Psalm 144

It opens with training. Hands taught to war and fingers taught to fight is exactly what a soldier learned — the bow drawn with the fingers, the sling whirled and released, the short sword used at close quarters. Skill of that kind took years, and the psalm credits the teacher.

The storm language that follows is how the Old Testament describes God going into battle: mountains smoking, lightning shot like arrows, and a hand reaching down and pulling a man out of deep water. Being drawn out of many waters is a rescue from something the man could not have swum out of.

The prayer against foreigners whose mouths speak lies and whose right hands are false points at treaty-breaking. A raised right hand sealed an oath, and a neighbor state that swore and then raided was the constant political problem of a small kingdom.

The last section is the peace it is all for, and every item in it is concrete. Sons grown up like well-tended plants. Daughters like the carved corner pillars of a palace. Barns full of every kind of crop, flocks multiplying by the thousands in the fields, and cattle heavy with young. No breach in the wall — the word means the gap an army makes. No going out, which meant no one marched off into captivity. And no cry of distress in the streets.