David spoke to Yahweh the words of this song in the day that Yahweh delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul,
and he said: “Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, even mine;
God is my rock in whom I take refuge; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge. My savior, you save me from violence.
I call on Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies.
For the waves of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.
The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death caught me.
In my distress, I called on Yahweh. Yes, I called to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry came into his ears.
Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of heaven quaked and were shaken, because he was angry.
Smoke went up out of his nostrils. Consuming fire came out of his mouth. Coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub, and flew. Yes, he was seen on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness a shelter around himself: gathering of waters, and thick clouds of the skies.
At the brightness before him, coals of fire were kindled.
Yahweh thundered from heaven. The Most High uttered his voice.
He sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and confused them.
Then the channels of the sea appeared. The foundations of the world were laid bare by Yahweh’s rebuke, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
He sent from on high and he took me. He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me.
They came on me in the day of my calamity, but Yahweh was my support.
He also brought me out into a large place. He delivered me, because he delighted in me.
Yahweh rewarded me according to my righteousness. He rewarded me according to the cleanness of my hands.
For I have kept Yahweh’s ways, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all his ordinances were before me. As for his statutes, I didn’t depart from them.
I was also perfect toward him. I kept myself from my iniquity.
Therefore Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness, According to my cleanness in his eyesight.
With the merciful you will show yourself merciful. With the perfect man you will show yourself perfect.
With the pure you will show yourself pure. With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
You will save the afflicted people, But your eyes are on the arrogant, that you may bring them down.
For you are my lamp, Yahweh. Yahweh will light up my darkness.
For by you, I run against a troop. By my God, I leap over a wall.
As for God, his way is perfect. Yahweh’s word is tested. He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.
For who is God, besides Yahweh? Who is a rock, besides our God?
God is my strong fortress. He makes my way perfect.
He makes his feet like hinds’ feet, and sets me on my high places.
He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms bend a bow of bronze.
You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your gentleness has made me great.
You have enlarged my steps under me. My feet have not slipped.
I have pursued my enemies and destroyed them. I didn’t turn again until they were consumed.
I have consumed them, and struck them through, so that they can’t arise. Yes, they have fallen under my feet.
For you have armed me with strength for the battle. You have subdued under me those who rose up against me.
You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, that I might cut off those who hate me.
They looked, but there was no one to save; even to Yahweh, but he didn’t answer them.
Then I beat them as small as the dust of the earth. I crushed them as the mire of the streets, and spread them abroad.
You also have delivered me from the strivings of my people. You have kept me to be the head of the nations. A people whom I have not known will serve me.
The foreigners will submit themselves to me. As soon as they hear of me, they will obey me.
The foreigners will fade away, and will come trembling out of their close places.
Yahweh lives! Blessed be my rock! Exalted be God, the rock of my salvation,
even the God who executes vengeance for me, who brings down peoples under me,
who brings me away from my enemies. Yes, you lift me up above those who rise up against me. You deliver me from the violent man.
Therefore I will give thanks to you, Yahweh, among the nations, and will sing praises to your name.
He gives great deliverance to his king, and shows loving kindness to his anointed, to David and to his offspring, forever more.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 19, 21, 22, 27, 31, 34, 35, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47 In token of the wonderful benefits that he received…
In token of the wonderful benefits that he received of God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On v1 2Sa 22:1 And David spake unto the LORD the…
2Sa 22:1 And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day [that] the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul:
Ver. 1. The words of this song.] Which being the same, for substance, with Psa 18:1-50, see the notes there. {See Trapp on "Psa 18:1"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On v1 This chapter is in a manner wholly the same…
This chapter is in a manner wholly the same with Psa 18, and therefore I shall adjourn the exposition of it to that place.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Observe here, I. That it has often been the…
Observe here, I. That it has often been the lot of God's people to have many enemies, and to be in imminent danger of falling into their hands. David was a man after God's heart, but not after men's heart: many were those that hated him, and sought his ruin; Saul is particularly named, either, 1. As distinguished from his enemies of the heathen nations. Saul hated David, but David did not hate Saul, and therefore would not reckon him among his enemies; or, rather, 2. As the chief of his enemies, who was more malicious and powerful than any of them. Let not those whom God loves marvel if the world hate them.
II. Those that trust God in the way of duty shall find him a present help to them in their greatest dangers. David did so. God delivered him out of the hand of Saul. He takes special notice of this. Remarkable preservations should be mentioned in our praises with a particular emphasis. He delivered him also out of the hand of all his enemies, one after another, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another; and David, from his own experience, has assured us that, though many are the troubles of the righteous, yet the Lord delivers them out of them all, Psa 34:19. We shall never be delivered from all our enemies till we get to heaven; and to that heavenly kingdom God will preserve all that are his, Ti2 4:18.
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III. Those that have received many signal mercies from God ought to give him the glory of them. Every new mercy in our hand should put a new song into our mouth, even praises to our God. Where there is a grateful heart, out of the abundance of that the mouth will speak. David spoke, not only to himself, for his own pleasure, not merely to those about him, for their instruction, but to the Lord, for his honour, the words of this song. Then we sing with grace when we sing to the Lord. In distress he cried with his voice (Psa 142:1), therefore with his voice he gave thanks. Thanksgiving to God is the sweetest vocal music.
IV. We ought to be speedy in our thankful returns to God: In the day that God delivered him he sang this song. While the mercy is fresh, and our devout affections are most excited by it, let the thank-offering be brought, that it may be kindled with the fire of those affections.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–27 And David spake unto the Lord the words of…
And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul. See Gill on Psa 18:1.
.
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2 Samuel 22:2
sa2 22:2
sa2 22:2
sa2 22:2And he said, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer. See Gill on Psa 18:2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v1 This chapter is inserted among the Psalms, No. 18,…
This chapter is inserted among the Psalms, No. 18, with some little variation. It is here as it was composed for his own closet; there, as it was delivered to the chief musician for public service. The inspired writer having largely related David's deliverances in this and the foregoing book, thought fit to record this sacred poem, as a memorial of all that had been before related
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 11 David's psalm of thanksgiving for God's powerful deliverance
CHAPTER XXII
David's psalm of thanksgiving for God's powerful deliverance
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and manifold blessings, including prophetic declarations
relative to the humiliation and exaltation of the Messiah,
1-51.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXII
Verse 1. David spake unto the Lord the words of this song] This is the same in substance, and almost in words, with Ps 18:1-50, and therefore the exposition of it must be reserved till it occurs in its course in that book, with the exception of a very few observations, and Dr. Kennicott's general view of the subject.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v1 This song, which is found with scarcely any material…
This song, which is found with scarcely any material variation as Ps. 18, and with the words of this first verse for its title, belongs to the early part of David’s reign when he was recently established upon the throne of all Israel, and when his final triumph over the house of Saul, and over the pagan nations 2Sa 22:44-46, Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Ammonites, and Edomites, was still fresh 2 Sam. 21. For a commentary on the separate verses the reader is referred to the commentary on Ps. 18.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 11, 13, 14, 16, 22, 26, 29, 44 Spoke, &c. By comparing this with the 17th Psalm,…
Spoke, &c. By comparing this with the 17th Psalm, we may be convinced how much the Hebrew varies, particularly if we examine also the manuscripts. Kennicott specifies no less than 600 variations in this one canticle, and refutes the opinion of those who say that the 17th Psalm is a second edition, corrected by David’s own hand, as the manuscripts frequently shew that inaccuracies of the printed copies. He has collated them with Walton’s Polyglott. The variations are not however all distinct from each other, sometimes twenty manuscripts having the same various readings, and may of the relate to the letter v. See Diss. ii., p. 565. We shall give the explication in the order of the Psalms. The collation of parallel passages is of infinite advantage. Frequently (Haydock) the words differ so as to explain one another. --- Saul. He is specified as the most dangerous. David, by divine inspiration, thanks God for his deliverance from all his enemies, both corporal and spiritual, enjoying peace of mind on account of his sins being forgiven, and all his opponents repressed. (Worthington) --- This year, the thirty-seventh of David’s reign, was free from any commotion. Yet the king seems to have given way to a little vanity, on account of the many valiant men whom God had collected in his service; (chap. xxiii.) and hence he consented to the unfortunate resolution of numbering his subjects. (Salien, the year of the world 3016.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 David’s song of thanksgiving for the victories that the…
THIRD SECTION
David’s song of thanksgiving for the victories that the Lord gave him over his enemies through his deeds of might
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2 Samuel 22
1And David spake unto the Lord [Jehovah] the words of this song in the day that the Lord (Jehovah) had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: 2And he said,
The Lord [Jehovah] is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer,
3The God of my rock [My Rock-God], in him will [om. will] I trust,
He is [om. he is] my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high tower [fortress], and my refuge,
My Saviour, thou savest me from violence.
4I will [om, will] call on the Lord [Jehovah] who is worthy to be praised,
So shall I [And I shall] be saved from mine enemies.
5When [For] the waves of death compassed me,
The floods of ungodly men [streams of wickedness] made me afraid,
6The sorrows [toils] of hell [Sheol] compassed me about,
The snares of death prevented [encountered] me.
7In my distress I called upon the Lord [Jehovah],
And cried to my God [And to my God I cried],
And he did hear [heard] my voice out of his temple [palace],
And my cry did enter [entered] into his ears.
8Then [And] the earth shook and trembled,
The foundations of heaven [the heavens] moved
And shook, because he was wroth.
9There went up a smoke out of [in] his nostrils
And fire out of his mouth devoured,
Coals were kindled by it [Ked-hot coals burned from him].
10He bowed the heavens also [And he bowed the heavens], and came down,
And darkness [cloud-darkness] was under his feet.
11And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly,
And he was seen [And appeared] upon the wings of the wind.
12And he made darkness pavilions round about him,
Dark waters [Gathering of waters], and [om. and] thick clouds of the skies.
13Through [Out of] the brightness before him
Were coals of fire kindled [Burned coals of fire].
14The Lord [Jehovah] thundered from heaven,
And the Most High uttered his voice.
15And he sent out arrows, and scattered them,
Lightning, and discomfited them.
16And the channels [beds] of the sea appeared,
The foundations of the world [earth] were discovered
At the rebuking of the Lord [Jehovah],
At [By] the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
17He sent [reached] from above [on high], he took me,
He drew me out of many [great] waters.
18He delivered me from my strong enemy,
And [om. and] from them that hated me, for they were too strong for me.
19They prevented [came upon] me in the day of my calamity,
But the Lord [And Jehovah] was my stay.
20He brought me forth also [And he brought me forth] into a large place,
He delivered me, because he delighted in me.
21The Lord [Jehovah] rewarded [rendered] me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.
22For I have kept the ways of the Lord [Jehovah],
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
23For all his judgments were [are] before me,
And as for his statutes I did [do] not depart from them.
24I was also [And I was] upright before [perfect towards] him,
And have kept myself from my iniquity.
25Therefore the Lord [And Jehovah] hath recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to my cleanness in his eyesight.
26With the merciful thou wilt show [showest] thyself merciful,
And [om. and] with the upright [perfect] man thou wilt show [showest] thyself upright [perfect].
27With the pure thou wilt show [showest] thyself pure,
And with the froward [perverse] thou wilt show [showest] thyself unsavory [perverse].
28And the afflicted people thou wilt save [savest],
But [And] thine eyes are upon [against] the haughty, that thou mayest bring them down.
29For thou art my lamp, O Lord [Jehovah],
And the Lord [Jehovah] will lighten [lightens] my darkness.
30For by thee I have run [I run] through a troop [troops],
By my God have I leaped over [I leap over] a wall [walls].
31As for God, his way is perfect;
The word of the Lord [Jehovah] is tried [pure],
He is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
32for who is God save the Lord [Jehovah]?
And who is a rock save our God?
33God is my strength and power [strong fortress].
And he maketh my way perfect.
34He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet (like the hinds),
And setteth me upon my high places.
35He teacheth my hands to war,
So that [And] a bow of steel is broken by mine arms [my arms bend a bow of bronze].
36Thou hast also [And thou hast] given me the shield of thy salvation,
And thy gentleness [hearkening] hath made me great.
37Thou hast enlarged my steps under me,
So that [And] my feet did not slip [my ankles did not tremble].
38I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them,
And turned not again until I had consumed them.
39And I have consumed them, and wounded [crushed] them,
That [And] they could [did] not arise,
Yea [And] they art fallen under my feet.
40For [And] thou hast girded me with strength to battle,
Them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me.
41Thou hast also [And thou hast] given me the necks of mine enemies,
That I might destroy [And I destroyed] them that hate [hated] me.
42They looked, but there was none to save [and there was no saviour],
Even [om. even] unto the Lord [Jehovah], but [and] he answered them not.
43Then did [And] I beat them as small as the dust of the earth,
I did stamp [crushed] them as the mire of the street, and [om. and] did spread them abroad [stamped them].
44Thou also [And thou] hast delivered me from the strivings of my people,
Thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen,
A people which I knew not, shall [om. shall] serve me.
45Strangers shall submit themselves unto me [Strangers fawn on me],
As soon as they hear, they shall be [are] obedient unto me.
46Strangers shall fade away,
And they shall be afraid out of their close places [strongholds].
47The Lord [Jehovah] liveth, and blessed be my rock,
And exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.
48It is God [The God] that avengeth me,
And that [om. that] bringeth down the people [peoples] under me,
49And that [om. that] bringeth me forth from mine enemies,
Thou also [And thou] hast lifted me up on high above them that rose up against me [hast exalted me above my adversaries],
Thou hast delivered me from the violent man.
50Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord [Jehovah], among the heathen,
And I will sing praises unto thy name.
51He is the tower of salvation for his king,
And showeth mercy to his Anointed,
Unto [To] David and to his seed for evermore.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
This song of praise and thanksgiving is (a few deviations excepted, which will be examined in the exposition) identical with Psalms 18. The superscription is substantially the same in the two productions. In the Psalm the opening words: “to the precentor, by the servant of Jehovah, by David,” are like the title of Psalms 36; then follows (in the form of a relative sentence: “who spake to Jehovah”) the historical introduction in the same words as in 2Sa_22:1 of our chapter (except only that the second “hand” is given by different words): “And David spake to the Lord the words of this song,” etc. The Davidic origin of the song, which is universally recognized (except by Olshausen and Hupfeld) is thus doubly attested. The redactor of our Books regards this as equally indubitable as in the other sayings and poems attributed to David, 2Sa_3:33-34; 2Sa_5:8; 2Sa_7:18-29; 2Sa_23:1-7. The high antiquity of the song is favored by its use in Psalms 116, 144, and the quotation of 2Sa_22:31 in Pro_30:5, and of 2Sa_22:34 in Hab. iii. 19; and especially the early recognition of its Davidic origin is shown by the fact that the author of the Books of Samuel found the superscription, which ascribes the song to David, already in the historical authority whence he took the narrative (comp. Hitzig on Psalms, I. 95 sqq.). The source, whence Psalms 18 also with its identical historical introduction was taken into the psalter (since it was evidently not taken from 2 Sam.) is doubtless one of the theocratic-prophetic historical works; from which Sam. has drawn. See the Introduction, pp. 31–35. The content also of the song puts its genuineness beyond doubt. The victories that God has given the singer over internal and external enemies, so that he is now a mighty king, the individual characteristics, which agree perfectly with the Davidic Psalms, and especially the singer’s designation of himself by the name David (2Sa_22:51), compel us to regard the latter as the author. “Certainly,” says Hitzig, “this opinion will be derived from 2Sa_22:51. And rightly; for, if the song was not by David, it must have been composed in his name and into his soul; and who could this contemporary and equal poet be?”—On the position of the song in this connection midway among the sections of the concluding appendix, see Introduction, pp. 21–23. The insertion of the episodes from the Philistian wars (2Sa_21:15-22) gives the point of connection for the introduction of this song of victory, which David sang in triumph over his external enemies. And the reference at the close of this song (2Sa_22:51) to the promise of the everlasting kingdom (2Sa_7:12-16; 2Sa_7:26; 2Sa_7:29), which David now sees is assured by his victories, has obviously given the redactor the point of connection for David’s last prophetic song (2Sa_23:1-7), wherein is celebrated the imperishable dominion of his house, founded on the covenant that the Lord has made with him. Noticeable also is the bond of connection between the two songs in the fact that David calls himself by name in 2Sa_22:51; 2Sa_23:1 just as in 2Sa_7:20.—The time of composition (the reference in 2Sa_22:51 to 2 Samuel 7 being unmistakable) cannot be before the date when David, on the ground of the promise given him through Nathan, could be sure that his dominion despite all opposition was immovable, and that the throne of Israel would remain forever with his house. The words of the title: “in the day when the Lord had saved him from the hand of all his enemies” agree with the description of victories in 2Sa_22:29-46, and point to a time when David had established his kingdom by war, and forced heathen princes to do homage (comp. 2Sa_22:44-49). But, as God’s victorious help against external enemies is celebrated in the second part of the song, and the joyous tone of exultation shows that David’s heart is taken up with the gloriousness of that help, it is a fair assumption that the song was written not after the turmoil of Absalom’s conspiracy and the succeeding events (Keil), but immediately after the victorious wars narrated in chaps. 8 and 10. 2Sa_22:44-45 may without violence be referred (Hitzig) to the fact related in 2Sa_8:9 sqq., that Toi, king of Hamath, presented his homage to David through his son Joram. So the reference to 2Sa_8:6, where the Syrians are said to have been conquered and brought gifts, is obvious. The conviction of the theocratic narrator (as expressed in the repeated remark, 2Sa_8:6, 2 Samuel 14 : “the Lord helped David, wherever he went”) that David had the Lord’s special help in these wars with Syria and Edom, accords with the free, joyous praise of the Lord’s help in our song. The song was therefore very probably produced after the victories over the Syrians and Edomites, which were epoch-making for the establishment and extension of David’s authority. David composed it doubtless at the glorious end of this war, looking at the same time at God’s mercies to him in the early period of the Sauline persecution, and the internal wars with Saul’s adherents (2Sa_2:8 to 2Sa_4:12), and making these subject-matter of praise and thanks to the Lord. The poet’s imagination, in its contemplation of the two principal periods of war, moves backwards, presenting first the external wars, which were the nearest, and then the internal, with Saul and his house. The designation of time “in the day” (i.e., at the time, as in Gen_2:4 and elsewhere) “when the Lord had saved him from the hand of Saul,” points to the moment of David’s victory over all his enemies, when he could breathe freely and praise God.1—The form of the superscription is similar to that of the superscriptions of the songs that are inserted in the history in Exo_15:1; Num_21:17; Deu_31:30. In Psalms 18, as here, the song is introduced with the words: “and he said.”
