Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn.
Parallel Translations
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Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn.
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Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
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(108-3) Awake, psaltery and harp; I will awake the dawn.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Psalms 108:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
- Psalms 81:2 Raise a song, and bring here the tambourine, the pleasant lyre with the harp.
- Psalms 33:2 Give thanks to Yahweh with the lyre. Sing praises to him with the harp of ten strings.
- Psalms 57:8 Wake up, my glory! Wake up, lute and harp! I will wake up the dawn.
- Psalms 92:1-4 It is a good thing to give thanks to Yahweh, to sing praises to your name, Most High, to proclaim your loving kindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night, with the ten-stringed lute, with the harp, and with the melody of the lyre. For you, Yahweh, have made me glad through your work. I will triumph in the works of your hands.
- Psalms 103:22 Praise Yahweh, all you works of his, in all places of his dominion. Praise Yahweh, my soul!
- Judges 5:12 ‘Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak, and lead away your captives, you son of Abinoam.’
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (4 sources)
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Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Awake, psaltery and harp ... - This is copied…
Awake, psaltery and harp ... - This is copied without change from Psa 57:8.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 2. Awake, psaltery and harp] There is a special…
2. Awake, psaltery and harp] There is a special fitness in the call, if this Psalm was compiled at a time when the harp of Israel had long been mute in the Exile (Psa_137:2).
I myself will awake early] Better, as R.V. marg., I will awake the dawn. A bold and beautiful poetical figure. The dawn is often personified (Job_41:18; Psa_139:9). Usually it is the dawn that awakes men; the Psalmist will awake the dawn by his praises before daybreak.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.…
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. Ps 57 has, "Awake, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp," which is intelligible and forcible.
Morning religion.
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"I myself will awake right early" (Revised Version). The idea seems to be, that the anxiety to be praising God is so strong in the psalmist that it actually wakes. A man wakes early when he has a mind burdened with business or family cares; the psalmist wakes early because his mind is burdened with its sense of indebtedness to God. Perhaps but few of us can say that we shorten our self-indulgent sleep for the sake of praise and prayer. Our Lord lived a crowded, bustled life; but as he must have, for sold-refreshing, daily communion with his Father, he was wont to "rise a great while before day." According to the Eastern use of the figure, waking early to do a thing was the sign of being thoroughly in earnest in the doing. A man has his heart in the thing which he gets up early to accomplish.
I MORNING RELIGION IS REFRESHING TO THE SOUL. Because then thought is free and emotion lively, and there is a bright and cheerful tone on all that is said and done. When wearied with the day and its toils and care, religious meditation easily becomes gloomy, the fatigued body flinging its shadows over all the expressions of the spirit. Give the freshness of morning thoughts to God, and that service will surely come back on you as refreshing.
II MORNING RELIGION IS ACCEPTABLE TO GOD. Because it shows him that we are in earnest in his service, and hold our very best as the fitting gift to offer to him. "The flower that"s offered in the bud is the best sacrifice." That is as true of the day as of the life. And God may be expected to estimate our gifts in the light of what they cost us to present to him. That is our way of appraising the gifts which we receive, and we may be sure that it is God"s way. What, then, is God"s estimate of our daily praise and thanksgiving? Does it really cost us much? It does if, for it, we awake early; preventing the day lest we should lose our holy opportunity, or be beneath our best and freshest in our communions.
III MORNING RELIGION IS INFLUENTIAL ON OTHERS. It is one of the most effective and impressive examples; and it has a special influence on the young, helping them to form good life-habits. Many of us can gratefully remember the influence of the early morning devotions of our parents. Let us gain the power on others which they have gained on us. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 2. Awake, psaltery and harp. As if he…
Ver. 2. Awake, psaltery and harp. As if he could not be content with voice alone, but must use the well tuned strings, and communicate to them something of his own liveliness. Strings are wonderful things when some men play upon them, they seem to become sympathetic and incorporated with the minstrel as if his very soul were imparted to them and thrilled through them. Only when a thoroughly enraptured soul speaks in the instrument can music be acceptable with God: as mere musical sound the Lord can have no pleasure therein, he is only pleased with the thought and feeling which are thus expressed. When a man has musical gift, he should regard it as too lovely a power to be enlisted in the cause of sin. Well did Charles Wesley say:
"If well I know the tuneful art
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To captivate a human heart,
The glory, Lord, be thine.
A servant of thy blessed will,
I here devote my utmost skill
To sound the praise divine."
"Thine own musician, Lord, inspire,
And let my consecrated lyre
Repeat the Psalmist's part.
His Son and Thine reveal in me,
And fill with sacred melody
The fibres of my heart."
I myself will awake early. I will call up the dawn. The best and brightest hours of the day shall find me heartily aroused to bless my God. Some singers had need to awake, for they sing in drawling tones, as if they were half asleep; the tune drags wearily along, there is no feeling or sentiment in the singing, but the listener hears only a dull mechanical sound, as if the choir ground out the notes from a worn out barrel organ. Oh, choristers, wake up, for this is not a work for dreamers, but such as requires your best powers in their liveliest condition. In all worship this should be the personal resolve of each worshipper: "I myself will awake."
Ver. 2. With reference to this passage the Talmud says, "A cithern used to hang above David's bed; and when midnight came the north wind blew among the strings, so that they sounded of themselves; and forthwith he arose and busied himself with the Torah until the pillar of the dawn ascended." Rashi observes, "The dawn awakes the other kings; but I, said David, will awake the dawn." Franz Delitzsch
Ver. 2. When the Hebrew captives were sitting in sorrow "by the waters of Babylon", they wept, and hung their harps on the willows, and could not be prevailed upon by the conquerors to sing "the songs of Zion in that land" (Ps 137:1, 4). But when "the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, then was their mouth filled with laughter and their tongue with singing" (Ps 126:1-2). Then the psaltery and harp of former generations awoke (Ps 108:2). The old songs revived on their lips, and the melodies of David acquired new charms for them. Christopher Wordsworth.
Ver. 2. Awake early.
"Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer should
Dawn with the day, there are set awful hours
Between heaven and us; the manna was not good
After sun rising, for day sullies flowers." Henry Vaughan, 1621-1695.
Ver. 2. The benefit of early rising. The sweetness of the Sabbath morning early prayer meeting.
Psalms 108:3*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.