happiness · noun, common masculine plural construct
people
הָ֭עָםHa.'om
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
case
שֶׁכָּ֣כָהshe.Ka.khah
H3602
just so · relative particle + adverb
happy
אַֽשְׁרֵ֥י'ash.Rei
H835
happiness · noun, common masculine plural construct
people
הָ֝עָ֗םha.'Am
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
God
אֱלֹהָֽיו'e.lo.Hav
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
שֶׁיֲהוָ֥הshe.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · relative particle + proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
Psalms 146:5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
Deuteronomy 33:29 Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency!…
Psalms 65:4 Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the go…
Psalms 89:15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 144:9–end
The method is the same in this latter part of the psalm as in the former; David first gives glory to God and then begs mercy from him.
I. He praises God for the experiences he had had of his goodness to him and the encouragements he had to expect further mercy from him, Psa 144:9, Psa 144:10. In the midst of his complaints concerning the power and treachery of his enemies, here is a holy exultation in his God: I will sing a new song to thee, O God! a song of praise for new mercies, for those compassions that are new every morning. Fresh favours call for fresh returns of thanks; nay, we must praise God for the mercies we hope for by his promise as well as those we have received by his provide…
Happy is that people that is in such a case,.... Whose families are in good order and behave well; who enjoy plenty of all good things; whose flocks and herds increase, and who live in peace and prosperity; these are temporal blessings highly valuable, and for which those who have them should be thankful, as being happy in comparison of others that are destitute of them, Deuteronomy 28:3; and especially who besides these are blessed with spiritual blessings, signified by them, and of which these were typical;
yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord; whose God the Lord is, not only by creation, and as he is a common benefactor and preserver, but as their God in covenant, their coven…
Psalm 144:12-15
12. Because our sons are as plants which have grown up in their youth, our daughters as corners polished after the similitude of a palace. [266] 13. Our recesses [or corners] full, going out, [267] from kind to kind; our sheep brining forth to thousands, to ten thousands, [268] in our streets. [269] 14. Our oxen accustomed [270] to the burden, no breach, nor going out, nor cry in our streets. 15. Happy the people to whom it is so! happy the people whose God is Jehovah!
12. Because our sons, etc. These three concluding verses some consider as being a wish or a prayer. [271] Others think that David congratulates himself, and all the people, that through the divine blessing ev…
The Church Fathers
"They have called the people blessed who have these things" (ver. 15). O men that speak vanity! They have lost the true right hand, wicked and perverse, they have put on the benefits of God inversely. O wicked ones, O speakers of vanity, O strange children! What was on the left hand, they have set on the right. What dost thou, David? What dost thou, Body of Christ? What do ye, members of Christ? What do ye, not strange children, but children of God? ...What say ye? Say ye with us, "Blessed is the people whose Lord is their God."
Now, you know, I think, not only the nature of your prayer but its object, and you have learned this not from me but from him who has deigned to teach us all. Happiness is what we must seek and what we must ask of the Lord God. Many arguments have been fashioned by many people about the nature of happiness, but why should we turn to the many people or the many arguments? Brief and true is the word in the Scripture of God: "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord." That we may belong to that people and that we may be able to attain to contemplation of him and to eternal life with him, "the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith." Among those same three, hope is put for a good conscience. "Faith therefore, and hope and charity," lead the praying soul to God, that is, the believing and hoping and desiring soul who attends to what he asks of the Lord in the Lord's Prayer. Fasting and abstinence from other pleasures of carnal desire—with due regard for our health—and especially almsgiving are great helps to prayer, so that we may be able to say: "In the day of my trouble I sought God with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived." How is it possible to seek an incorporeal God who cannot be felt with the hands, unless he is sought by good works?
Since we know that you are devoted to the public welfare, you must see how plainly the sacred writings show that the happiness of the state has no other source than the happiness of humankind. One of the sacred writers, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks thus as he prays: "Rescue me out of the hand of strange children, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity; whose sons are as new plants in their youth; their daughters decked out, adorned round about after the similitude of a temple; their storehouse full, flowing out of this into that; their sheep fruitful in young, abounding in their goings forth; their oxen fat. There is no breach of wall nor passage nor crying out in their streets. They have called the people happy that have these things, but happy is the people whose God is the Lord."You see that a people is not called happy because of an accumulation of earthly good fortune, except by the "strange children," that is, by those who do not belong to the regeneration by which we become children of God. The psalmist prays to be rescued out of their hand, lest he be drawn by them into that false opinion and into their impious sins. Truly they speak vanity when they "have called the people happy that have these things"—the things that he had listed above, in which that good fortune consisted, the only good fortune that the lovers of this world seek. Therefore, "their right hand is the right hand of iniquity" because they have preferred those things that should have been set aside, as the right hand is preferred to the left. Happiness in life is not to be attributed to the possession of those things; they should be subordinate, not preeminent; they are intended to follow, not to lead. If, then, we were to speak to him who prayed thus and desired to be rescued from the "strange children" who "called that people happy that have these things," and if we said, "What is your own opinion? What people do you call happy?" he would not say, "Happy is the people whose strength is in their own mind." If he had said this, he would, it is true, distinguish that people from the former, which made happiness consist in that visible and corporeal good fortune, but he would not yet have passed beyond all the vanities and lying follies, for, as the same writings teach elsewhere, "Cursed be everyone that places his hope in humankind."…
Dictionary and topics
Blessed, The · Who have the Lord for their God — Who have the Lord for their God
Happiness · OF THE RIGHTEOUS — OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Happiness Of Saints In This Life · Is derived from: God being their Lord — Is derived from: God being their Lord
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
With reference to the relation of this passage to the preceding, vid., the introduction. אשׁר (it is uncertain whether this is a word belonging originally to this piece or one added by the person who appended it as a sort of clasp or rivet) signifies here quoniam, as in Jdg 9:17; Jer 16:13, and frequently. lxx ὢν οἱ υίοὶ (אשׁר בניהם); so that the temporal prosperity of the enemies is pictured here, and in Psa 144:15 the spiritual possession of Israel is contrasted with it. The union becomes satisfactorily close in connection with this reading, but the reference of the description, so designedly set forth, to the enemies is improbable. In Psa 144:12-14 we hear a language that is altogeth…
no enemy . . . no cries of alarm: These images depict peace and security.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 144:15
Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.
Happy is that people that is in such a case. Such things are not to be overlooked. Temporal blessings are not trifles, for the miss of them would be a dire calamity. It is a great happiness to belong to a people so highly favoured. Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord. This comes in as an explanation of their prosperity. Under the Old Testament Israel had present earthly rewards for obedience: when Jehovah was their God they were a nation enriched and flourishing. This sentence is also a sort of correction of all that had gone before; as if the poet would say—all these temporal gifts…