2Sa_22:2-4. The prologue of the song. With an unusually great number of predicates, David out of his joyously thankful heart, praises the Lord for His many deliverances. The numerous designations of God in 2Sa_22:2-3 are the summary statement of what, as the song exhibits in detail, the Lord has been to him in all his trials. In 2Sa_22:4 the thankful testimony to the salvation that God (as above designated in 2Sa_22:2-3) has vouchsafed him, is set forth as the theme of the whole song. The opening words of Psalms 18 (2Sa_22:2 [2Sa_22:1]): “I love thee, O Lord, my strength,” are wanting in our passage. The originality of this introduction, which the Syriac [of 2 Samuel 22] contains, and which “carries its own justification” (Thenius), is not to be doubted; it has here fallen out either “from illegible writing” (Thenius), or through mistake. “I deeply love2 thee;” David’s deep love to his God is the fruit of God’s manifestations of love to him. Luther: “Thus he declareth his deepest love, that he delighteth in our Lord God; for he feeleth that his benefits are unspeakable, and from this exceeding great delight and love it cometh that He giveth him so many names, as in what followeth.” These words of Psa_18:2 have occasioned the noble hymns:3 “With all my heart, O Lord, I love Thee” (M. Schalling), and: “Thee will I love, my strength” (J. Scheffler).—The phrase: “my strength”4 denotes not the inner power of heart received by David from God (Luther), but (as is shown by the following names of God, which all refer to outward help) the manifestations of the might of God amid the trials brought on him by enemies.—My rock and my fortress; the same designation is found in Psa_31:4 [Psa_31:3] and Psa_71:3. “My rock, properly cleft5 of a rock, which gives concealment from enemies,=he who conceals me to save me. So in Psa_42:10 [Psa_42:9] the strong God (אֵל), is called, over against pressing enemies, “my rock.”—My fortress,6 a place difficult of access from its height and strength, offering protection against ambush and attack, a watchtower. The natural basis for these figures is found in the frequent rock-clefts and steep, inaccessible hills of Palestine. Comp. Jdg_6:2; Job_39:27-28; Isa_33:16. The historical basis is furnished by David’s experiences in Saul’s time, when he was often obliged to betake himself to clefts and hills. Comp. 1Sa_22:5; 23:14, 19; 24:1, 23.—The meaning of these concrete figures is indicated in the added expression: My deliverer. Böttcher would change the pointing and read: “My deliverance;”7 but there is no good ground for this, either in the occurrence of this latter word in Psa_55:9 [8] and Psa_144:2, or in the abstract expressions of 2Sa_22:4 [2Sa_22:3]. Rather the indication of the Lord’s personal, active help in the words saviour and savest, favors the reading “deliverer.”
2Sa_22:3. God of my rock, of my house, my rock-God. Psa_18:3 [Psa_18:2] has: “my strong God (אֵל), my rock;” these separated predicates are here united into one expression. The word “rock” (comp. stone in Gen_49:24), denotes the firmness and unshakableness of God’s faithfulness, which is founded on the unchangeableness of His being (comp. Isa_26:4 sqq.) and gives assurance of unendangered, certain security. So in Deu_32:4; Deu_32:37 God is called the rock as the God of faithfulness, whom one securely builds on and trusts (Ps. 92:16 [Psa_92:15]). Comp. 2Sa_22:47, where the name “rock-God” again occurs.—In whom I trust (the construction is relative). The “trust” as firm confidence answers to the rock-like firmness of the divine faithfulness, on which one may rely.—My shield, figure of covering against the attacks of enemies, protection against dangers. So in Gen_15:1 God calls Himself Abraham’s shield, and in Deu_33:29 He is the shield of the help [=the saving shield] of Israel. The figure is frequent in the Psalms; see Psa_3:4 [ Psa_3:3]; Psa_7:11 [10, Eng. A. V.: defence]; Psa_28:7; Psa_59:12 [Psa_59:11], and elsewhere.—And horn of my salvation, denotes God’s might and strength, which gives not only protection, but also help and salvation in the overcoming of enemies. The figure refers not to the horns of the altar (Hitzig, Moll), as if protection were the only thing involved, but to the horns of beasts, in which their strength is shown in the victorious repulse of an attack [or, in making an attack] (see 1Sa_2:1; 1Sa_2:10; Job_16:15; Ps. 75:5, 6, 11 [Psa_75:4-5; Psa_75:10]; Psa_89:18 [Psa_89:17]; Psa_92:11 [Psa_92:10]; Psa_112:9; Psa_148:1). The Lord is not only protection against attacks, but also “a trusty shield and weapon” (“ein’ gute wehr und waffe”) for victoriously combating and repelling them. Comp. Deu_33:29, where the God of Israel is called the shield of their help and the sword of their excellency. The reference of the “horn” to a mountain-peak has small support from Isa_5:1, and, as the comparison with the strength of horned beasts is so frequent, must be rejected.—My stronghold [Eng. A. V.: high tower], steep, lofty place, inaccessible and therefore safe, see Psa_9:10 [9 Eng. A.V.: refuge]. And my refuge, my Saviour, who saves me from violence. These words are wanting in Psalms 18. Their insertion is not to be explained from the desire to give rhythmical completeness to the strophe left imperfect by the omission of the “I love Thee, Jehovah” (Keil), but from the effort (in accordance with the position of the song here in the midst of the history) to explain the preceding declarations about God in respect to the help actually given by Him. As a testimony to the deliverance vouchsafed David by God as his rock, etc., the words make the transition to 2Sa_22:4.—Most modern expositors regard all these appellatives as in apposition with “Jehovah,” putting the latter in the vocative (so also Hitzig and Delitzsch) [“O Jehovah, my rock… my Saviour, Thou savest me from violence”]. But as Hupfeld (on Psa_18:3 [2]) -rightly remarks, this would produce too long and heavy an address. The “Jehovah” is therefore (with the older expositors and the ancient versions) to be taken as subject, and the appellations as declarations: “Jehovah is my rock and my fortress,” etc.
2Sa_22:4. As the praised one I call on the Lord, or: I call on the praised one, the Lord. The participle (מְחֻלָּל) does not mean “glorious” (Hengst., Hupf.), but (conformably to the frequent hallelujah)=“blessed,” Psa_48:2 [Psa_48:1]; Psa_96:4; Psa_113:3; Psa_145:3, comp. 1Ch_16:25; nor does it mean laudandus, “praiseworthy.” [The Participles may have the force of the Lat. Fut. Passive; Eng. A. V.: “worthy to be praised,” Vulg.: laudabilem; Sept.: ἀινετόν. The Chaldee (which paraphrases largely in 2Sa_22:3) takes it as active, and renders: “Said David, With praise I will pray before Jehovah.” Ewald (on Psalms 18) renders it: “worthy to be praised.”—Tr.] It is not vocative, but Accusative, and is put at the beginning of the sentence for the sake of emphasis, as in 2Sa_22:2; 2Sa_7:16; 2Sa_10:7; 2Sa_10:14; 2Sa_10:17. David has actually praised the Lord in the preceding predicates; they form the content of the praise. The rendering: “Praised be Thou, I cry, O Jehovah” (G. Baur, Olshausen) does not accord with the following member: “and from my enemies I am saved.” The verbs are not (with many old expositors) to be taken as future: “I will call, shall be saved,” but as expressing undefined past time, comp. Psa_3:5 [Psa_3:4] [or, better as indefinite as to time, the Eng. general present.—Tr.]. David prefaces his song with this general, all-embracing declaration (based on all his experiences of the Lord’s help), of which the sense is: “as often as (= when) I call on the Lord, I am saved;” and he now proceeds to exhibit its truth by the citation of his experiences. He bases his confident appeal to the Lord for help on His manifestations of might, wherein he recognizes and praises God as his deliverer.
2Sa_22:5-28. First part of the description of the divine manifestation of help, experienced by David in the time of Saul’s persecutions.
2Sa_22:5-7. From the description of the dangers that pressed on him (2Sa_22:5-6), he proceeds to the avowal that he called on the Lord for help, and was heard (2Sa_22:7).
2Sa_22:5. For breakers of death had surrounded8 me. The “for” (lacking in Psa_18:5 [4]) introduces the following as the ground of the declaration of 2Sa_22:4. Instead of “breakers” the Ps, has “cords (bands),” representing death under the image of a hunter, comp. Psa_91:3. The “breakers” here correspond better to the “floods” of the next member. “Floods of wickedness;” the word (בְּלִיַּעַל) means properly “uselessness, worthlessness,” commonly found in an ethical sense: “wickedness,” comp. 2Sa_16:7; 2Sa_20:1; 2Sa_23:6; 1Sa_2:12; 1Sa_10:27; 1Sa_25:17; 1Sa_25:25. It is found also in the physical sense of “destruction, harm,” Nah_1:11; Psa_41:9 [Psa_41:8, Eng. A. V.: evil disease]. So it must be taken here also, on account of the parallels: “breakers of death, nets of hell, snares of death.” “Had terrified9 me” (suddenly come upon me). [Dr. Erdmann in his translation, renders: “floods of wickedness,” but his preceding statement requires: “floods of destruction,” (so Delitzsch).—Tr.]
2Sa_22:6. Nets of hell [better: Sheol.10—Tr.]—snares of death. From the figure of water-waves the poet passes to that of the hunter, under which is represented the suddenly and treacherously attacking power of death. “Snares of death fall on me” (קִדֵּם) comp. 2Sa_22:19; Psa_17:13; Job_30:27.—The words of 2Sa_22:5-6 describe not all the dangers of David’s life up to this time (Keil, Ew., Hupf., Thol.), but the snares and persecutions that befell him in Saul’s time. The description of peril of life agrees only with this time, which the title also expressly mentions. This view is favored also by the relation between the two sections, 2Sa_22:5-46, “in the first of which David is saved by God without effort on his part, while in the second, he is both object and instrument of the divine deliverance” (Hengst.). In the same direction Riehm (in Hupfeld) well remarks that David in the whole of the first part is only passive, not active (only God’s hand saves him), but in the second part on the contrary himself as a warrior, wards off his enemies.
2Sa_22:7. Looking back at those deadly dangers, David affirms that he was driven by them to call on God, and was heard by him. In my distress11 I called upon the Lord, and to my God I called. Instead of “called” the Ps. has “cried,” answering to the distress that forced such a cry from him. And he heard my voice out of his palace, out of God’s heavenly dwelling, as contrasted with the depth of distress on earth, out of which he sent up to God his cry for help. Comp. Psa_16:4 : “The Lord is in his holy palace, the Lord’s throne is in heaven.” Thence appears the Lord’s help. [Eng. A. V., not so well: “temple,” for, though heaven may be regarded as a temple, Jehovah is here represented as a king, enthroned in heaven and the word “temple” would most probably be understood by English readers of the earthly building consecrated to His service. The Hebrew word means both palace and temple.—Tr.] And my cry into his ears. The Ps., has the fuller vivid description: “and my cry came before him, into his ears;” our passage has the advantage of more emphatic brevity (comp. Hengst., Rem.).
2Sa_22:8-20. Splendid poetical description of God’s help appearing in answer to his prayer, under the image of a terrible storm accompanied by an earthquake, the individual features being given with vivid coloring in accordance with the natural order of the phenomena. Comp. Tholuck, on Psalms, p. 91.—As the preceding description of distress refers not to the whole of David’s life, but only to the Sauline period, so this poetical description is not to be understood of a real storm (as in 1Sa_7:10) that terrified the enemy and saved David. Thenius, Ewald and Hitzig, indeed, so understand it, and refer it to a storm in a battle with the Syrians (2Sa_7:5), and similarly others. But, in the first place, the connection is against this; for the deliverance described in 2Sa_22:17-20 is clearly none other than the salvation from the distress pictured in 2Sa_22:5-7. Further, the figure (here poetically elaborated) of a terrible storm, is the standing form of representation of God’s glory and majesty in the revelation of His holiness and punitive justice, as in the fundamental passage, Exodus 19 (the legislation on Sinai). So are often represented God’s theophanies for the revelation of His anger, for the accomplishment of His judgments, for the deliverance of His people from their enemies and for new unfoldings of the glory of His kingdom; comp. besides Exo_19:16-18, especially Jdg_5:4-5; Isa_29:6; Isa_30:27-30; Joe_2:10-11; Joe_3:3 sq. [2Sa_2:30-31]; Nab. 1:3-6; Psa_50:2-3; Psa_77:17-19 [Psa_77:16-18]; Psa_97:2-5.—Certainly, “if the poet had meant by all this to say merely: ‘God even in the greatest need, has accorded me almighty help,’ the apparatus would in fact be too great” (Thenius). But the connection shows that he means to say more; looking at the fears and dangers of the gloomy time of Saul’s persecution, he will comprehensively set forth how the Lord visited His wrathful judgments on the enemy that so oppressed him, God’s servant, and in him endangered the cause of God’s kingdom, and how the Lord by His invincible might, saved him and gave victory to his cause. “The combination of the figure of 2Sa_22:17 sqq., with other and general features, suggests that it also has a general reference.” (Hupfeld). So Riehm (in Hupf., p. 465) remarks that the description has no historical reference, but by its poetical form, holds itself above the plane of concrete history.
2Sa_22:8. The earthquake is the sign of God’s approaching wrath; as the Lord descends from His temple in heaven to judgment on earth, the whole earth quakes before Him. There is probably in this an allusion to thunder as the voice of the approaching wrathful God, under the mighty peals of which heaven and earth shake; see Joel 2:10, 11; 4:16; [Joe_3:16]. Nah_1:5. The effect is vividly represented in the text by paronomasia12 in three verbs (“the earth was shaking and quaking, the foundations of heaven quailing and shaking”).—The foundations of the heaven shake together with the earth. The Psalm, in which only the shaking of the earth is spoken of, has: “the foundations of the mountains.” The mountains rising up towards heaven are, according to the natural view, regarded as the foundation on which heaven rests; comp. Job_26:11, where they are called “the pillars of heaven.” “The text of 2 Sam., represents the whole universe as trembling before Him, in order to picture strongly the terribleness of the wrath of the Almighty; so Joel. 2:10, 11; 4:16 [Joe_3:16]; Isa_13:13.” For he was wroth. The wrath of God is here expressly stated to be the cause of the trembling of heaven and earth.
