Psalms 138

A Psalm of David.

The psalmist is one whose experience and person enlist the public attention. He speaks as a public man; his words have even a prophetic, Messianic leaning, and open up views of the gospel kingdom. He had been in great trouble, but God had fulfilled his word in giving deliverance; and the story of his experience should have its effect on kings and peoples to call them to the worship of God. In view of all this, his confidence is strengthened in God, who will still carry forward to completion all his plans. The strophic divisions are three: Psalms 138:1-3, an acknowledgment of God’s goodness in hearing his prayer and giving deliverance; Psalms 138:4-5, the gracious effect of this example of divine goodness on the nations; Psalms 138:6-8, his renewed confidence in God for future aid.

The Hebrew title assigns the psalm to David, and the spirit and contents are in harmony with the title. Many suppose it to date after the promise of 2 Samuel 7:0. Its appearance late in the collection of the Psalms, in the fifth and last book according to the arrangement of the Hebrew Psalter, indicates that it is a compilation from a later hand, who adapted it to church use after the exile. This seems indicated by the Greek title, Ψαλμος τω Δαυιδ , Αγγαιου και Ζαχαριου , which should be rendered, A psalm of David, by Haggai and Zechariah, that is, revised and arranged in its present place in the Psalter by these prophets. Nothing less can be made of this Greek addition to the Hebrew title than that, according to Jewish tradition, three hundred years before Christ, such was the belief. If so, it might well suit the occasion of the triumph of the Jews over their persecuting neighbours, which resulted in the completion of the second temple, and the bringing of the Jewish cause freshly and favourably before the minds of kings and nations, to the great joy and prosperity of the returned exiles, as recorded Ezra 5:6