Psalm 108 (Contemporary English Version)
- (A song and a psalm by David.) Our God, I am faithful to you with all my heart, and you can trust me. I will sing and play music for you with all that I am.
- I will start playing my harps before the sun rises.
- I will praise you, LORD, for everyone to hear; I will sing hymns to you in every nation.
- Your love reaches higher than the heavens, and your loyalty extends beyond the clouds.
- Our God, may you be honored above the heavens; may your glory be seen everywhere on earth.
- Answer my prayers and use your powerful arm to give us victory. Then the people you love will be safe.
- Our God, from your holy place you made this promise: "I will gladly divide up the city of Shechem and give away Succoth Valley piece by piece.
- The lands of Gilead and Manasseh are mine. Ephraim is my war helmet, and Judah is my symbol of royal power.
- Moab is merely my washbasin, and Edom belongs to me. I shout with victory over the Philistines."
- Our God, who will bring me to the fortress or lead me to Edom?
- Have you rejected us? You don't lead our armies.
- Help us defeat our enemies! No one else can rescue us.
- You are the one who gives us victory and crushes our enemies.
This psalm brings together portions of two previous psalms. Verses 1-5 come from Psalm 57:7-11 and verses 6-13 from Psalm 60:5-12. Since this came from former psalms the specific references cannot be applied to the purpose for which this present psalm was applied. However, the sense of it seems to be that those who formed the psalm were under threat of an enemy feeling that God had rejected them and left their armies to fend for themselves. But on this occasion they were hopeful that God was about to bring deliverance to them which had awakened their hopes prompting them to give praise for God's former mercies to them and confidence that He would again demonstrate His faithful love by defeating their enemies.
The hope of deliverance had aroused enthusiastic praise and the claim that the psalmist would praise the Lord among his own people and among other nations. He recognized God's faithful love to be higher than the heavens and wished that God would be exalted above the heavens. Oh that our practice would match our songs in worship. How often do we sing great words of praise and expressions of our own faithfulness toward God only to contradict them within the week? How often did God deliver Israel from her enemy and the people give praise similar to this psalm only to turn back to their rebellious ways almost before the echos of the psalm had died away? We give great lip service while gathered with other believers but too often our lives bear evidence that either we speak lies or are oblivious to our own hypocrisy. The people claimed through this psalm their acknowledgment that without God's aid their armies were helpless. "Human help is worthless," they said. "With God we will perform valiantly." So why did they repeatedly turn to other gods and depend so extensively on alliances with ungodly nations?
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