2Sa_22:9. Elaboration of the preceding “he was wroth,” by the description of the approaching appearance of the wrath of God, under the figure of smoke and fire. Smoke rose in his nostril—not: “in His anger” (Sept., Vulg., Stier), but (in keeping with the parallel “mouth”) His nose, which is considered the seat of anger (so also in Greek and Latin writers); and so its snorting (comp. 2Sa_22:16), as in the case of an angry man, is the figure of God’s anger, which, as a heightening of the image, is compared to smoke, as in Psa_74:1; Psa_80:5 [Psa_80:4, Eng. A. V.; “be angry,” literally: “smoke”]; Deu_29:19. And fire devoured out of his mouth. Fire is a standing image of God’s consuming anger (comp. Deu_32:22). The smoke, as the natural accompaniment of fire, denotes the uprising and approach of God’s anger. For similar figure of smoke and fire see (besides the fundamental passage, Exo_19:18), Isa_65:5. The “out of his mouth” is parallel to “out of his nose.” The image of the mouth answers to the consuming force of the fire of wrath. The verb “devoured” is to be taken without an object (as “the enemy”); it stands absolutely (as in Psa_50:3), only the consuming power of the fire being indicated. Glowing coals burned out of him; the “glowing coals” is parallel to the “devouring fire,” adding to the picture the feature of the flames that proceed from the fire. “Out of him,” that is, out of His mouth, as a burning oven, pour the flames of the sea of fire (comp. Gen_15:17). The mouth is designated as the medium of the revelation of anger; because the fire of human anger pours from the heart through the mouth in angry words. The fire in the Lord’s mouth is symbolized “as one flaming in full glow” (Hupfeld). There is no reference here to flashes of lightning. “These are the later product (comp. 2Sa_22:13) of the flame of fire and anger, that is here just kindled” (Hengst.). But since the representation of a rising storm (breaking out afterwards in 2Sa_22:13 with thunder and lightning) is carried out in the poetical conception, so in the picture thus far the image of smoke and flaming fire is to be referred to the rising of the storm-cloud and the flaming of the sheet-lightning that announces the storm (Tholuck).
2Sa_22:10-12. Now follows the poetical description of the appearance of the Lord from heaven under the figures of the thickening and gathering clouds, on which the Lord sweeps on as on a throne, and of the storm-wind, on whose wings He rushes.
2Sa_22:10. And he bowed the heavens—a picture of the low-hanging storm-clouds, at whose approach the heaven seems to bend down to the earth. Comp. Psa_144:5; Isa_63:19.—And came down, the descent of the Lord from heaven to earth to execute judgment on David’s enemies, and deliver him. On the indication of God’s coming to judgment by His “descent from heaven,” comp. Gen_11:7; Gen_18:21; Isa_64:1.—And cloud-darkness under His feet, i.e., He thus descended. The dark, black cloud13 (= darkness, 2Sa_22:12) is the symbol of the terror that the wrath of God carries with it; see Exo_19:16 [Sinai]; 2Sa_20:21; Deu_5:19; Psa_104:29 (a figure of the hiding of God’s face); Nah_1:3 (“clouds are the dust of his feet”).
2Sa_22:11. And he rode on the cherub and flew.—As to the signification of the cherub, see on 1Sa_4:4. As the cherubim on the cover of the ark (Exo_25:18 sqq.; Exo_37:7 sqq.) are the bearers of the divine majesty and glory (2Sa_6:2; 2Ki_19:15; Psa_80:2 [1]; Psa_99:1; Isa_37:16), so here also the cherub is the symbol of God’s almighty power and glory, as it appears in the creaturely world, and exhibits itself as the revelation of the highest and completest being (Winer, R.-W., s. v., Hengst. on Psa_18:11 [10]). The “rode” is defined by the “flew.” The conception of flying is harmonized with that of riding on the cherub (as a chariot or throne) by the wings with which the cherub is provided.—And appeared on the wings of the wind; this, as the preceding, sets forth the majesty in which God appears in the creation in the elementary substratum of the wind, to hold judgment. Comp. Isa_5:28; Nah_1:3 : “in tempest and storm is his way,” and Psa_104:3, where, instead of the cherub, the clouds are conceived of as the vehicle, and the wings of the wind as the bearers of the appearance of His glory.—Instead of “appeared” Psa_18:11 [10] has “flew” (דָּאָה). The latter (which occurs also Deu_28:49; Jer_48:40; Jer_49:22) carries out the figure of the wings of the wind; here, on the contrary, our “appeared” is, if not an elucidation (Keil, v. Leng.), a real statement instead of a poetical figure. But there is no necessity for regarding it as a scribal error (Stier, Thenius), or as a “vague, flat and inappropriate reading” (Hupfeld).
2Sa_22:12. Development of the second half of 2Sa_22:10, as 2Sa_22:11 is of the first half. And he made darkness around him booths [Eng. A. V.: pavilions]. The clouds mass more closely; their darkness grows blacker. The “darkness” is that of the clouds of 2Sa_22:10 b. He makes the cloud-darkness “booths, tents” for Himself. The Psalm has more fully: “he made darkness his secret place, his pavilion round about him darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.” On the “round about” comp. Psa_97:2 (“clouds and darkness are around him”), and on the “booths [pavilions]” Job_36:29, where the clouds are called God’s tabernacle or tent.—Gathering of waters, cloud-thicket is further explanation of the “darkness” of the first clause. Instead of “gathering14 of waters” the Ps. has “darkness of waters” [which is here unnecessarily adopted by Eng. A. V.—Tr.]; the former is obviously more picturesque.
2Sa_22:13-15. Issuing of lightning-flashes out of this darkness, and bursting of the storm amid thunder and lightning. Out of the brightness before him burned coals of fire. The expression “brightness before him” points back to the fire in 2Sa_22:9, the flames of sheet-lightning as symbol of the divine anger. Out of this fiery brightness before him “burned coals of fire,” i.e., darted the flashes of lightning, which are, as it were, the sharpening of that flaming fire-anger into separate fiery arrows (comp. 2Sa_22:15). The “brightness before him” is not the doxa [glory] of God embracing light and fire (Hupf., Del.), because in the connection only the fire of God’s anger is spoken of, and if the singer had here had in view the light in which God dwells (Psa_104:2), he would necessarily have used the general term “glory” (חוֹד ,כָּבוֹד, δόξα). The natural basis of the poetical description is the blinding brightness of the flaming fire, which in a storm seems to cleave the clouds and send forth flashes of lightning.—To this refers the deviating text of the Psalm: “from the brightness before him his clouds passed away (or went to pieces),” comp. Job_30:15.
2Sa_22:14. The Lord thundered from heaven. Since lightning and thunder appear so close together, the storm is very near, God’s wrathful judgment bursts on the enemy. Instead of “from heaven” the Ps. has “in heaven.” God is here called the Most High as “the all-controlling, unapproachable judge” (Del.). The “giving [uttering] his voice” is poetical designation of thunder; see Job_37:3; Psa_29:3 sqq., comp. Exo_9:23; Psa_46:7 [6]; Psa_68:34 [33]; Psa_77:18. The phrase “hailstones and coals of fire” found in the Ps. in this verse and the preceding, is wanting here.
2Sa_22:15. And he sent out arrows; the Ps. has: “his arrows.” These are the flashes of lightning (comp. 2Sa 77:18) into which the foe-destroying fire of wrath concentrates and sharpens itself. The wrathful, punishing God is represented under the figure of a warrior armed with bow and arrows, as in many other passages, Psa_7:13-14 [12, 13]; 2Sa 38:3 [2); Job_6:4; Deu_32:23; Lam_3:12-13.—And scattered them, that is, the enemies, comp. 2Sa_22:4; 2Sa_22:18. The pronoun “them” does not refer to the arrows and lightning. The first effect is the scattering of the compact masses, into which the enemies had thrown themselves. Lightning, and discomfited (them). The Ps. has: “and lightnings much (innumerable)” [Eng. A. V. (with Kimchi) “shot out lightnings”]. The verb here is to be supplied from the preceding, as in 2Sa_22:12; 2Sa_22:14; 2Sa_22:42. “He discomfited” (so Jerome); the Ps. has: “and discomfited them,” from which the Qeri [margin] omits15 the suffix “them.” The further effect of the Lord’s interference is the complete destruction of the enemy; comp. Exo_14:24; Exo_23:27; Jos_10:10; Jdg_4:15; 1Sa_7:10.
2Sa_22:16. And the beds16 of the sea became visible. The Ps. has the weaker expression: “brooks of water.” Uncovered were the foundations of the earth,17 that is, the bottom of the sea, the waters being blown away; a parallel description to the preceding. In addition to the thunder and lightning from above comes the storm-wind (which accompanies the storm) and the earthquake, which has already been pictured (2Sa_22:8) as an effect of God’s anger. By the rebuking of the Lord, that is, the expression of anger in the voice of the thunder (2Sa_22:14); comp. Psa_104:7, where the waters of the chaos are affrighted at the rebuke of God (parallel to His thunder-voice). At the snorting of the breath of his nose, comp. 2Sa_22:9. The Psalm has the second person, turning in sudden address to Jehovah: “at thy rebuke and thy anger.” The “breakers of death” and the “streams of evil” have, according to 2Sa_22:5 overwhelmed David. Under the image of water-waves he has there depicted the dangers that threatened his life. This alone would prevent our supposing that we have here a mere poetic-hyperbolical delineation of the tumult of the waters as result of the storm, in order to fill out the picture (Hupf.). But the following account (2Sa_22:17) of deliverance “out of great waters” is still more opposed to this view. In his distress David was overwhelmed as by mighty water-floods. The Lord, revealing His anger against his enemies, saves him by laying bare the depths of the sea in which he had sunk, and uncovering the foundations of the earth by the storm-wind of His wrath (so Delitzsch). Thither descending from on high the Lord seized him and drew him forth from the waves, as is described in the following verses. There is therefore as little ground for the view of Hitzig, that the waves denote the host of the enemy, and the bottom the ground on which they stood and from which they were driven, as for that of Thenius, that the assumed battle was near a large inland sea (he conjectures the Bahr el Atebe near Damascus, about as large as the sea of Gennesaret), and that the description is thus to be taken “almost literally.” The interpretation of the “foundations of the earth” as Sheol (Hengst., Keil) is without support in the text.
2Sa_22:17-20. After the description of the descent of God from heaven to save, David now traces the deliverance itself, and praises the Lord for it.
2Sa_22:17. “He sent forth,” the word “hand” (Psa_144:7) is to be supplied, as in 2Sa_6:6; Psa_57:4 [3]= He reached out from on high, that is, from heaven. In spite of the “came down” of 2Sa_22:10, which refers to God’s throne in heaven, the poetical view holds fast to the conception of God’s elevation above men. “He drew me out of many waters.” The verb (מָשָׁה) occurs elsewhere only in Exo_2:10 of Moses, whose name is formed18 from it, and whose deliverance from the waters of the Nile is here probably alluded to. Luther: “he made a Moses of me.” The “many waters” [better in Erdmann’s translation: “great waters”—Tr.] are not enemies, but the deadly perils that had befallen him, comp. 2Sa_22:5; Psa_32:6; Psa_66:12; Psa_69:2-3 [1, 2]; Isa_43:2, where water is a figure of great distress and danger.
2Sa_22:18. Here David first passes from his perils to his enemies. He delivered me from my enemy, the strong19 one. “The song here passes from the epic to a more lyric tone, and direct discourse takes the place of figurative” (Del.). The Sing. “my enemy” does not justify the supposition of an individual enemy, but from the following “my haters” is to be taken as collective, though the name Saul rightly stands as superscription to this whole picture of distress. Because they were stronger20 than I, had overpowered me. God’s saving interposition was necessary, since David in his weakness felt himself overpowered by his enemies—extreme impotence requires divine help.
2Sa_22:19. Elucidation of the last words of 2Sa_22:18. They fell on21 me in the day of my calamity. This is not a definite day, but the time of his helplessness in the Sauline persecution; their purpose was to finish him by a sudden attack, and so self-help was impossible. And the Lord became a stay to me. After deliverance comes support.22 Compare for the thought Psa_23:4.
Verse 20. And he brought me forth into a large place, into a condition of freedom,23 in contrast with narrowness, straits. The “me”24 is emphatic. The words: He delivered me, here in conclusion embrace all that has been heretofore said of the process of deliverance. Observe the progression in the description up to this point: the dispersion and confounding of the enemy by the arrows of the lightning, the driving off of the water-waves and laying bare of their foundations by the storm; then the stretching forth of the hand, seizing, drawing out of the great waters, supporting the helpless man, bringing him out of straits into freeness, and thus completing the deliverance.—For He delighted in me—the ground of the Lord’s deliverance, over against the enemies, on whom had come God’s wrath and judgment. This delight of the Lord in Him (Psa_22:9 [8]; 2Sa 41:12 [11]) is based on his integrity, as is brought out in what follows. There follows, namely.
2Sa_22:21-28, the exhibition of the ground of his deliverance; it is his righteousness, according to which the Lord requited him.
2Sa_22:21. The declaration and avowal that God in saving him requited him according to his righteousness. The verb25 [Eng. A. V.: “reward”] (comp. Psa_7:17 [Psa_7:16]) signifies to do something to a person, whether bad or good, but with reference to his conduct as ground, hence to requite.—Accordding to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.—The hands are the instrument of action, and “cleanness of hands” signifies the purity of his actions from sin and unrighteousness. Comp. 2Sa_22:25; Psa_7:5 [Psa_7:4]; Psa_24:4; Psa_26:6; Job_9:30; Job_22:30. To this answers purity of mind (expressed in the “upright” of 2Sa_22:24), as source of purity of conduct. David often thus affirms his uprightness, for Exo_17:3-5. The truth of this testimony to himself is exhibited in his actual conduct as described in 2Sa_22:22-24, where he gives the ground (כִּי) for the declaration that he is “righteous” and “his hands clean.”—[On the ethical and religious significance of this claim to righteousness, see “Historical and Theological” to this chapter, paragraph 6.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:22. He proved his righteousness by the affirmation: I have kept the ways of the Lord. “Have observed, held to,” so Job_22:15. “The ways of the Lord” are the rules of human conduct given in His law, which David’s enemies had wickedly transgressed.—And have not wickedly departed from my God, as he has kept God’s ways, so he has not sinned himself away from God Himself. The phrase is literally: “to be wicked from God,” that is, to fall away from God by wickedness. Not (as Grotius): “to be wicked against (מִן) God,” nor is it a designation of judgment or decision proceeding from God, as if the sense were: “I have not sinned according to God’s decision, according to His judgment I am guiltless” (Hupf.); comp. Job_4:17; Jer_51:5. Against this is both the “keeping the Lord’s ways” in the first member, to which corresponds “not departing from” the Lord, and the following reference [2Sa_22:23] to his abiding in God’s statutes and judgments.
2Sa_22:23. “For26 all thy judgments are before me,” that is, as a guide in my ways.—And His statutes, I do not depart from them.27 The reading of the Psalm: “His statutes I do not put away from me,” is not elsewhere found, while our text is the usual expression for the conception. For the thought compare the divine testimony to David, 1Ki_14:8 : “who kept my commandments, and walked after me with all his heart,” and 2Sa_15:5; “David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and departed not from all that He commanded him.” Comp. also David’s testimony concerning himself, 1Sa_26:23 sq.
2Sa_22:24. “And I was upright28 towards him,” that is, upright in soul, the “towards him” (לוֹ) expressing the immediate relation to God, in contrast with outward works, which are done for one’s own sake or for men’s. The “with him” of the Psalm expresses still more exactly cordial communion of life with God.—And guarded myself from my iniquity, the negative side of his moral character, of which he has just given the positive side: “I guarded against committing a sin, and so contracting guilt.” A similar hypothetical expression [i. e., if I sinned, I should be guilty] is found in Psa_17:3 (Hupfeld), and so essentially Job_33:9 : “there is no iniquity in me.” David declares that he constantly watches over and restrains himself; otherwise, the assumption is, he would have fallen into sin; this is an indirect testimony to indwelling sinfulness, whereby he might have been led to sinful deed, and against which such self-guarding was necessary. Comp. Psa_51:7 [5], where David expressly declares his consciousness of sinfulness inborn in him, which is not the case here.—The historical proofs of David’s declaration of purity are given in *1 Sam. 24.26. though he at this moment may not have had all the individual facts in mind.
2Sa_22:22-24 exhibit the climax: 2Sa_22:22 proof of uprightness in outward walk, 2Sa_22:23 practice of righteousness in obedience to God’s commands as its norm, 2Sa_22:24, source of righteousness in a pious disposition directed towards God.
2Sa_22:25. Repetition of the affirmation of 2Sa_22:21 (the proof of his “righteousness” and “cleanness of hands” having been given in 2Sa_22:22-24) in the form of a logical conclusion: And so the Lord requited me, etc. Literally: “and requited me the Lord,” where the “and,” connecting this with the preceding, indicates a logical relation [the logical relation is indicated by the progress of the discourse, not by the Conjunction, in Hebrew or in Eng.—Tr.]. Instead of “my cleanness” the Psalm has “the cleanness of my hands,” as in 2Sa_22:21.
