Salvation for Kings

Peter J. Leithart

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Some Christians are suspicious of typology. Typology, they worry, ignores the stable historical and grammatical dimensions of Scripture. Like credulous believers who find portraits of Mary in tortilla chips, typologists discover Jesus in every letter and word, even in the spaces between words. Every drop of water is baptism, every grain of wheat figures the Eucharist, every woman is the church, every triumphant man Christ, as is every defeated man. With typology in hand, it seems you can make the Bible mean anything you like.

Against these suspicions stands the testimony of Jesus Himself, who started from Moses and taught through all the prophets “everything concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Against these suspicions stands the testimony of the apostles, who see the features of Jesus in every major character of the Old Testament, every major institution, every major event.

Against these suspicions stands the nearly universal testimony of the church. Every one of the great teachers of the church, from Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine through Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure to Luther and Calvin believed the Old Testament provides the fragmentary pieces for a mosaic portrait of a beautiful King. None of them ignored the words on the page or historical context, yet all of them believed the Scriptures were more than a mere historical record.

But it’s one thing to claim the high ground of Scripture and tradition, quite another to demonstrate typological reading in practice. As an experiment, I’ve chosen a text more or less at random, Psalm 144, to show that typology isn’t imposed on texts but emerges from close study of literary, grammatical, and historical dimensions of the texts themselves. The Psalter is divided into five books, and Psalm 144 is located in the fifth book (Psalms 107-150). As James B. Jordan has noted, Book 5 retells the story of Israel, from exodus to exile and beyond.¹ Psalm 107 gives thanks to Yahweh for delivering Israel from Egypt (107:10-16) and sustaining them through the wilderness (107:17-22, 33-38). A number of the following Psalms begin with “Hallelujah,” praising Yahweh for the exodus (Psalms 111-113, 117). Psalm 119 is a celebration of the law that commemorates Sinai, and the Psalms of ascent trace Israel’s progress into the land (Psalms 120-136).

Psalm 136 praises Yahweh’s lovingkindness in giving Israel the land of the Amorites (vv. 21-22), but Psalm 137 lurches ahead to an entirely different setting. Israel is in exile by the rivers of Babylon, taunted by enemies. “How,” the Psalmist asks, “can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?” (137:4). We expect this lament to be followed by Psalms concerned with Israel’s return the land. Instead, there’s a string of Davidic laments (Psalms 138-143). These, Jordan suggests, answer the question of Psalm 137: How can we sing the Lord’s songs in exile? Well, they were written in exile, by the beleaguered anointed One, David. The songs of Zion are designed to be sung in exile.

Psalms 144-145 are the last two Davidic Psalms in the Psalter. They mark a turning point, from lament to praise. David has been under threat; David is rescued. And the Psalter ends with a crashing Hallal, a sequence of five Psalms that begin and end with “Praise Yah” (Psalms 146-150). Beginning with Psalm 144, the Psalter modulates from history to prophecy. Israel may be in a foreign land, but Israel is not silent. Even in exile, she sings David’s Psalms about the “salvation of kings” and the rescue of David (Psalm 144:9), confident that she will one day praise Yahweh in His sanctuary, praise Him with trumpet and harp, praise Him with dancing and cymbals (Psalm 150).

The eschatological climax of the Psalter hinges on Psalms 144-145, and that hinge hinges on the chiastic center of Psalm 144:

As C.J. Labuschagne points out, the five-word clause that begins verse 9 (“I will sing a new song to thee, O God”) is the numerical center of the Psalm, with 62 words on either side.² In Hebrew, verse 9 is itself a chiasm, circling around the word “new” (chadash):

a. ‘elohim
          b. a song (shiyr)
                    c. new
          b’. I will sing (‘ashiyrah)
a’. to You.

Psalm 144 is a new song indeed. David has been pursued by serpentine men with poisonous tongues (140:1-3) who lay nets to trap him (140:5; 141:8-10; 142:3). He cries and complains, his spirit overwhelmed (142:1-3a; 143:4). His enemies are so strong they’ve locked his soul in prison (142:6-7). He’s crushed to the dust and dwells in darkness (143:3); his soul longs for Yahweh like a parched land longs for rain (143:6). He fears Yahweh will turn His face away, leaving him in the pit (143:7).

Psalm 144 breathes a new spirit. David’s enemies are sure to be vanquished. Yahweh the Rock teaches David’s hands and fingers to fight. Trained by Yahweh, David’s fingers will pluck out the new song on a ten-string harp (v. 9). Aliens still stretch out their false hands to capture David (vv. 7, 11), but Yahweh stretches out His hand to draw his servant from the waters (v. 7), a new Noah surviving a flood, a new Moses passing through the death-waters. Yahweh the Shield is David’s refuge and subdues the peoples under the king (v. 2).

The content of the “new song” is found in 144:10: David sings because Yahweh “gives salvation (teshuah) to kings” and rescues “David His servant from the evil sword” (v. 10). Especially in the context of the preceding Psalms, Psalm 144 is a resounding celebration of the salvation of David.

The preceding Psalms were part of the Psalter’s answer to the question of Psalm 137, a question about Israel’s exile, not David’s. David’s salvation doesn’t answer the dilemma unless David’s salvation is also the salvation of his people. And, of course, it is. In the darkness of his prison, David sees man is “a mere breath, his days like a passing shadow,” beneath notice for the Creator of all things (144:3-4). But the Lord does take thought of David and stops the mouths of his accusers.

David the King is like rain on mown grass (Psalm 72), like sunshine after rain (2 Samuel 23:3-7). As the sun king emerges from the darkness, day dawns for his people, spreading a six-fold blessing (144:12-14). His land becomes a garden, with a harvest of well-grown sons; his land is a palace, daughters fashioned as pillars. In the country, flocks and cattle breed, city streets are filled with shouts of joy rather than fear. David’s rescue is the rescue of Israel. Because David is rescued, the land is glorified into a land of plenty and promise. No wonder the rest of the Psalter is one long chorus of uninterrupted praise.

So far, I haven’t mentioned Jesus directly at all. But you have to be blind and deaf not to recognize David’s story as a foreshadowing of his greater Son’s: David sharing exile with his people, surrounded by lying enemies, locked in darkness, fearing Yahweh has forsaken him, falling to the dust, on the edge of the pit; and then, David rescued  to triumph over his deadly enemies, subduing peoples, singing a new song, David saved so that his people will flourish under the seventh, Sabbatical blessing, the blessing of Yahweh (144:15). There is no good news but the good news of Psalm 144: Yahweh “gives salvation to kings,” so that king and people can together “sing a new song.” If Psalm 144 isn’t the story of Jesus, what is it?

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Peter J. Leithart is President of the Theopolis Institute, a Christian think tank and leadership training center in Birmingham, Alabama. An ordained minister in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, he also serves as Teacher at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham. He is author, most recently, of The Ten Commandments (Lexham Press). He and his wife have ten children and twelve grandchildren.

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Image: Jan Rombouts, King David Driven from Jerusalem

1. Jordan, Rite Reasons, #53.[↩]
2. Labuschagne, “Psalm 144 – Logotechnical Analysis,” https://www.labuschagne.nl/ps144.pdf.[↩]