Psalms 144:6
in Psalms 144Flash forth Your lightning and scatter them; shoot Your arrows and rout them.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Cast forth lightning, and scatter them; Send out thine arrows, and discomfit them.
KJV
Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.
⋯
This verse in Psalms 144
Commentary
9 notes on this verseFlash forth the lightning, and you shall scatter them. See what he says. He did not say, you shall destroy them: but, you shall scatter them. We read in Genesis, at that time when they were building the tower, God says: 'Come, let us descend and confound their tongue' lest at some time they should have agreement among themselves; but let them be scattered abroad, it profits them.
This site's exposition
Part Your heavens, O LORD
on Psalms 144:5-6
The prayer asks God to come down, to touch the mountains until they smoke, and to scatter the enemy with lightning and arrows. Exodus 19:18 has Mount Sinai wrapped in smoke when the LORD came down on it in fire. Gill read the heavens bending low, like clouds heavy with rain.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
"Flash Thy lightning, and Thou shall scatter them; send forth Thine arrows, and Thou shall confound them." But there are some that conspire, that "gather themselves together against the Lord, and against His Christ." They have come together, they have conspired. "Flash forth Thy lightnings, and Thou shall scatter them." Abound with Thy miracles, and their conspiracy shall be broken. ..."Send forth Thine arrows, and Thou shall confound them." Let the unsound be wounded, that, being well wounded, they may be made sound; and let them say, being set now in the Church, in the Body of Christ, let them say with the Church, "I am wounded with Love."
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
He does not specify who they were that he was in fear of, but says, Scatter them, destroy them. God knew whom he meant, though he did not name them. But afterwards he describes them (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
Cast forth lightning, and scatter them,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
Cast forth lightning, and scatter them. The Eternal can hurl his lightnings wheresoever he pleases, and effect his purpose instantaneously. The artillery of heaven soon puts the enemy to flight: a single bolt sets the armies running hither and thither in utter rout. Shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them. Jehovah never misses the mark; his arrows are fatal to his foes when he goes forth to war.
Cast forth lightning, and scatter them. The Eternal can hurl his lightnings wheresoever he pleases, and effect his purpose instantaneously. The artillery of heaven soon puts the enemy to flight: a single bolt sets the armies running hither and thither in utter rout. Shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them. Jehovah never misses the mark; his arrows are fatal to his foes when he goes forth to war. It was no common faith which led the poet king to expect the Lord to use his thunderbolts on behalf of a single member of that race which he had just now described as "like to vanity." A believer in God may without presumption expect the Almighty Lord to use on his behalf all the stores of his wisdom and power: even the terrible forces of tempest shall be marshalled to the fight, for the defence of the Lord's chosen. When we have once mastered the greater difficulty of the Lord's taking any interest in us, it is but a small thing that we should expect him to exert his great power on our behalf. This is far from being the only time in which this believing warrior had thus prayed: Ps 18:1-50 is specially like the present; the good man was not abashed at his former boldness, but here repeats himself without fear.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
Cast forth lightning - See the note Psa 18:13-14 (note).
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Cast forth lightnings, and scatter them - See the notes at Psa 18:14: “He sent out his arrows, and scattered them.” The allusion there is to lightning. The psalmist prays that; God would do now again what he had then done. The Hebrew here is, “Lighten lightning;” that is, Send forth lightning. The word is used as a verb nowhere else. Shoot out thine arrows ... - So in Psa 18:14: “He shot out lightnings.” The words are the same here as in that psalm, only that they are arranged differently. See the notes at that place.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| בְּר֣וֹק | berok | flash | H1299 → | |
| בָּ֭רָק | barok | lightning | H1300 → | 21 times |
| וּתְפִיצֵ֑ם | utefitzem | and you will scatter them | H6327 → | 67 times |
| שְׁלַ֥ח | shelach | send | H7971 → | 845 times |
| חִ֝צֶּ֗יךָ | chitzeikha | arrows your | H2671 → | 53 times |
| וּתְהֻמֵּֽם׃ | utehumem | and you will rout them | H2000 → |
בְּר֣וֹקflash
berokH1299 →
בָּ֭רָקlightning
barokH1300 →21 times
וּתְפִיצֵ֑םand you will scatter them
utefitzemH6327 →67 times
שְׁלַ֥חsend
shelachH7971 →845 times
חִ֝צֶּ֗יךָarrows your
chitzeikhaH2671 →53 times
וּתְהֻמֵּֽם׃and you will rout them
utehumemH2000 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Psalms 21:12For You will put them to flight when Your bow is trained upon them.
it leads to
- Psalms 7:12–13
If one does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has bent and strung His bow.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Psalms 18:40
You have made my enemies retreat before me; I put an end to those who hated me.
- Psalms 64:7
But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be wounded.
- Lamentations 3:12
He bent His bow and set me as the target for His arrow.
- Psalms 7:12–13
Through
Deuteronomy 32:23I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.
it leads to
- Ezekiel 5:16
When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food.
- Isaiah 24:17–18
Terror and pit and snare await you, O dweller of the earth.
- Ezekiel 5:16
Through
Deuteronomy 32:42I will make My arrows drunk with blood, while My sword devours flesh—the blood of the slain and captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 32:23
I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.
- Jeremiah 46:10
For that day belongs to the Lord GOD of Hosts, a day of vengeance against His foes. The sword will devour until it is satisfied, until it is quenched with their blood. For the…
- Deuteronomy 32:23
About Psalms
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 144; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 7; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; Jerome, Homily 54, on Psalm 143; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.