2Sa_22:26-27. General proposition, explaining and supporting the word: “the Lord requited me” by the truth, that God deports Himself to man as man to Him. This moral relation between God and man is carried out in four parallel members, “in which the divine conduct is expressed by reflexive verbs, formed from the adjectives expressing human conduct.” (Keil). The Imperfects express what is universal and necessary. The general truth that the manifestation of God’s retributive righteousness is conditioned by man’s position and conduct towards God, is set forth positively in 2Sa_22:26-27 a in relation to the pious, and negatively in 2Sa_22:27 b in relation to the ungodly. Towards the pious [better: merciful—Tr.], upright and clean, God shows Himself pious [merciful], upright and pure. The adjectives express qualities29 of man in relation to God; the “love” here expressed is not towards man, but towards God, (חָסִיד, Eng. A. V. merciful), and to such God shows Himself loving. [Rather the adjectives express general qualities without any statement that they refer only to God. The first of these adjectives means either “favored, beloved” or “merciful,” and the latter sense is more appropriate here.—Tr.].—Towards the perverse thou showest thyself perverse, that is, requiting to the perverse man perverse things as the consequence of his sin, thou seemest to Him to be thyself perverse. The ungodly man, failing to recognize his own sin, thinks of God as unjust and cruel towards him. Comp. Lev_26:23-24; “if ye walk perversely towards me; I will walk perversely towards you.” Moral perversity in man produces perversity and confusion in his knowledge of God. [The thought here, however, is simply that God does evil to the man that does evil.—Tr.].
2Sa_22:28 gives the ground and confirmation of the general truth in 2Sa_22:26-27, by pointing to God’s actual conduct towards the two principal classes in the people, the humble and the proud, who represent concretely the preceding contrast between the upright (merciful, pure) and the perverse. The factual relation of this verse to the preceding is indicated in the Psalm by the initial “for thou,” while here the simple “and” is used, in order to avoid a too frequent recurrence of the causal conjunction, as 2Sa_22:29 begins with “for thou,” and 2Sa_22:30 with “for.” The word “people”30 is here limited (by the contrast with the “haughty” of the following clause) to a large community within the nation, characterized by the epithet “afflicted;” and the following contrast shows that they are also “humble.” “Thine eyes are against the haughty,” who oppress the poor and afflicted; “whom thou bringest down” (the verb is to be taken as relative, Ew. § 332 b, comp. Jos_2:11; Jos_3:12; Jos_5:15). The Psalm has in the second member: “lofty eyes (elevated eye-brows, sign of haughtiness) thou bringest down.” Comp. Pro_6:17; Pro_21:4; Pro_30:13; Psa_101:5.
2Sa_22:29-46. Second part of the description of the help that David received from the Lord, namely, in wars against external enemies.—Looking back at these wars, he tells how through the Lord’s help he had overcome his enemies. But he looks also to the present and to the future, declaring what the Lord, after such aid, still is to him and ever will be. So in this section occur verbs of past, present and future times.
2Sa_22:29. First, he declares what the Lord (in connection with the exhibitions of grace in the Sauline persecution) is for him perpetually. The “for” attaches this verse as the ground or confirmation of the preceding, where David included himself among the “afflicted people,” the oppressed; the Lord has helped him “the afflicted one” out of the affliction brought on him by his enemies. All these experiences of divine help find their reason or ground in the fact that the Lord is his lamp.31 While “light” is always the symbol of good fortune and well-being (Job_18:5), the burning lamp denotes the source of lasting happiness and joyful strength; Job_18:6; Job_21:17; Job_29:3; Psa_132:17; comp. Isa_42:3; Isa_43:17. The Psalm has the unusual expression: “thou makest light my lamp.”—What the lamp is for a man in his house, the source of joy and good fortune, this the Lord is for David: his lamp, the source of his well-being. This is the ground of David’s being called (2Sa_21:17) the lamp of Israel. This is the ground of the declaration: “the Lord is my light.” (Psa_27:1). The consequence of this is: The Lord enlightens my darkness. Darkness is the symbol of affliction—in contrast with light, without God, his lamp, he would have remained in wretchedness and ruin. His experiences are based on the general truth: it is the Lord who, as His lamp, makes even the darkness light about Him. Comp. Job_29:3. In the Psalm: “The Lord, my God, makes my darkness light.” This general declaration, proved by the past, is confirmed also for the future by setting forth the foe-conquering might which he, through the Lord’s help, has shown and will forever be able to show.
2Sa_22:30. For with thee I run against troops, with my God I leap over walls—literally: “in thee;” “David declares that he is ‘in God,’ and therefore has such power.” (Hengst). By “troops” David means the hostile bands that he has attacked on the battle-field, and by “walls” the fortified places that he has conquered. Such power of victory he has now also in his God. Since the verb “run” here properly takes an Accus., it is unnecessary to take the word in the sense “crush” (Ew., Olsh.).32 “Running” is represented as an essential quality of the warrior in 2Sa_22:34; 2 Samuel 1, 19, 23; 2Sa_2:18, and means (with the prep, “against” or “to”) hostile attack Job_15:26; Job_6:14; Dan_8:6. [Eng. A. V., not so well: “run through”.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:31. The word “God” is in apposition with the: “with my God” in 2Sa_22:30 (as in 2Sa_22:33; 2Sa_22:48), not nominative Absolute [so Eng. A. V.], since then the Art. [Heb.: the God] would be unexplained: The God whose way is blameless, that is, whose government is perfect. This human quality of perfectness is transferred to God, and denotes His trustworthiness. The word of the Lord is purified, that is, without guile, pure, true, comp. Psa_12:7 [6]. God’s promises do not deceive. He is a shield to all that trust in Him. He offers sure protection against all dangers. The second and third members of this verse occur word for word also in Pro_30:5. All these affirmations respecting God give the ground for the declaration in 2Sa_22:30, that he can do so great things in and with his God.
2Sa_22:32. The soleness of the Lord as such a God, is next stated as the ground (“for”) of the fact that His way is perfect, His word pure and His protection sure. The expression “rock” (comp. 2Sa_22:3) especially emphasizes the quality of trustworthiness, firmness as the foundation for immovable trust, and the ground of his help and protection. Parallel Isa_7:22; “for there is no one as thou, and there is no God beside thee.” Comp. Deu_32:31; 1Sa_2:2
2Sa_22:33 carries on the thought connected with the figure of the “rock.” The “God” here is in opposition with the “God” at the end of the preceding verse. The God who is my strong fortress. [Eng. A. V., not so well: “my strength and power.”]. On the “fortress” comp. Psa_31:5 [Psa_31:4]; Psa_27:1 [Eng. A. V.: “strength.”]. The noun “strength” defines “my fortress,” literally: “my fortress of strength,” as in Psa_71:733—The Psalm has: “who girds me with strength,”=2Sa_22:40 a (with omission of “to battle.”).—And leads34 the perfect man on his way. The pronoun on “his way” refers not to God, but to the “perfect man,” as is required by the “his feet” [Eng. A. V.: “my feet”] of the next verse. The Psalm has: “who makes my way perfect.” [This is the marginal reading (Qeri) here also: “my way,” and seems to agree better with the context, in which the Psalmist is speaking of his own experiences.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:34. He makes his feet like the hinds, that is, like hinds’ feet; Hab_3:18. (On this abridged form of expression see Ges. § 144, Rem.) Hengstenberg.: “In Egyptian paintings also the hind is the symbol of fleetness.” Comp. 2Sa_2:18; 1Ch_12:8. The Psalm: “my feet” [so Eng. A. V. here, after the margin]; the third personal pronoun is used here because the reference is to the “perfect (or innocent)” man [in 2Sa_22:33 according to the author’s translation]. The swiftness refers not to fleeing (De Wette), but to the pursuit of enemies. And on my high-places He sets me. The “high-places” are not those of the enemy, which he ascends as victor, and through faith declares beforehand to be his own (Hengst.), but “those of his own land, which he victoriously holds against his enemies” (Keil). Comp. Deu_32:13
2Sa_22:35. He instructs my hands for war35 and my arms bend the bronze bow. Or, perhaps (with Hupf.): “He instructs my hands for war, and my arms to bend36 the bronze bow.” “The Egyptian weapons were almost all of bronze” (Hengst.). To bend the bronze37 bow is the sign of great strength; the thought expressed is: God has given him not only skill, but also strength for victorious war.
2Sa_22:36. From the figure of the bow David passes to that of the shield. As in attack, so in defence the Lord is his strength. And thou gavest me the shield of thy salvation, the shield that consists in God’s salvation, whereby He protects His people. Comp. Eph_6:17 : “helmet of salvation.” The following words in the Psalm: “and thy right hand supported me” are wanting here; they seem to have been omitted, not through error, but for brevity’s sake, as in general our song, compared with the Psalm, shows a preference for curt, pregnant expression. And thy hearing made me great. Hearing = favorable acceptance of a request. This “hearing”38(not “thy lowliness,” Hengst., or “thy toil,” Böttch.) answers to the “salvation” of the preceding clause; he received salvation through God’s granting his petition. The Psalm has: “thy humility, condescension” (comp. Psa_113:6; Isa_57:15; Isa_66:1 sq.) [Eng. A. V., following the pointing of the Psalm, renders: “thy gentleness” (“meekness” would be a more accurate translation). Our text reads literally: “thy answering,” or “thy toiling, suffering,” neither of which gives a satisfactory sense in the connection. The reading of the Psalm is better.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:37. Thou enlargedst my steps under39 me, gave me free room, so that I could advance without hindrance. Pro_4:12 presents the contrasted condition of straitness and stumbling: “when thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble,” comp. 2Sa_22:34. Hupfeld remarks rightly that we have not here merely the usual contrast of narrowness and wideness=distress and deliverance (Psa_4:2 [1], comp. Psa_31:9 [8]); the wide path (step) is prepared by the Lord for the successful termination of the battle, especially for the unhindered pursuit of the enemy (2Sa_22:38). And my ankles wavered not (elsewhere: “my feet, or steps, Psa_26:1; Psa_37:31), that is, thou gavest me the power so to go with free step. Wavering, as opposed to standing firm, comes from weakness in the knees or ankles.
2Sa_22:38-43. After this preparation and equipment for battle by the Lord’s strength, David destroyed the power of his enemies.
2Sa_22:38-39. The act of pursuit and destruction is declared to be his own act. The verbs are to be taken in the Imperfect signification, since it is clear from 2Sa_22:40 sqq.40 that the reference is to the past. I pursued my enemies and destroyed them; the Psalm has the weaker expression: “overtook them” (Psa_7:6 [5]. comp. Exo_15:9). In the Psalm there is an advance in the thought, here a simple synonymous parallelism (Hengst.). 2Sa_22:39 expresses the idea of total destruction by an aggregation of words: “and I destroyed them (wanting in the Psalm) and crushed them.” That they rose not; Psalm: “and they could not rise,” that is, in the hostile sense, rise to further contest. And they fell under my feet, = under me, 2Sa_22:40; 2Sa_22:48; Psa_44:6; Psa_47:4 [3]. 2Sa_22:38; 2Sa_22:40 present a picture not of subjection and dominion (Hupf.), but of conquering enemies in battle by casting them down and passing over them.
2Sa_22:40-41. David declares, however, that he received the victorious might only from the Lord, and gives Him praise therefor. And thou didst gird me… and didst bow my opponents under me;41 literally, “didst make them bend the knee.”—And my enemies, thou madest them turn the back to me; literally, “thou gavest42 them to me as neck [nape].”
2Sa_22:42-43. The enemy look in vain to the Lord for help. They looked out to the Lord (comp. Isa_17:7-8); the Psalm has: “they cried.” The enemies are not to be regarded as Israelites, because they looked to the help of the Lord (Riehm in Hupf.); the heathen also in extreme need might well expect deliverance from the God of Israel, comp. 1Sa_5:7; 1Sa_6:5; Joh_2:14—And I rubbed them to pieces (pulverized them) as dust of the earth, comp. Gen_13:16; Isa_40:12, their power was changed into impotence. The Psalm has: “as dust before the wind,” combining the two images of the beating the enemy to dust, and scattering them as dust is scattered by the wind, comp. Isa_29:5; Isa_41:2—As the dust of the streets I did trample43 and stamp them to pieces (the Psalm: “I emptied them out.”) The stamping of the dirt of the street is the symbol of a contemptuous treatment and rejection of what is in itself worthless. Comp. Isa_10:6; Zec_10:5. The description of the contest against the enemies under the guidance and help of the Lord is completed by the representation of their total destruction.
2Sa_22:44-46. The result of this conflict with enemies, namely, sovereign dominion over them, and their humble subjection under his royal power.
2Sa_22:44. Thou didst deliver me out of the wars of my people (or, of peoples). Since only external wars44 are spoken of in the preceding and succeeding context, it is not at all allowable to understand internal dissensions here (Hitz., Hengst., Del., Keil). That would break the connection, and destroy the continuity of advance in the description of David’s relation to external enemies up to the point of complete dominion over them by the Lord’s help.—The “wars of my people” are the wars that his people had to carry on against other nations under his lead; as he has previously spoken of them as his wars, so now he regards them as his people’s. He was doubtless led to this by thinking of his position as king and head of his people, from which position he saw as the result of his wars the subjection of the heathen nations to his royal authority.—If we take the form (עַמִּי) as plural,45 = “peoples,” then the “wars of peoples” are wars carried on by Israel with foreign nations, “wars between peoples,” in contrast with the internal conflicts, the fortunate conclusion of which has been before described (Riehm in Hupfeld).—David embraces all the Lord’s helps in these wars in this brief exclamation, in order to declare how, as a consequence, the Lord has made him head over these nations. Thou didst preserve me (in the Psalm more simply: didst make me) to be head of the heathen, preserved me that I should become their head. This reading connects the previous declaration of deliverance with the following statement of the servitude of the nations better than that of the Psalm, because it directs attention to David’s dangers in those wars.—A people (= peoples) that I knew not serves (serve) me.—The collective sense “peoples” (עַם) is to be taken here, as above, on account of the parallelism with the plural “nations” [Eng. A. V.: heathen]; not: “people, folks” (Hupfeld). “The Verb (Impf.) is to be rendered as Present, since the idea of the ‘head of the nations’ is developed” (Hupf.). Comp. chap. 8
2Sa_22:45. Sons of strangeness, that is, those strange (foreign) nations; the “foreign” answers to the “I knew not” of the preceding verse—fawn on me (lit.: lie46 to me), they pay fawning, hypocritical homage, while their heart is full of hate and rage [Eng. A. V.: submit to me].—At the hearing of the ear they obeyed me.—The usual explanation is: “at the mere report of me and my victories, before my arrival, they submitted themselves,” based on Job_42:5, where the “hearing of the ear” stands in contrast with the “seeing of the eyes;” against which is, that David in the immediately preceding statement of the “fawning” of the enemy, and in the above description of their subjection pre-supposes his personal presence, and the reflexive (Niphal47) verb “obeyed” exhibits personal obedience to a personal command. We therefore render (with Böttcher and Hupf.): “at the hearing of the ear (= when they heard the command) they showed themselves obedient to me,” comp. Isa_11:3. Hengstenberg’s passive rendering: “who were heard to me by the hearing of the ear,” that is, of whom I knew previously only by hearsay, is forced and ambiguous. The two members of 2Sa_22:45 stand in the Psalm in the reverse order.
2Sa_22:46. Withered away, all physical strength and moral courage left them, they became dull and wretched (comp. Exo_18:18). In the next clause the Psalm has “trembled” [ =came trembling], while our passage (unless it be an error of copyist for the Psalm-word48) has: “they hobble (their strength being broken) out of their enclosures (or, fortresses);” it is not to be rendered: “they gird themselves (in order to come forth)” (Hengst. [Phil.]), since this does not accord with the representation here given of voluntary subjection. The reference of the words to “prisons and bonds,” into which the strangers are thrown as “refractory” (Böttcher) is against the connection, which speaks only of unconditional obedience and complete subjection of enemies. Rather there is supposed here the wretched condition produced by a long siege; the enemy come out of the fastnesses, in which they have long been cooped up, in miserable condition, in order to submit themselves to the victor.—[Eng. A. V. adopts the Psalm-text: “shall be afraid,” and so Erdmann in his translation: “tremble,” and this is perhaps preferable, comp. Mic_7:17—In 2Sa_22:45-46, Erdmann renders the verbs Present in his translation (fawn, obey, wither, tremble), while in the Exposition he makes them Aorist (fawned, etc.); the former is better—Tr.]
