¶Bend down Your heavens, Lord, and come down; Touch the mountains, that they may smoke.
Parallel translations
- WEB Part your heavens, Yahweh, and come down. Touch the mountains, and they will smoke.
- KJV Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
- BSB Part Your heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, that they may smoke.
- NKJV Bow down Your heavens, O Lord, and come down; Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
- NLT Open the heavens, Lord, and come down. Touch the mountains so they billow smoke.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David asks God to part the heavens, come down, and make the mountains smoke. It pleads for a mighty divine intervention.
Overview
Using theophany imagery from Sinai, David calls on God to descend in power to rescue him. He longs for the Lord Himself to act visibly against his foes. This yearning for God to come down is answered surpassingly in the incarnation, when God descended to save His people in Christ (John 1:14).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Ps 18:9He bowed the heavens also, and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet.
- Ps 104:32He looks at the earth, and it trembles. He touches the mountains, and they smoke.
- Exod 19:18All of Mount Sinai smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
- Hab 3:3–6God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth.
- Isa 64:1–2Oh that you would tear the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.
- Heb 12:18For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,
- Nah 1:3–6Yahweh is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Yahweh has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 144:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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