of some foreign enemy is probably glanced at. And their right hand is a right hand of falsehood. The right hand was lifted up in the taking of a solemn oath (see Ezekiel 20:15). Psalm 144:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The deeds of God which Psalm 18 celebrates are here made an object of prayer. We see from Psalm 18:10 that ותרד, Psalm 144:5, has Jahve and not the heavens as its subject; and from Psalm 18:15 that the suffix em in Psalm 144:6 is meant in both instances to be referred to the enemies. The enemies are called sons of a foreign country, i.e., barbarians, as in Psalm 18:45. The fact that Jahve stretches forth His hand out of the heavens and rescues David out of great waters, is taken verbatim from Psalm 18:17; and the poet has added the interpretation to the figure here. On Psalm 144:8 cf. Psalm 12:3; Psalm 41:7. The combination of words "right hand of falsehood" is the same as in Psalm 109:2. But our poet, although so great an imitator, has, however, much also that is peculiar to himself. The verb בּרק, "to send forth lightning;" the verb פּצה in the Aramaeo-Arabic signification "to tear out of, rescue," which in David always only signifies "to tear open, open wide" (one's mouth), Psalm 22:14; Psalm 66:14; and the combination "the right hand of falsehood" (like "the tongue of falsehood" in Psalm 109:2), i.e., the hand raised for a false oath, are only found here. The figure of Omnipotence, "He toucheth the mountains and they smoke," is, as in Psalm 104:32, taken from the mountains that smoked at the giving of the Law, Exodus 19:18; Exodus 20:15. The mountains, as in Psalm 68:17 (cf. Psalm 76:5), point to the worldly powers. God only needs to touch these as with the tip of His finger, and the inward fire, which will consume them, at once makes itself known by the smoke, which ascends from them. The prayer for victory is followed by a vow of thanksgiving for that which is to be bestowed.