2Sa_22:47-51. Conclusion of the song. On the ground of the deliverances he has experienced (here briefly recapitulated from the content in a number of epithets) David first again praises God (2Sa_22:47-49), as in the beginning of the song. To this phrase, which looks to the past, he adds the vow of thanksgiving (2Sa_22:50-51), looking beyond Israel to the salvation to come to the heathen, and prophesying the fulfilment for all time of the promises given to him, God’s Anointed, and to his seed.
2Sa_22:47. “Living is the Lord” So must the phrase (הַי י׳) be rendered, and not optatively: “long live Jehovah,” transferring (as most modern expositors do) the usual formula of homage: “long live the king” (2Sa_16:16; 1Sa_10:24; 1Ki_1:25; 1Ki_1:39; 2Ki_11:12) to God as king of Israel. That formula (יְחִי הַמֶּלֶךְ) relates to the mortality of the king. Our phrase is the standing oath-formula [as the Lord liveth, by the life of Jehovah], and always assumes life [vitality] to be exclusively an attribute of God. Here only the formula is not an oath, but a declaration: living is the Lord!—an exclamation in the tone of a doxology. Comp. 1Ti_6:16 : “God, who alone has immortality.” God is here called living not in contrast with the idols of the heathen (v. Leng., Hengstenberg), to which there is no allusion in the context, but in reference to the enemies and dangers from which God saved him. And so the two following exclamations are simply declarations of the being of God as it has been revealed in the preceding experiences of the singer. Blessed (praised), my rock! (see 2Sa_22:2).—Exalted is the rock-God of my salvation—The Psalm has merely: “The God of my salvation.” The “exalted” is to be taken not subjectively (exalted by the praise offered Him), but objectively, exalted in His own majesty and might (Psa_56:11 [Psa_56:10]; Psa_21:14 [Psa_21:13]; Psa 57:6, 12 [Psa_57:5; Psa_57:11]). Not: “be he exalted”49 [so Eng. A. V.] The rock-God of my salvation=the rock-like God, who brings me salvation; comp. 2Sa_22:3. To the three declarations of what God is, answer, in 2Sa_22:48-49 the statements of God’s deeds, wherein David has learned what He is to him, and wherein He has shown Himself to be the living, rock-firm and exalted God. Here God’s deeds of deliverance (as described in 2Sa_22:5-20; 2Sa_22:29-46) are briefly brought together
2Sa_22:48. The God that avenges me.—This shows that God lives, inasmuch as He does not leave His servant as a guilty man in the power of the enemy, but manifests his innocence by executing vengeance50 for him. In Psa_94:1 God is “the God of vengeance.” And subjects (lit.: makes come down) nations under me.—The Psalm has: “drives51 [or subdues] nations under me” (the expression is found elsewhere only in Psa_47:4 [3])
2Sa_22:49. Who brought me forth from my enemies (comp. 2Sa_22:20)—Psalm: “delivered me.” [In 2Sa_22:48 Dr. Erdmann renders the verbs in past time (gave, subdued) in his translation; the time can be determined only from the context; here the present seems better—Tr.] And from my adversaries thou liftedst me on high—that is, on a rock, pregnant construction for: thou liftedst me up and thereby savedst me from my enemies. The declaratory discourse here passes into address. From the man of violent deeds thou savedst me.—Instead of the unusual plural (Psa_140:2; Psa_140:5 [ Psa_140:1; Psa_140:4]) the Ps. has the Sing. “man [or, men] of violence.” Most expositors take the phrase collectively: “men of violences,” (as Pro_3:31) of a whole class of enemies. But it accords better with this conclusion and with the whole content of the song to refer the phrase to Saul, who is also expressly mentioned in the superscription. In 2Sa_22:47 David declares in general what God is to him, and how He has announced and attested Himself to him in all His deeds of deliverance; then in 2Sa_22:48 he looks at God’s help against external enemies (“thou broughtest down nations under me”), comp. 2Sa_22:29-46; in 2Sa_22:49 he recalls the deliverances of the Sauline persecution. With the thought of Saul, whose rejection by the Lord was the cause of his enmity to the Lord’s Anointed called in in his stead, connects itself naturally in David’s mind (on the ground of the Lord’s choice) the thought of the salvation that God has bestowed on him as His Anointed, and—of this he is sure—will also further bestow on him and his seed. This salvation He will also proclaim among the heathen, that they along with Israel may share therein.
2Sa_22:50-51. The “therefore” attaches the declaration in these verses as a consequence to the preceding summary laudation of God’s deeds of salvation. David here expresses a resolution and a vow ever to praise the Lord’s name. This vow of thanksgiving he so presents that Hebrews 1) expressly declares his praise (by the therefore) to be a thank-offering due to the Lord, also his rightful fruit from the preceding experiences of his salvation. To thy name will I sing.—The name of God is here the concept [or representative] of all His deeds of deliverance, whereby He has revealed Himself as his God and his people’s, as which David has hitherto praised him. 2) David declares the extent to which he will proclaim the praise of his God: I will praise thee, O Lord, among the nations,—The nations are not only to be subdued by force, but are now to learn to know the living God of Israel and His salvation; His praise is therefore not to be confined to the land of Israel, but to be proclaimed among the heathen. This presumes that He is the God of the heathen also, and that they are called to share in the salvation revealed to Israel. Comp. Psa_9:12 [Psa_9:11]; Psa_57:10 [Psa_57:9]; Psa_96:3; Psa_96:10; Psa_105:1; Isa_12:4. In proof of this truth Paul (Rom_15:9) quotes this passage along with Psa_117:1, and Deu_32:43-52) As the ground of his vow David declares the Lord’s promise of good to Him, and his seed (2Sa_22:51). “Who makes great the salvation of his king,” literally: “salvations;” the plural indicating the manifoldness and richness of the salvation. The marginal reading: “fullness of salvation” is a singular conjecture,52 and must be rejected; it is obviously instead of the similar form,= “tower,” Psa_61:4 [3]; Pro_18:10 [Eng. A. V. also adopts this reading “tower,” against which, however, are all the ancient versions and the best Heb. manuscripts—Tr.] The text,= “he who makes great,” is to be retained. It refers to the fullness of salvation (certainly to be expected on the ground of the divine promises) that the Lord will bestow in ever increasing richness on His king, the theocratic ruler that He has called and inducted, who regards himself only as God’s instrument. God’s “grace [mercy]” is the source of his “manifestations of salvation.” A threefold prophetic declaration of the future factual proof of this grace to His Anointed, is here expressed: a. David affirms that he is sure of it for himself; the “to David” stands independently, not, as Hengst. says, along with “and to his seed” as definition of the “to his anointed;” b. the promised salvation will, however, be extended to his seed also. The direct reference of these words to the promise in 2Sa_7:12-16 is apparent; on the ground of this promise David declares the certainty of continuance through his heirs, of the dominion of his house; c. the testimony of praise culminates in the prophecy of the everlasting duration of God’s manifestations of grace and blessing, which will be imparted to David, and his seed according to the promise. Comp. 2Sa_7:15-16.
Hupfeld rejects these closing words: “to David and to his seed forevermore” as a later addition to the song (in so far as it is to be ascribed to David) on the following grounds: 1) David would not have spoken of himself by the phrase: “to David,” and 2) not David, but only a later adherent of the Davidic dynasty could have said: “and to his seed forevermore.” But these grounds are not valid; for in fact David does call himself by name in 2Sa_23:1, and in the prayer 2Sa_7:20; 2Sa_7:26; and how can the reference to his seed and its continuance be regarded as not Davidic, when David was assured of the perpetuity of the royal dominion of his family by the promise 2Sa_7:12 sqq.?—Thenius’ supposition, that the words may have been an afterwards added bit of flattery to David’s posterity, can be explained only by a complete ignoring of David’s hope based on that promise 2 Samuel 7, and receives at best meagre support from the very subjective argument that the two preceding clauses sufficed to express the author’s thought—Böttcher regards the whole of 2Sa_22:51 as a later addition in imitation of other Davidic conclusions to songs “as homage to the royal house.” But his affirmation that this does not accord with genuine Davidic productions is set aside by the fact that ideas, and even words here agree with David’s words in 2 Samuel 7. He further contends that by the retention of 2Sa_22:51 the probably significant number [50] is exceeded; but (apart from his “probably,”)—the untenableness of this conjecture is strikingly shown by his manipulation of 2Sa_22:3 into two verses in order (after the omission of 2Sa_22:51) to get 50 verses besides the superscription, while the retention of 2Sa_22:51 gives this number already.
On the mutual relation of the two recensions of this song in Psalms 18 and 2 Samuel 22, critics are very much divided. Hengstenberg’s view (which is that of the older expositors)—that the two texts are two different recensions of the same song by David himself, both equally authentic and good, the Psalm being the original, and the 2 Sam. the later—is altogether untenable in the face of the not few variations that are obviously unintended, accidental, and are to be referred to the carelessness of the written tradition or the uncertainty of the oral. Thus the carelessness of a transcriber is shown in the interchange of certain letters in 2Sa_22:11; 2Sa_22:43 (ד and ר), 2Sa_22:33 (נ and ר), 2Sa_22:12 (ר and כ), and the omission of words in 2Sa_22:13; 2Sa_22:36, where the text of the Psalm is complete.—The question as to the originality of the two texts is to be decided by examination of the intentional changes. And to such intentional changes is to be referred a long list of deviations in the Psalm-text as Sommer (Bibl. Abh. I. pp. 167–173, Bonn, 1846) has convincingly shown in detail. “We find,” he remarks,” occasional free change of text in order to remove possible difficulties, to make clear, by the expression, the antiquated writing, the grammatical forms, and, where it can be easily done, to put what is usual and known in place of what is peculiar in conception or language. For the same reason that the transcriber of the Psalm abandoned the ancient sparseness of vowel-letters (Ges. Lehrg. p. 51) and, where it seemed necessary, carefully inserted a Waw or Yod, he has resolved and regularly inflected the contracted verbal forms, and here and there separated a preposition from a noun, in order to facilitate the apprehension of the words (which were written without vowel-signs) and avoid possible misunderstandings.” (For particulars see Sommer, as above.) It does not however hence appear, that the preference is to be accorded to the Psalm-text that is given it by the latest critics, Gramberg (in Winer, Exeg. St. I. 1), De Wette, Hupfeld, Hitzig, Ewald, Olshausen,53 Delitzsch. But neither can the text of 2 Samuel 22 be regarded as the original, since it contains variations that are explained by careless transcription and tradition (Hupf.), and probably also by the fact that this psalm, incorporated in a historical book, shared the fate of all historical texts, care for poetic form and rhythm early yielding to regard for the mere sense (Hitzig). It is, however, characteristic of the text of 2 Samuel 22, that it contains not a few “licenses of popular language” (Del.), and that the defective mode of writing, which points to higher antiquity, is the prevailing one. On the other hand in the psalm-text (which Böttcher calls the “priest-recension” over against the 2 Samuel 22 as the “laic recension”) a later revision is unmistakable. “The vulgarisms, and in part the archaisms also, are there effaced; the whole style is more cultivated” (Böttch.). Therefore Von Lengerke’s view, that the two texts are of about equal value (comment, crit. de duplici Psalms 18 exemplo, Regiom. 1833, 4) cannot be looked on as proven, but the preference is to be given to the recension in 2 Samuel 22 on account of its stamp of higher antiquity, which Von Lengerke must admit is given it by its more sparing use of vowel signs. The two recensions are independent of one another, neither of them being the authentic; but 2 Samuel 22 is the older, whether it was taken from an older manuscript (Ewald), or, as Delitzsch supposes, belonged to the “Annals of David” (Dibre ha-yamim), one of the sources of the Books of Samuel. Böttcher: “Thus then, the text of Psalms 18 is, as a whole, completer and purer, but 2 Samuel 22 though somewhat more defective, yet in details truer to the original and archaic form”
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. This longest and most artistic54 of David’s psalms that have come down to us is also one of the most important in respect to the history of God’s kingdom and salvation. For it embraces all God’s deliverances in David’s life before and after his accession to the throne, and extols them as proofs of the favor and faithfulness of his God, who chose him as his servant to this high royal dignity, and gave him the most glorious promises of the permanent duration of his kingdom in his seed. The pillars on which this great royal psalm rests are the two self-revelations of God to David, that determine His theocratic royal position: His call to be king in Saul’s stead, and the promise of the everlasting duration of his kingdom; the first supports that part of the Psalm that refers to the Sauline persecution, the second the part that describes God’s help against foreign enemies. Looking on these deliverances as fulfilments of the promise, he expressly refers to it at the close, and at the same time looks to the future with sure hope of the fulfilment of the promise in the imperishable dominion of his house. So Delitzsch [introductory remarks on Psalms 18; he compares the Ps. to the Assyrian monumental inscriptions—Tr.
2. Because God’s deeds are incommensurable to for human feeling and apprehension, Davi’s thankful heart can find in language no adequate expression for them. Hence the exuberant aggregation of terms in 2Sa_22:2-4, which set forth the inverse relation of human capacity for praise to God’s manifestations of grace. “The poet begins a lay, in which he wishes to praise God for His help, the strength given him to do great deeds, his elevation to be king over nations, for all the blessings of his long and eventful life. Here at the outset the recollection of these exceeding mercies comes over his soul with overwhelming force; he can find no satisfactory term wherewith to call on he God of his salvation, and therefore piles term on term” (Sommer, as above, p. 152).
3. The praise of God’s name is not only fruit, but also root of prayer (2Sa_22:4); for the experiences of God’s grace and faithfulness, which impel to praise, also strengthen faith, are the foundations of hope for further mercies, assure the fulfilment of promises in the future, and warrant fervent prayer for new help under appeal to past blessings.
4. The cordial intercourse of prayer between the Old Testament saints and their covenant-God (comp. 2Sa_22:4-7) is the factual proof of the positive self-revelation of the personal, living God, without whose initiative such overspringing of the chasm between the holy God and sinful man were impossible, but also the most striking refutation of the false view that the religion of the Old Covenant presents an absolute chasm between God and man. The real life-communion between the heart that goes immediately to its God in prayer and the God who hears such prayer is, on the one hand, in contrast with the extra-testamental religion of the pre-Christian world alone founded on God’s positive-historical self-revelation to His people and the thereby established covenant-relation between them, and, on the other hand, as sporadic anticipation of the life-communion with God established by the New Testament Mediator, it is a factual prophecy of the religious-ethical life-communion (culminating in prayer) between man redeemed by Christ and His Heavenly Father.
5. Nature, as God’s creature and man’s fellow-creature, is the symbolical means for the figurative presentation of the personal self-revelation of God to man. The images derived from the light, which is God’s garment (Psa_104:2), the cloud, which is called His tent (Job_36:29; Psa_97:2), the thunder, in which His voice is heard (Psa_18:14 [Psa_18:13]; Job_37:2), the lightning and fire-flames, wherein burns His wrath and punitive justice (Jdg_5:4; Isa_30:27 sq.; Psa_1:2-3; Psa_68:8; Psa_97:2), and the earthquake, the terror that precedes the revelation of His judgment (Ps. 67:19 [Ps. 67:18]; Psa_114:4; Joel 2:10; 4:16; Nah_1:5; Isa_24:18) exhibit those sides of the being of the self-revealing God to which natural phenomena, by virtue of their divine origin, are related. “This symbolism of nature rests on the conception that certain qualities in God’s being and work answer to it. Hence God is sometimes represented as present and efficient in these natural phenomena (not merely accompanied by them), and in bold and vivid expression the rousing and utterance of His anger is portrayed as the kindling of His light-nature in all the turns of fiery and flaming figures, even to the point that smoke issues from His wrath-snorting nose (Deu_19:9; Es. 74:1; 80:5 [4]) and devouring fire from His mouth (comp. the description of the crocodile, Job_41:10 sqq.) from the burning coals within Him. Not in themselves, therefore, but only under certain circumstances and limitations do these phenomena of nature form in part the symbol, in part the means of the theophany” (Moll [in Lange’s Bible- Work] on Psalms 18, Doct. and Eth. 5).—“All nature stands in a relation of sympathy to man, in that it shares his curse and blessing, ruin and glory, and in a (so to speak) synergetic [co-operative] relation to God, in that it pre-announces and instrumentally accomplishes His mighty deeds” (Delitzsch on Psa_18:8-10).
