the mouth (as the means of blowing) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
speaketh
דִּבֶּרdi.ber-
H1696
perhaps properly · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
vanity
שָׁ֑וְאShav'
H7723
evil (as destructive) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
hand
וִֽ֝ימִינָ֗םvi.mi.Nam
H3225
the right hand or side (leg · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
hand
יְמִ֣יןye.Min
H3225
the right hand or side (leg · noun, common feminine singular construct
falsehood
שָֽׁקֶרSha.ker
H8267
an untruth · noun, common masculine singular absolute
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 12:2 They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
Psalms 41:6 And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to itself; when he goeth abroad, he telleth it.
Psalms 62:4 They only consult to cast him down from his excellency: they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah.
Isaiah 44:20 He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?
Genesis 14:22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,
Deuteronomy 32:40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.
Psalms 10:7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
Psalms 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 144:1-8
Here, I. David acknowledges his dependence upon God and his obligations to him, Psa 144:1, Psa 144:2. A prayer for further mercy is fitly begun with a thanksgiving for former mercy; and when we are waiting upon God to bless us we should stir up ourselves to bless him. He gives to God the glory of two things: -
1. What he was to him: Blessed be the Lord my rock (Psa 144:1), my goodness, my fortress, Psa 144:2. He has in the covenant engaged himself to be so, and encouraged us, accordingly, to depend upon him; all the saints, who by faith have made him theirs, have found him not only to answer but to out do their expectations. David speaks of it here as the matter of his trust, and that which…
Whose mouth speaketh vanity,.... Vain words, lies, flatteries, and deceit, Psalm 12:2; when they speak loftily of themselves, and contemptuously of others; when they deliver out threatenings against some, and make fair promises to others; it is all vanity, and comes to nothing;
and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood; their strength and power to perform what they boast of, threaten, or promise, is fallacious, is mere weakness, and cannot effect anything; or their treaties, contracts, and covenants, they enter into and sign with their right hand, are not kept by them; they act the treacherous and deceitful part. The Latin interpreter of the Arabic version renders it, "their oath is…
Psalm 144:5-8
5. O Jehovah! bow thy heavens, [260] and descend: [261] touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. 6. Thunder forth thunderings, and scatter them; [262] shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them. 7. Send thy hand from above, rid me and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of the sons of the stranger. 8. For their mouth hath spoken falsehood; and their right hand is a right hand of deceit.
5. O Jehovah! bow thy heavens. After extolling, as was due, the great goodness of God, he requests him to furnish such help for the preservation of the kingdom as was necessary in the present exigency. As formerly we saw that he had gloried in God with a heroical courage, so here he…
The Church Fathers
"From the hand of strange children." Hear, brethren, among whom we are, among whom we live, from whom we long to be delivered. "Whose mouth has spoken vanity" [Psalm 144:8]. All of you today, if you had not gathered yourselves together to these divine shows of the word of God, and were not at this hour engaged in them, how great vanities would ye be hearing! "whose mouth has spoken vanity:" when, in short, would they, speaking vanity, hear you speaking vanity? "And their right hand is a right hand of iniquity." What doest thou among them with your pastoral scrip with five stones in it? Say it to me in another form: that same law which you have signified by five stones, signify in some other way also.
Whose mouth has spoken vanity. They promise themselves knowledge, and they raise up their mouth against their Creator. 'They have set their mouth against heaven.' Whose mouth has spoken vanity. Their knowledge is the knowledge of vanity. And their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. Both are condemned, both mouth and hand, both knowledge and works. Whose mouth has spoken vanity: this to knowledge. And their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. The right hand, in work. They say that they have a right hand, but they are wholly left-handed. It is the right hand of iniquity, and not of equity. Whence to such a left hand it is said: 'Let the devil stand at his right hand.' He who has such a right hand, and the right hand of iniquity, the devil stands at his right hand.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Falsehood · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Hands, The · Right hand, illustrative: (Full of falsehood,) of deceitfulness — Right hand, illustrative: (Full of falsehood,) of deceitfulness
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).
The deeds of God which Ps 18 celebrates are here made an object of prayer. We see from Psa 18:10 that ותרד, Psa 144:5, has Jahve and not the heavens as its subject; and from Psa 18:15 that the suffix em in Psa 144:6 is meant in both instances to be referred to the enemies. The enemies are called sons of a foreign country, i.e., barbarians, as in Psa 18:45. The fact that Jahve stretches forth His hand out of the heavens and rescues David out of great waters, is taken verbatim from Psa 18:17; and the poet has added the interpretation to the figure here. On Psa 144:8 cf. Psa 12:3; Psa 41:7. The combination of words "right hand of falsehood" is the same as in Psa 109:2. But our poet, although so…
The psalmist prays for God’s intervention against his enemies (cp. 18:7-19).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 144:8
Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
Whose mouth speaketh vanity. No wonder that men who are vanity speak vanity. "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own. "They cannot be depended upon, let them promise as fairly as they may: their solemn declarations are light as the foam of the sea, in no wise to be depended upon. Good men desire to be rid of such characters: of all men deceivers and liars are among the most disgusting to true hearts. And their right hand is a right hand of falsehood. So far their hands and their tongues agree, for they are vanity and falsehood. These men act as falsely as they speak, and prove themselves to be all of a p…
