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Messianic Prophecies

Psalms 138:1-6

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Psalms 138:1-6

I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods, I will sing praises to you. I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all. In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul. All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, Yahweh, for they have heard the words of your mouth. Yes, they will sing of the ways of Yahweh, for Yahweh’s glory is great! For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but he knows the proud from afar.

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I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods, I will sing praises to you.

I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all.

In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul.

All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, Yahweh, for they have heard the words of your mouth.

Yes, they will sing of the ways of Yahweh, for Yahweh’s glory is great!

For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but he knows the proud from afar.

Though I walk in the middle of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me.

Yahweh will fulfill that which concerns me. Your loving kindness, Yahweh, endures forever. Don’t forsake the works of your own hands.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The fulfillment reading connects Psalm 138:4, where earthly rulers are expected to give praise, to the homage paid at Jesus' birth, taking the magi (Matthew 2:2-6) as representatives of earthly rulers acknowledging God's anointed. On this view the supremacy of David's Seed draws foreign authorities to recognize divine sovereignty, matching the psalm's vision of universal royal recognition. Supporters read the magi's response to the star as the kind of acknowledgment the psalm anticipates. The infancy scene thus enacts the psalm's hope of rulers honoring what God has done.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading notes that in Psalm 138 the kings praise YHWH rather than a messianic figure, so the object of praise differs from the birth narrative. It further observes that Matthew's visitors are magoi, astrologers or diviners, not kings, and that the gospel neither calls them kings nor numbers them; the identification of them as kings developed in later Christian tradition. On this view both the identity of the visitors and the recipient of their homage fail to align with the psalm. The connection, it holds, depends on importing a post-biblical reading that the text itself does not supply.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • Matthew 2:2-6 Not cited by the New Testament

    Matthew 2:2-6 quotes Micah 5:2, not Psalm 138; the NT makes no use of this psalm in the passage.