6. The law of God’s retributive righteousness is the fundamental law of the divine government of the world. The condition of man’s deliverance by God is life in righteousness before God, which pre-supposes full devotion of heart to God, and shows itself in earnest striving after faithful fulfillment of God’s commands. God bestows His salvation and blessing on the faithful righteous (comp. Deuteronomy 28); on the apostate wicked he sends His judgments, and hears not their cry for help, because, they being in trouble, turn to Him not in living faith and trust, but in superstition. He who (like David), with heart, life and desire turned towards God, seeks and finds in life-communion with Him his highest good and complete satisfaction, may (with David), on the ground of this law of retributive righteousness, affirm that he has had help of the Lord, because God cannot leave without proof of His faithful mercy those who trust in Him and in His word without wishing to gain or lay claim to merit for themselves. Self-praise, indeed, and vain self-contemplation in such an appeal to one’s own righteousness is not lawful; and it is here excluded, since David expressly declares that pride is the object of the divine judgment (2Sa_22:28). Comp. Isa_2:11; Pro_6:17. This humble appeal to one’s righteous walk before God under God’s guidance is indeed at bottom only praise to God Himself. For the righteousness, wherein one walks before God, is God’s own work. “David owes his righteousness wholly to his faithful adherence to God, who preserves His servant from sins so that they do not rule over him.—He here dwells on his righteousness, not from vain self-contemplation, but to quicken himself and others to zeal in the fulfillment of the law.—The charge of pride of virtue, if it were true, would lie also against many expressions of Christian hymn-writers. So, for example, in Anton Ulrich’s fine hymn: Nun tret’ ich wieder aus der Ruh, the strophe: So ist getrost mein frischer Muth,—Mein Gott geht nimmer meinen Steg, wo ich nicht wandle seinen Weg [never goes my God my path, when I walk not in His way]” (Hengst. on Psa_18:20).
7. To this truth of the retributive righteousness of God attaches itself as further ground for it (2Sa_22:26-27) the thought of ethical reciprocal action between God in His ethical bearing towards man, and man in his ethical position in respect to God. There is no question here of an intellectual conception of God’s being, as if David meant to say: God appears to every man according as the man is disposed and constituted. Certainly the history of religion everywhere (Christian and non-Christian) proves that the views of God that the unaided reason arrives at are the reflection of the ethical condition of soul, which determines the intellect; the character of the knowledge of God depends on the ethical character of the whole life. Here, however, is expressed the truth that God’s objective, real conduct towards men according to His retributive righteousness corresponds exactly to man’s ethical conduct towards God, and by the reflection of this righteous conduct of God, as exhibited in His punitive judgments, in man’s perverted mind arises a caricature of God’s nature, which is more and more confirmed and filled out in the conception of the man that turns from God and continues to harden his heart against Him. Comp. Moll, on Psalms 17, Doct. and Eth. 6; who refers to 1 Sam. 26:33; Isa_29:14; Isa_31:3; Job_5:13; Pro_3:34. [This last view, the perverted conception of God in men’s minds, while correct in itself, is not contained in this Psalm.—Tr.].
8. In the gracious helps, wherein God reveals Himself to His people as the living one, faith in the living God grows to the ever completer knowledge of the truth that God is the Living One in the absolute sense, and finds involuntary utterance in the declaration: “Living is the Lord” (2Sa_22:47). The experiences and guidances of the lives of God’s children are the proof that God is a living God, who enters into their life with His light and His strength, with the consolation of His love and the help of His might. “That David is living, exalted and blest, shows that his God is living, exalted and to be blessed. He is the living proof of his livingness, exaltedness and praiseworthiness” (Hengst.).
9. The jubilant tone in which Old Testament piety speaks of revenge on enemies lacks the thorough sanctification and consecration, whose only source is in the holy love of God, poured out by the Holy Ghost (Rom_5:5) in the hearts of those who are become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and can practice that love of enemies that was necessarily still foreign to the Old Testament standpoint. But while this difference between the standpoints of the Old and New Testaments is maintained, the relative truth and justification of these utterances of David on revenge on enemies (2Sa_22:48 sq.) must not be ignored. For David here speaks in the consciousness of his calling as theocratic king, who had to fight for the Lord’s people, and carry on the Lord’s wars; it is the Lord Himself that has taken the revenge and given it him; the victories that have laid at his feet the enemies of God’s kingdom are the Lord’s own deeds. And this is the prefigurement and symbol of God’s mighty deeds in the defence of the New Testament kingdom of grace, and of the conquest of the hostile world by the spiritual weapons of His word and the power of His Spirit, till after this conquest comes the triumphant kingdom of glory.
10. David affirms (2Sa_22:50 sq.) the universality of the salvation, whose original source is the glorious revelations of God to His chosen people; the God of Israel is also the God of the heathen. The means of bringing them to the knowledge of the living God is not the sword, but the proclamation of God’s great deeds for His people. As David, in his character of missionary to the heathen world, praises his God’s grace, so at bottom all missionary work among the heathen is, in the announcement of the word of the God who is revealed in Christ, a continuous praise of the name of the living God. In David’s word: “I will praise thee among the heathen,” the missionary idea of the universal, all-embracing salvation of God breaks over the bounds of national-theocratic particularism.—“As it was among the heathen that he himself most proudly sang Jahve’s praise, and by his whole life proclaimed to them His sole majesty (wherein he followed, only with far more power, Deborah’s example, Jdg_5:3), so from now on could and should every member of this congregation of Jahve take position towards the heathen” [Ewald, Gesch. [Hist, of Israel] III. 273, Rem.).
11. As the centre, whence the light of salvation was to shine on the heathen, David has in view God’s revelations of salvation and grace, as they were imparted to him, the Anointed of the Lord, and, according to the promise, 2 Samuel 7., were to be imparted to his seed that was destined to everlasting royal dominion. Bat the line, in which his prophetic glance at the end of the Song in the light of this promise looks into the future of this seed, runs in the historical fulfilment of this Messianic prophecy beyond the earthly throne of the Davidic house, and ends in “the Son of God, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom_1:3), and is the Anointed of God in the absolute sense. In Rom_15:9 Paul, quoting David’s words here (2Sa_22:50), declares him to be the Saviour, through whom, according to God’s mercy, the heathen also become partakers of salvation, and praise God therefor.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
2Sa_22:1. [Taylor: Let us learn to thank God for our mercies and deliverances. When the crisis of some great agony is on us, there are no words which leap so readily to our lips as these: “God help me!” At such times we feel shut up to go to God, and we engage our friends to pray to Him on our behalf. But when the danger is past and the suffering is gone, how seldom we think of Him on whom, while they lasted, we called so passionately for relief Of the ten lepers whom Jesus cleansed, only one returned to give Him thanks.—Henry: Every new mercy in our hand should put a new song into our mouth, even praises to our God.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:2. Human speech cannot find words enough to praise sufficiently the fulness of the divine grace and the riches of God’s goodness. Comp. Rom_11:33.—God not merely gives to them that trust in Him all that is necessary for them, but He Himself is to them all that they need. The Lord is to His people through His power a firm support, an invincible ally both in defence and in offence. [Spurgeon:55 “In Him will I trust.” Faith must be exercised, or the preciousness of God is not truly known; and God must be the object of faith, or faith is mere presumption.—Tr. ]
2Sa_22:4 sq. The praise of God has its ground in the benefits received from God and in the experience of His salvation; it forms the foundation for new requests, it confirms the heart in childlike confidence, and it heightens the courage of faith.—The wholesome fruit of severe afflictions and sore conflicts is for the children of God so much the more unconditional confidence in God’s compassion, so much the more hearty supplication for God’s help, so much the more blessed experience of His hearing and delivering grace.—God speaks to men through the powers and gifts of His visible creation the language of His goodness and compassionate fatherly love, Mat_5:45; but He also speaks through the mighty forces of nature the language of His wrath and His punitive righteousness.—Berl. B.: The Lord is such a soul’s rock; for it has no other steadfastness than God, who establishes Himself in it and confirms it in perfect immovableness, for it is the immovableness of God Himself.—Luther: David wishes hereby to instruct us that there is nothing so bad, so great, so vast, so mighty, so lasting that it cannot be overcome through the power of God, if we only trust therein; likewise that then especially should we have cause to hope for God’s power to become mighty in us, when many great, strong and persistent evils powerfully press upon us.—“I call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised.” This is in time of trouble the noblest of doctrines, and thoroughly golden. It is incredible what a powerful means such praise to God is when danger assails. For as soon as you begin to praise God, so soon the evil becomes lessened, the consoled spirit waxes stronger, and there follows the calling on God with confidence.
2Sa_22:7. [Lord Bacon (in Spurgeon): If you listen even to David’s harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.—Tr.]—Cramer: It is God’s counsel and will that we should call on Him. Psa_50:15.—Calvin: In naming God his God, he distinguishes himself from the coarse despisers of God and from the hypocrites, who do indeed when pressed by need call confusedly on the heavenly divinity, but do not either with confidence or with one heart draw near to God, of whose fatherly grace they know nothing.—Berl. B.: If thy God has now heard thee, O thou afflicted king, instruct us also how it has gone therewith and with thy cry and prayer for deliverance. [Spurgeon: There was no great space between the cry and its answer. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, but is swift to rescue His afflicted.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:8 sq. Schlier: How poor we are when surrounded by cold, heartless nature, and how well off we are when everywhere we can see and mark the Lord’s hand. Let us see the Lord’s hand even in the events of common life.—Starke: All God’s creatures testify of His glory, Psa_19:2 sq.: all the elements have to be at His command.—Schlier: The Lord helps if we pray aright. [Spurgeon: Things were bad for David before he prayed, but they were much worse for his foes so soon as the petition had gone up to heaven.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:18 sqq. Hengstenberg: “For they were too strong for me”—here it is assumed that our utter lack of might compels the Lord to make use of His almightiness for our benefit.—Starke: Every victory comes from God; He is the true man of war. Exo_15:3; Psa_46:10 [9].—Human help commonly fails; but he who leans upon God as a strong staff is never put to shame. Psa_23:4. Berl. B.: After all sufferings endured there is given the soul a holy freedom, and it gains through its trial a boundless enlargement. This it never recognizes until after the work is finished and God has delivered it from all its pains. And why has He delivered it from them? Because this soul has pleased Him.—S. Schmid: Believers find their best consolation and motive to patience in the knowledge that they please God. 1Pe_3:14.
2Sa_22:21 sqq. Hengstenberg: With all the weakness common to men they yet fall apart into two great halves, between which a great gulf is fixed, the wicked and the righteous, and only the latter can be heard when they pray.—Cramer: In all persecution, hostility and opposition we should labor to have always a good conscience; for that is our rejoicing, 2Co_1:12; Act_24:16.—Starke: A beautiful description of a true Christian. Well for him that strives to attain it. The righteousness of pious Christians pleases God when it proceeds from faith. Rom_5:1.—[Spurgeon: Before God, the man after God’s own heart was a humble sinner; but before his slanderers he could, with unblushing face, speak of the cleanness of his hands and the righteousness of his life.… There is no self-righteousness in an honest man’s knowing that he is honest, nor even in his believing that God rewards him in Providence because of his honesty, for such is often a most evident matter of fact …. It is not at all an opposition to the doctrine of salvation by grace, and no sort of evidence of a Pharisaic spirit, when a gracious man, having been slandered, stoutly maintains his integrity, and vigorously defends his character …. Read the cluster of expressions in this and the following verses as the song of a good conscience, after having safely outridden a storm of obloquy, persecution and abuse, and there will be no fear of our upbraiding the writer as one who sets too high a price upon his own moral character.—Henry (2Sa_22:23): A careful abstaining from our own iniquity is one of the best evidences of our own integrity; and the testimony of our conscience that we have done so, will be such a rejoicing, as will not only lessen the griefs of an afflicted state, but increase the comforts of an advanced state. David reflected with more comfort upon his victories over his own iniquity, than upon his conquest of Goliath, and all the hosts of the uncircumcised Philistines; and the witness of his own heart to his uprightness was sweeter, though more silent music than theirs that sang, “David has slain his ten thousands.” If a great man be a good man, his goodness will be much more his satisfaction than his greatness.—Tr.]—As we are disposed towards God, so is also God disposed towards us; and as we show ourselves towards Him so He also shows Himself towards us. 1Sa_2:30; 1Sa_15:23; Mat_10:33; Luk_6:37
2Sa_22:27. Delitzsch: The pious man’s inward love God requites with intimate love, the honest man’s complete devotion with full communication of grace, the striving after purity by a disposition rich in undisturbed love (comp. Psa_73:1), moral self-perversion by strange judgments, in that He gives up the perverse man to his perverseness (Rom_1:28), and leads him along strange ways to final condemnation. (Isa_29:14, comp. Lev_26:23 sq.).—Berl. B.: For this very reason does that which is most righteous, seem to the perverse world to be perverse and unrighteous, because the world is perverse and this does not agree with its evil principles. God is in their estimation too righteous and exact, because He tests with the greatest accuracy the distortions of a dislocated conscience, and investigates such a case with the severest strictness, as the Gospel explains of Him who had buried His talent. [Spurgeon: The Jewish tradition was that the manna tasted according to each man’s mouth; certainly God shows Himself to each individual according to his character.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:28. Delitzsch: The church that is bowed down by sufferings experiences God’s condescension for her salvation, and her haughty oppressors experience God’s exaltation for their humbling.
2Sa_22:29. S. Schmid: He whose light is the Lord, walks safe in his ways. Joh_11:9-10.
2Sa_22:30 sq. Nothing in the world is so hard and heavy that we cannot get the better of it by God’s help. Rom_8:37.—Berl. B.: All that is a hindrance to men is to God no hindrance.—O how hemmed in we are when in ourselves. Ah! how enlarged are we not, when we find ourselves in Thee, O my God. Then we run, and nothing can stop or overthrow us.—Starke: If we have done great things, we must ascribe the honor not to ourselves but to God. Psa_115:1.
2Sa_22:32. S. Schmid: Well for the man that can in true faith call the Lord his God. Psa_18:2-3.
2Sa_22:33 sq. Cramer: War is not in itself sinful nor blameworthy, and God makes righteous soldiers. Psa_144:1.—S. Schmid: Ye warriors of Jesus Christ, who have to contend with princes and mighty ones (Eph_6:12), call God to your help, who will teach your hands to war.
2Sa_22:35. Hengstenberg: The outward conflict against the enemies of the kingdom of God is not in itself carnal, but becomes so only through the disposition in which it is conducted; just as the spiritual conflict is not in itself spiritual, but only when it is conducted with divine weapons alone, with the power which God supplies. With right does Luther find in our verse the promise, “that to preachers who are taught by God Himself, there is given an inexhaustible and invincible power to withstand all opposers.” This is therein contained not merely inasmuch as what holds of one believer, also holds of all others, but more directly too, inasmuch as David here speaks not merely of himself but of his whole family, which is completed in Christ, so that all he says refers in the highest and fullest sense to Christ and His kingdom, and His servants. [A doubtful principle, and a precarious inference.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:36 sq. Luther: Who are we then, that we should either want to presume and undertake to protect the truth and overcome the enemies, or when we cannot succeed therein, that we should want to get angry about it? It depends upon divine grace how we are preserved and enlarged, not upon our undertakings and presumptuous fancy, that the glory may remain with God alone.
2Sa_22:38. Luther: And this has happened and still happens in all victories of the people of God, since in the beginning of the conflict the enemies appear to be superior and invincible; but so soon as the assault is made there is a growing strength; the enemies take to flight, and are slain; thereupon the church does not cease to follow up the conflict won and the victory gained, until it sweeps away all enemies.
2Sa_22:39. Calvin: As the wars of David are common to us, it follows that to us there is promised an unconquerable protection against all onsets of the devil, all lusts of sin, all temptations of the flesh.—Cramer: Christian knights must not practice hypocrisy with the enemies of God, or show them ill-timed compassion, but use earnestness and zeal against them. 1Sa_15:15; Psa_139:21.
2Sa_22:40 sq. S. Schmid: Nothing is more intolerable to the ungodly than when they are humbled under those over whom they have exalted themselves. [2Sa_22:42. Spurgeon: Prayer is so notable a weapon that even the wicked will take to it, in their fits of desperation. Bad men have appealed to God against God’s own servants, but in vain.—Tr.]
2Sa_22:47. Berl. B.: The Lord lives! Hence comes all the satisfaction of a true and pure soul, because God is always living in him, and this life of God no one can hinder. Psa_42:3 [2].—This alone constitutes the joy of a soul wholly penetrated by pure love. Its joy consists not in its salvation, but in the glory which from this salvation accrues to God. Exo_15:2.
