Psalms 108
Big idea: A new psalm made from two old ones — the second half of Psalm 57 joined to the second half of Psalm 60 — and the seam is the point. The cave song's confidence (my heart is steadfast; I will wake up the dawn) is put in front of the defeat song's question (haven't you rejected us?), so the answer arrives before the problem is stated. Reusing your own material is a normal thing for a musician to do; the Psalter kept the result because the new arrangement says something the originals didn't.
Psalm 108 sings its way into a hard question. Psalm 109 asks a much harder one.
108:1–6 — I will wake up the dawn
This is not a new psalm — it is Psalm 57:7–11 stitched to Psalm 60:5–12, and the seam falls at verse 6. That makes it the clearest evidence in the Psalter of how the collection was compiled: an editor took the confident half of a cave psalm and welded it onto the pleading half of a battle psalm, and the join produces something neither original said.
1 A Song. A Psalm by David. My heart is steadfast, God. I will sing and I will make music with my soul. 2 Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn. 3 I will give thanks to you, Yahweh, among the nations. I will sing praises to you among the peoples. 4 For your loving kindness is great above the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. 5 Be exalted, God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth. 6 That your beloved may be delivered, save with your right hand, and answer us.
108:7–13 — The help of man is vain
The second half is Psalm 60:6–12 verbatim, and reading it after a doxology rather than after a defeat changes it. The oracle is the same — Shechem divided, Moab a wash pot, a sandal thrown at Edom — and so is the unanswered question about who will actually get into the city. But the complaint 'haven't you rejected us' now follows a song, not a battlefield.
7 God has spoken from his sanctuary: “In triumph, I will divide Shechem, and measure out the valley of Succoth. 8 Gilead is mine. Manasseh is mine. Ephraim also is my helmet. Judah is my scepter. 9 Moab is my wash pot. I will toss my sandal on Edom. I will shout over Philistia.” 10 Who will bring me into the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? 11 Haven’t you rejected us, God? You don’t go out, God, with our armies. 12 Give us help against the enemy, for the help of man is vain. 13 Through God, we will do valiantly, for it is he who will tread down our enemies.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).