2Sa_22:50 sq. Starke: A Christian should awake himself ever anew to the praise of God.—Schlier: The more we think on what the Lord has done for us, the more we gain courage and confidence for the future. Ingratitude makes men despairing and afraid; true gratitude produces consolation and courage. In thanksgiving we of course think of the Lord and His goodness; and when we think of the Lord, how should we not also be consoled? The more gratitude, so much the more confidence; and the more confidence, so much the more help for time and eternity.
[2Sa_22:1. Songs of deliverance. 1) A good man may have many enemies; a) external, b) internal (“None betray us into sin, like the foes we find within.”). 2) The Lord delivers him from one after another, and will at last deliver him from all. 3) His songs of deliverance; a) for every particular deliverance in the course of life, b) for the great deliverance in the hour of death, c) amid the complete security of the life eternal.
2Sa_22:5-20. Great trials and glorious deliverance. I. The trials. 1) Alarming assaults of wickedness (2Sa_22:5). 2) Imminent perils of death (2Sa_22:6). II. The cry for help. 1) ‘In distress’ (2Sa_22:7), men always cry out for help. 2) David calls on no human help but on Jehovah. 3) Invoking Him as ‘my God.’ 4) His cry was heard. III. The deliverance. 1) Sublime tokens of Jehovah’s appearing, in majesty and wrath (2Sa_22:8-14). 2) Enemies vanquished and scattered (2Sa_22:15). 3) The sorely tried one is delivered; a) from calamities in general (2Sa_22:16-17), b) from powerful enemies choosing the time of calamity to assail (2Sa_22:18-19). 4) He is brought into great freedom and prosperity (2Sa_22:20).—Tr.]
[2Sa_22:20-28. A fearless profession of integrity. I. Delivered and rewarded because he pleased God (2Sa_22:20-21). II. How he professes to have acted (2Sa_22:22-24). 1) In general, keeping the ways of the Lord (2Sa_22:22). 2) Knowing and obeying His revealed will (2Sa_22:23). 3) Refraining from sin (2Sa_22:24). III. God’s retaliations, treating men exactly as they treat Him. (2Sa_22:26-28). (Such a line of thought is quite foreign to our ordinary preaching; but if properly guarded in the statement and application, it might be very wholesome.)
2Sa_22:32. Jehovah the only God, and God the only rock.
2Sa_22:47-50. Praise to the living God. 1) Jehovah liveth (2Sa_22:47)—not a mere nothing like the idols (Psa_115:2-7)—not a mere idea like the Pantheist’s God—but living, personal, active, knowing all, ruling all. 2) As the living God, He delivers and preserves His people (2Sa_22:48-49). 3) They should praise Him; a) bless Him themselves (2Sa_22:47), and b) make Him known among the nations that know Him not (2Sa_22:50).—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1] שִׁירָה instead of the usual שִׁיר; “from this already it appears that the historical part of the title is from another source.”—הִצִּיל introduces a relative sentence, which is in stat. const. with בְּיוֹם. Ges. § 116, 3. Comp. Exo_6:28; Num_3:1; Psa_138:3.
[2] רחם, elsewhere only in Piel in sense of “pity,” here in Qal (as often in Aramaic) in sense of “hearty love,” for which the usual word is אָהַב.
[3][“Herzlich lieb hab ich dich o Herr,” and “Ich will dich lieben, meine Stärke.”]
[4] חִזְקִי, a ἁπ. λεγ.
[5] סֶלַע “rock-cleft,” after Arab. שלע “to cleave.” [See Delitzsch on Pss. in loco; but this derivation is not certain.—Tr.]
[6] מְצוּדהָ, and so the masc. מְּצַד ,מָצוד. [See Del. on Psalms, and Fleischer’s note.—Tr.]
[7]Böttcher: מִפְלָטִי.—The לִי (wanting in Psa_18:3 [2], found in Psa_144:2), is a strengthening of the suffix ִי-, and expresses deep feeling of the Lord’s gracious help to him personally.
[8] אָפַף, not: “press, drive” (after the Arab.), but, after indubitable tradition (comp. אוֹפָן “a wheel”), “encircle, surround,” as poetic synonym of כִּתֵּר ,הִקִּיף ,סָבַב (Del. on Psalms 18).
[9] יְבַעֲתֻנִי, Impf. interchanging with Waw. consec. and Impf., because it describes condition (Hupf.).
[10][Sheol, the underworld, place of departed spirits.—Tr.]
[11] צַר, comp. Job_15:24. Literally: “in the distress to me,” that is, in this my distress; for the construction comp. Psa_66:14; Psa_106:44; Psa_107:6 and elsewhere. This mode of expression is based on the common formula צַר־לִי “it is strait to me,” “I am in distress,” the preposition being preposed here to a whole sentence, as commonly to a noun (Hupf.).
[12] רָגַז ,רָעַשׁ ,גָּעַשׁ.—The Qeri וַיִּתְגָּעַשׁ is doubtless an imitation of the following וַיִּתְגָּעֲשׁוּ (especially as גָּעַשׁ does not elsewhere occur in Qal), and is to be rejected, since then ארץ immediately afterwards would be Masc. and Fem. The ותגעש (Kethib) is, as in the Psalm-text, to be pointed וַתִּגְעַשׁ (forming complete paronomasia with the וַתִּרְעַשׁ), unless it be preferred to read (with several codices) וַתִּתְגָּעַשׁ according with the וַיִּתְגָּעֲשּׁוּ, = properly “to move hither and thither” (Hitzig).
[13] עֲרָפֶל, often connected with עָנָן.
[14]The ἁπ. λεγ. חַשְׁרָה signifies (according to the Arabic) “gathering, aggregation”—עָב properly “thicket” (comp. Exo_19:9).—שְׁחָקִים = the clouds as a connected whole (Hengst.).
[15][Dr. Erdmann’s text has: “the Qeri hag taken the suffix,” and accordingly he writes it in parenthesis. This, however, is an oversight; the Kethib has the suffix, the Qeri omits it.—Tr.]
[16] אָפִיקּ = stream-bed from אָפַק “to contain,” hence of hollow bodies, = holder, pipe, canal, channel, dale, = αὐλός, αὐλών, then brook, properly (like נחל) the valley in which it flows (Hupf.).
[17] תֵּבֵל, poetic designation of the earth, Psa_89:12 [11]; Psa_90:2; Psa_93:1; Psa_96:10—יִגָּלוּ by poetic license without ו, which is to be supplied from the preceding verb.
[18][On the origin and meaning of the name Moses see Canon Cook’s Essay on Egyptian Words in the Pentateuch, in Bib.-Com., I. 482—Tr.]
[19] עָז, not adverbial Acc., but Adjective; comp. Psa_143:10 [טוֹבָה].
[20]This form of comparison also in Psa_131:1; Psa_38:5 [4].
[21] קִדֵּם, see 2Sa_22:6; Psa_17:13.
[22]The Psalm has the usual less poetic לְמִשְׁעַן [which reading is found here also in some MSS. and EDD.—Tr.]
[23] מֶרְחָב (Psa_118:5), in contrast with צַר, so the verb (Hiph.), Gen_26:22; Psa_4:2 [1]; Psa_25:17; Pro_18:16.
[24] אתִי in contrast with the suffix in the Psalm, and answering to the לִי in 2Sa_22:19.
[25] גָּמַל, in connection with שִלֵּם or חֵשִׁיב [so here], or with כְּצִדְקָתִי added; the Psalm has כְּצִדְקִי.—The Imperfects here express in general propositions general time, the so-called Present (Hupf.).
[26] כִּי = but. “The establishment of one opposite gives the ground for the denial of the other” (Hengst.).
[27] מִמֶּנּהָ Sing. instead of Plu., as 2Ki_2:3; 2Ki_13:2; 2 Kings 6; 2Ki_10:29; 2Ki_10:31 after חַטּאוֹת (Hitzig, Hupfeld).—לֹא־אָסוּר, comp. Deu_5:29; Deu_17:11; Deu_28:14. The Psalm has לֹא אָסִיר מֶנִּי.
[28][תָּמִים is more exactly; “perfect.” Comp. Job_1:1 : “perfect and upright.” See 2Sa_22:26—Tr.]
[29] חָסִיד “loving” towards God, so תָּמִים “upright” towards God (comp. לוֹ in 2Sa_22:25), and נָבָר (Niph. Particip. of בָּרַר) purified, then “pure,” = בַּר, comp. the “pure heart, Psa_24:4; Psa_63:1, the pure mind.”—הִתְחַסָּד, Hithp. denom. from חֶסֶד or חָסִיד, found only here.—גִּבּוֹר תָּמִים “hero of innocence, upright hero.” גִּבּוֹר always = “hero.” תָּמִים often as here (comp. Hupf. on Psa_15:4) abstract subst. = תֹּם “uprightness.” The Ps. has גְּבַר, infrequent poetical form for גֶּבֶר תָּמַם. in Hithp. is found elsewhere only Dan_12:10 [it is found only in Psa_18:26.—Tr.].—תִּתָּבָר is for תִּתְבָּרַר, which form is found in the Psalm, “with broadened vowel before the tone-syllable, and besides, euphonic doubling of the ת as compensation for the contraction and for the maintenance of the rhythm” (Hupf.).
[30] עַם עָנִי “oppressed, afflicted people,” = אָדָם ,אֲנָשִׁים, Psa_3:7 [6]; Gen_20:4.
[31] נֵר “lamp,” as that which burns.
[32] אָרוּץ with Acc. (as the following אֲדַלֶּג), object reached by the motion. Ew. and Olsh. unnecessarily take it from רָצַץ.—The Ps. has בְּךָ instead of בְּכָה, and אָרֻץ instead of אָרוּץ.
[33] עזֹ after מַחֲסִי. On the construction see Ewald, § 291 b.
[34] וַיַתֵּר from תּוּר = נָתר, Pro_12:26, “lead,” = יָתֵר (comp. Ges. § 72, Rem. 2).
[35] לְ instead of the usual double Acc. [after לִמֵּר]. נִחַת Piel Perf. of נָהַת “to cause to descend, press down.” The Ps. has the fem. נִחֳתָה on account of the זְרוֹעֹתַי, sing. Fem. with plu. subject of things or beasts (Ges. § 146, 3). Here the sing. masc. because the verb precedes.
[36] נַחֵת Piel Infin.
[37][This (or “copper”) is a better rendering than “brass” or “steel;” see Art. Brass in Smith’s Bib.-Dict—Tr.]
[38] עֲנוֹת, Sept. ὑπακοή. Olshausen conjectures עֶזְרָתְךָ, but “unnecessarily” (Hupf.). The Psalm: עַנְוָתְךָ.
[39]Instead of תַּחְתֵּנִי the Ps. has תַּחתִּי.
[40]Aorists followed by Perfects and Futures [they are not Futures, but Aorists.—Tr.].—The lengthened form אֶרְדְּפָה may without ו consec. (as in Pro_7:7) express past time, as is frequent in poetry, comp. 2Sa_22:12 here and in the Psalm (Böttch.).
[41] תַּזְרֵנִי for תְּאַזְּרֵני (as in the Ps.) Piel with א omitted, as in יָרֶב for יַאֲרֶב (1Sa_15:5) and מַלְּפֵנִי for מְאַלְּפֵגִי (Job_35:11), Ew. § 232 b.—קָמִים עָלַי = קָמַי, Psa_92:12 [11], comp. 2Sa_22:49; Exo_15:7; Deu_33:11. Even where the verb is found only with a Preposition, the Participle has sometimes a Genitive with it. Ges. § 135., 1, Rem.
[42] תַּתָּה for נָתַתָּה (so in the Ps.), “an elsewhere impossible shortening, to be at the best excused by the fact that this verb drops its נ in the Imperf.” (Ew. § 195 c). Comp. יָרַד = רַד, Jdg_19:11.—נָתַן עֹרֶף, usually intrans. “to turn the back” (2Ch_29:6, comp. Jos_7:8; Jos_7:12), here and Exo_23:27 trans. “to make as neck” = to put to flight. Comp. Psa_21:13 [12] שׁית שֶׁכֶם “to make into a back (shoulder).”
[43] אֲדִקֵּם, from דָּקַק “to make thin, crush.” The Ps.: אֲרִיקֵם.
[44] ריב, properly “legal contest,” then “contest” in general; a “contest of peoples” must be war.
[45]As in Psa_144:2, and מִנִּי “strings” for מִנִּים Psa_45:9 [8]. On such shortening of im to i (as the Dual יִם = to י=, Eze_13:18 יָדַי) comp. Ges. § 87, 1 b, Ew. § 177 a; Ewald regards the עַמִּי here as certainly a plural.—The Sing. עַם in the Psalm is not = “men, folks” (Hupf.), but is collective, as in the last clause of this verse, Job_34:30 and Isa_42:6.
[46]Hithpael; the Ps. has Piel (and so Psa_66:3; Psa_81:16 [15]); Deu_33:29 has Niphal. [It may be considered doubtful whether the notion of hypocrisy enters here; it is not improbably an oriental expression for complete submission.—Tr.]
[47]Instead of the usual Qal; perhaps we should point it Qal. The Niph. occurs in this sense.—The Psalm has לְשֵׁמַע אֹזֶן instead of לִשְׁמוֹעַ א׳.
[48]The Psalm has the ἁπ. λεγ. חָרַג (Chald. חרגא) “to be frightened,” = רָגַז “tremble” (in Mic_7:17 in the same connection). Our passage has חָגַר, perhaps error for חרג; if it be correct, it is not “gird” (which does not suit the connection), but (with Hitz., Del., Böttch., Then.) after the Aramaic, = “halt, hobble” (Talmud. חִגֵּר “lame”).
[49]This would require יָרֹם instead of יָרוּם.
[50] נְקָמוֹת always in the plural. “To take” vengeance, נָתַן here and 2Sa_4:8, עָשָׂה Jdg_11:36; Eze_25:17.
[51] הִדְבִּיר.
[52] מִגְדּוֹל, after מִגְדָּו of Psa_61:4. The text is מַגְדִּיל, Hiph. Participle of גָּדַל.
[53][Justus Olshausen (to be distinguished from Hermann Olshausen, the commentator on the N. T.), writer of the Commentary on Psalms in the Condensed Exegetical Manual, a good grammarian, but hyperskeptical as a critic.—Tr.]
[54]Amyraldus: “a most excellent specimen of the poetic art:” Hitzig: “an unequalled product of art and reflection.”
[55][This and the other quotations from Spurgeon throughout the chapter are from his “Treasury of David.” a copious commentary on the Psalms, which does not aim at criticism or exact exegesis, but is rich in homiletical matter, original and selected.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 41, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49 2. Rock… fortress… place of refuge — The poet…
2. Rock… fortress… place of refuge — The poet uses a profusion of metaphors in order to extol most gratefully that Divine Goodness and Power to whom he owes all his salvation. The rocks and strongholds of his native land, which sheltered and defended him so often when persecuted by Saul, furnish appropriate imagery for his song, and forcibly represent that Divine Spiritual Rock who was David’s fortress and hiding-place in his darkest times of trial.
Even mine — This addition intensifies the thought of David’s personal realization of the mercies received from his God.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 1. The title
1. The title
1. Compare the inscriptions which introduce Moses’ songs in the historical narrative (Exo_15:1; Deu_31:30). This inscription seems to have been taken by the compiler of Samuel and the compiler of the Psalter from a common source—probably one of the prophetic histories of David’s reign—in which this Psalm was incorporated.
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in the day that] i.e. at the time when.
out of the hand of Saul] Specially mentioned because Saul was the bitterest and most implacable of his enemies, and because the deliverance from his power raised David to the throne of Israel.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 51 (2) He said.—The psalm here wants the opening line…
(2) He said.—The psalm here wants the opening line of Psalms 18, “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength,” forming a fitting introduction to the whole.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 21, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 41, 44, 47, 50 This song, which is identical with Psalm 18., though…
DAVID"S PSALM OF THANKSGIVING.
This song, which is identical with Psalm 18., though with many verbal differences, is so universally acknowledged as a genuine composition of King David, that the objections taken by one or two critics serve only to give us greater security by reminding us that the other side has been carefully argued. The differences between its form here and in the Book of Psalms suggest many important considerations with regard to textual criticism. From the absence of manuscripts, we have very scanty means of judging of the correctness of the ordinary Hebrew text. We have, indeed, abundant proof that the Jews took extreme care of their sacred text in the early centuries of our era; but we nevertheless find, most frequently in names, mistakes which have arisen from the carelessness of scribes, and especially from the confusion by them of similar letters. Thus the Sibbechai 2Sa_21:18 becomes Mebunnai in 2Sa_23:27, owing to some scribe having mistaken two letters in the name. And as the similarity between them exists, not in the old Hebrew writing, but in the square character substituted after the exile, the confusion must be subsequent to that date. In comparing the two texts of this psalm, we find similar instances of confusion of letters in vers. 11, 42, 43; we find words transposed in vers. 5, 6; and clauses repeated or omitted in vers. 13, 14. In short, all the phenomena with which we are familiar in the textual criticism of the New Testament are also found here. And may we not add that they end in the same result? The general sense and meaning remain much the same. The variations of reading do not affect the teaching of Holy Scripture on any important point. It may be asked, then Why should we notice them at all? And why urge them upon the attention of scholars? The answer is that there exist flaws and blemishes in the Massoretic, that is, the ordinary Hebrew, text, and that the removal of them is prevented by the strange idea which accords infallibility to the Massorites, and will not concede to the far more difficult problem of the ancient Hebrew text that which is granted as a matter of course to the comparatively modern Greek text of the New Testament. And thus the Old Testament is neglected, and left outside that careful and minute study so lavishly expended on the New, and so rich in useful results.
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Of the date when David wrote this psalm there can be little doubt. It was at the close of his first great series of victories, after Toi, the Hittite King of Hamath, had sent to him an embassy of congratulation, (2Sa_8:9, 2Sa_8:10) referred to very triumphantly in vers. 45, 46. But there is no trace in it of the sorrow and shame that clouded over his latter days; and no man whose conscience was stained with sins so dark as those of adultery and murder could have written words so strongly asserting his integrity and the cleanness of his hands as are found in vers. 21-25. The psalm belongs to David"s happiest time, when he had won for Israel security and empire. It is written from first to last in a tone of jubilant exultation, caused, as we may well believe, by Nathan"s acceptance of his purpose to build the temple, and by the solemn appointment of David as the theocratic king. If it were arranged according to time and matter, it would be placed immediately after ch. 8., as it is evidently David"s thanksgiving for the benefits and blessings just promised to him and his seed.
But the scribes inserted it here, not so much because of its historical value, as because it is a national thanksgiving for the founding of that empire by which Israel became verily the theocratic people, and the type upon earth of the kingdom of the Messiah. The prophet who compiled the Books of Samuel rejoiced in David"s victories, not because they gave Israel worldly dominion, but because they were a fulfilment of past prophecy, and a necessary part of the preparation for the religious position which Israel was to hold. Such as it had been under the judges, Israel would have been no fit home for the prophetic light. It could not have grown and developed, nor the race have become a Church fit to be the teacher of all mankind. And in this hymn the Church expresses her joy at the high office and extended usefulness to which God has seen fit to call her. The spiritual exposition of the psalm will naturally be sought in commentaries on the Book of Psalms. But such matters as its outward form, and the differences between the two texts, will not be out of place here.
David spake. The introduction was probably written by the prophet who compiled the Books of Samuel. The scribe who collected the Book of Psalms would be a priest, and he has repeated it with one or two additions, the most important of which is that the psalm was written "by David the servant of Jehovah." This title; meaning the minister or vicegerent of Jehovah, is one so high that it would certainly not have been given to David in his lifetime; nor was it even until Moses was dead that he was honoured with this rank. (Deu_34:5) But what was David"s right to this title, which put him on a level with Moses? It was this: In adding to the sacrificial ritual enacted by Moses a daily service in the temple of sacred minstrelsy and songs, David was acting with higher powers than were ever exercised by any other person. For though, as we have seen, Samuel was the originator of these services in his schools, yet. there is a wide difference between private and public services; and David made his anthems part of the national liturgy. But it would only be when the halo of long use had gathered round his holy psalmody that David would be placed on in equality with Moses, and his authority an institute a new ritual for the nation be recognized.
Vers. 1-4.
Songs of deliverance.
The facts are:
1. David composes a song at the end of all the deliverances which duringhis life God had wrought for him.
2. He describes God as being to him a Rock, a Fortress, a Shield, a HighTower, a Place of Refuge, and represents him as being actively his Deliverer and Saviour.
3. He, in looking on to the future, resolves to trust in him who had been somuch to his life in the past, and expects to be saved from his enemies.
4. He, reviewing the past, feels that God is worthy of the praise expressedin this song. There is a. beautiful congruity in the place of this song being at the close of the most detailed and protracted narrative of personal history to be found in the Old Testament, and even in the entire Bible with the exception of that referring to Christ seeing that that history was one of most strange vicissitudes, and full of dangers. The story of David"s life is so necessarily occupied with events as they appeared to men and as they pertain to visible history, that this song is a true supplement, inasmuch as it brings into view the deep spiritual feelings that influenced him in the midst of those events, and so furnishes a key to the religious life of the great king. This song of deliverances reminds us of the song Moses when Israel triumphed over Pharaoh and his hosts at the Red Sea (Exodus 15), of the song of the ransomed as they were to return to Zion with everlasting joy on their heads, (Isa_35:10) and of the still more wonderful new song by the redeemed from all nations and kindreds of the earth. (Rev_5:9-13 Rev_14:1-3) In these historic and prophetic instances we have illustrations of songs of deliverance ever rising from grateful hearts, establishing thus with the past and the future a community of religious experience which is at once a fruit and an evidence of the Divine redemption wrought out by our Saviour. Taking the experience of David as our guide, we may observe
I THE PERILS OF LIFE ARE SOMETIMES SO EXTREME AS TO INDUCE IMMENSE EFFORTS TO ESCAPE THEM. History tells us some of the perils of David"s life, both when Saul pursued him with relentless cunning and cruelty, and when, as king, kindred, friend, and foe, and also the unseen powers of darkness, sought his ruin. The subsequent references in vers. 5, 6 give his impression of the greatness of his distress; and the allusions to "rock," "high tower," and "fortress" remind us of the time when his extremity was such that he climbed the craggy cliff or hid himself in the inaccessible clefts of the rocks. No man was so near to death as was David, and no good man came nearer to moral and spiritual destruction than did he in the case of Bathsheba and Uriah. This is the common lot of men on earth, though some find their perils less than those of their fellows. In business affairs, in statesmanship, in special enterprises, in matters of health, in common intercourse with men, and in spiritual experience, there are seasons when it seems to be a question of a few hours whether we make wreck or escape. Then comes a strain, a demand on our fullest resources, corresponding to that on David when Saul sought his life, or when spiritual destruction was in the train of Bathsheba"s unholy love.
II NO HIGH CHARACTER RAISES US ABOVE LIABILITY TO THESE EXTREME PERILS. The world is infested with evil, and the best characters find that, as mortal, fallible men, they are liable to the exigencies of life, and as good men they are objects of attack by the powers of darkness. David was an honest, sincere, devout man, and specially dear to God when Saul hunted his life; and he was superior to many before the horrible temptation to depart from purity fell upon his soul. Character is a defence against some dangers, else were it of little worth; but danger to our calling, our enterprises, our health, our moral position subtle and serious cannot but be our earthly lot. Even our Lord knew the tempter"s power in the bitterness of poverty; and he warned the best men around his Person to expect peril to earthly interests, and to watch lest at any time even their devouter hearts should be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life. (Luk_21:34; cf. 16)
III TRULY RELIGIOUS MEN WILL USE EVERY EFFORT TO ESCAPE THESE PERILS. In his reference to "rock," "refuge," and "fortress," David at once carries us back to the time when he used his utmost endeavours to escape from Saul by climbing the rocks and taking refuge among the fastnesses of the mountains. (1Sa_22:1, 5 23:14, 15) David acted as though all depended on himself. The cave, the cliff, the gorge, the lofty peak, were sought to cover him as a "shield," or to raise him as on a "high tower." So far as the two men were concerned, it was a case of skill against skill, endurance against endurance. So, also, in the more spiritual conflicts of his life, he laboured hard to save himself from destruction. Prayer, meditation on the Divine Law, taking heed to his steps, going to the house of the Lord, were so many forms of personal exertion to escape the foes of his highest life. So is it with the followers of Christ. They strive daily to ward off the ills which threaten their temporal interests, and when peril becomes extreme, they stir up all their energies to maintain their head high above all impending evils; and what is true of temporal is true also of spiritual interests they give all diligence to make their calling sure.
IV THE VISIBLE MEANS OF SAFETY USED BY RELIGIOUS MEN ARE AN INDEX OF AN INVISIBLE RESOURCE. It is just here that we get at the heart of David"s meaning. A spectator, observing how he set his skill against that of Saul, how he baffled the cruel persecutor by feats of daring among the caves and clefts of the rock, might conclude that success was decided by a mere balance of ingenuity and agility the rock, the cave, were his defence. But no; he used these visible things, but all the time his soul was resting in the protection of God. There was a double exercise of energy that which expressed itself in agility of movement among the mountain fastnesses, and that which expressed itself in calm trust in the care of God. God was his Rock, his Shield, his Fortress. As Elijah saw chariots of fire where others saw nothing but vacant air, so he saw the Eternal Rock, and in him made his refuge. The same double exercise of energy was at work in his strenuous efforts to maintain his piety. It was not prayer, use of the Divine Law, and watchfulness that he trusted in, but the ever present and faithful God. Herein is the characteristic of a truly godly man. An inner spiritual activity accompanies all the external forms. His soul goes out after the living God. He finds safety in the invisible Rock of Ages. God in Christ is his actual Hiding place.
V THE BEST THINGS IN. NATURE ARE BUT SYMBOLS AND SHADOWS OF EXCELLENCE IN GOD. The rock and the high tower were the very best things nature afforded to David in his dreadful season of trial. Those wilds then answered indeed a noble purpose. But David saw in their protecting powers only a shadow of the real protecting power of which he was in need. All the saving virtues of the mountain fastnesses were to him the index of the boundless resources that lie in God. He is the Rock. Throughout Scripture there seems to be an effort to set forth, if possible, the reality and vastness and sufficiency of the treasures which are in God for us. Thus Christ is represented as being the chief and best of all things in nature among stars, the Bright and Morning Star; among fruit bearing trees, the luxurious Vine; of members of the body, the Head. Nature can only indicate what wealth of resources we have in him. His riches are unsearchable. (Eph_3:8)
VI A REVIEW OF PAST SIGNAL DELIVERANCES ENCOURAGES CONFIDENCE IN RESPECT TO THE FUTURE. Reviewing the wonderful deliverances wrought for him, David says, "In him will I trust;" "I shall be saved from mine enemies." The conflict of life was not over. New dangers will arise, and other enemies will fill the ranks of the fallen. But experience of God"s merciful help keeps the spirit calm, and every triumph in the past by his favour is a guarantee that he will be a very present Help in every time of need. How could David doubt the goodness and power of God after so rich an experience of his aid? If for no other reason than the confidence it inspires, an occasional deliberate review of what great things God has done for us is very desirable. Doubt and fear spring from too much attention to ourselves. Security lies in the covenant of God, and not in our own powers, and a remembrance of actual help received is a reading afresh of the many Divine ratifications of the covenant. The din and hurry of daily life are adverse to reflective habits. It is well to make positive efforts at certain stages of life to resist the hindrances to reflection, and allow to pass before the mind the varied instances in which God has rescued us from impending ruin, both temporal and spiritual.
VII A RATIONAL BASIS FOR PRAISE IS LAID IN A CONSIDERATION OF GOD"S GREAT DELIVERANCES. It is not without solid reason that David says, "I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised." There are manifold reasons why praise should be rendered to God, but here the basis in view is that found by a consideration of the various acts of mercy he has shown. David"s deliverance from Saul, from the treachery of Doeg and Ahithophel, from the sorrows and shame of the banishment from throne and city, and from the more fearful woes of backsliding, were indeed events never to be forgotten. They meant to him life, joy, honour, instead of death and disgrace. All that is valuable in life, in distinction, in personal holiness, and victory over spiritual evil, appealed to his generous nature to acknowledge in thankful form the great things which God had done. It is the wont of some agnostic writers to represent the requirement of praise to God as essentially immoral as a low representation of God as selfishly egotistic. It might be enough to say that agnostics have no right to speak of essential morality, since on their principles there can be no such thing. But apart from that, it overlooks the real teaching of Scripture and the natural action of human hearts. Men are not condemned for not praising God, but for being lovers of sin in thought, feeling, and deed. Their condition necessarily involves a condemnation, as surely as an anarchical state involves, by its condition, its own destruction. Their not rendering acknowledgments to God for his mercies is only a symptom of the real evil, and not the actual cause of condemnation. A heart true to generous and pure instincts will always admire power blended with goodness, and be thankful for good placed within reach by that beneficent power. "Praise is comely.
VIII THE DELIVERANCES WROUGHT FOR US BY GOD ARE ONLY PRELIMINARY BLESSINGS. All through these verses David speaks of deliverance, of being saved from certain evils, and God as a Deliverer, a Saviour. This, of course, is a negative good; it is doing something that he may not die, and not be lost. But it is only a superficial view to say that this was all that David was thinking of His present position as honoured king, ruling over a united nation, and blessed with a moral elevation superior to any other man then living, is the counterfoil to this negative aspect. There was no need to say in words what he now was. His life tells that side of the record of God"s mercy and power. He refers to the deliverances as blessings preliminary to his positive elevation to honour and distinction. Being delivered from the hand of Saul, he was made king in succession; being saved from the banishment consequent on Absalom"s rebellion, of course he was positively restored; being rescued from the sin of backsliding, of course he was reinstated in the Divine favour and holiness of life. This is the correct and New Testament view of the great deliverance, or salvation, wrought for us by Christ. We are delivered from the curse and guilt of sin; but that is the negative good, preliminary, necessary to the implied positive elevation to sonship and eternal holiness. He saves from condemnation, but does not leave us as merely liberated souls. He gives us therewith "power to become the sons of God." He makes us "kings and priests unto God." The positive aspect of salvation means elevation, progress, conformity of nature to the Divine will.
HOMILIES BY B. DALE. Vers. 1-51. (JERUSALEM.) (Ps 18)
David"s song of praise.
David spake unto Jehovah the words of this song," etc. (ver. 1). It is a song of:
1. The anointed (messiah) of the Lord, his king (ver. 51), his servant (Psalm 18., inscription). Like Moses and Joshua, David held a peculiar and exalted position in the kingdom of God under the Old Testament. He was "a man unlike Saul of God"s own choosing", (1Sa_13:14 1Sa 16:28) to fill the office of theocratic king, and to fulfil his purposes concerning Israel and the world; he was also specially fitted for his vocation, faithfully devoted to it, and greatly blessed in it. And in the consciousness of this he here speaks.
2. Praise to the Lord, on the ground of his perfections, his relations, his benefits; prompted by the desire to render to him the honour which is his. (1Sa_2:1-10) "To praise God means nothing else than to ascribe to him the glorious perfections which he possesses; for we can only give to him what is his own" (Hengstenberg). And, more especially, of:
3. Thanksgiving for past deliverance, from imminent perils, to which, as the servant of God, he was exposed through the hatred and opposition of his enemies. Of these Saul was the most formidable; and, after becoming King of Israel, David was attacked by numerous heathen nations, both separately and in combination. (2Sa_5:17 2Sa_8:10) It was probably when "the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies", (2Sa_7:1) and after the promise of an everlasting kingdom, (2Sa_7:12-16) that the song was uttered; though by some it is regarded as "a great hallelujah, with which he retired from the theatre of life.
obtained many and signal victories, he does not, as irreligious men are accustomed to do, sing a song of triumph in honour of himself, but exalts and magnifies God, the Author of these victories, by a train of striking and appropriate epithets, and in a style of surpassing grandeur and sublimity" (Calvin).
4. Confidence in future triumph over all the enemies of the kingdom of God; of which the success already attained is an assurance. God is praised, not only for what he is and has been to him, but also for what he will be to "David and his seed forever (ver. 51). Of this song, consider
I ITS SUBSTANCE; or, the reasons for praise.
1. The personal and intimate relationship of Jehovah to his servant (vers. 2-4).
Jehovah is my Rock, and my Fortress. and my, yea, my Deliverer, My Rock God, in whom I trust," etc. (Vers. 2, 3.)
(1) He stands in a peculiar relation (beyond that which he bears to all men) to those to whom he reveals his Name, whom he takes into his fellowship, and to whom he promises to be "their God." These things make it possible to say, "my God," and (along with his gracious acts) incite the personal and ardent affection expressed at the commencement of Psalm 18. (a liturgical variation of the song), "Fervently do I love thee, O Jehovah my Strength," etc.
(2) Nature, history, and experience furnish manifold emblems of his excellences, and of the blessings which he bestows on those who trust in 1Sa_2:2. (Deu_32:4; Gen_15:1) These images were suggested by the physical aspect of Palestine, and by the perilous condition and special deliverances of David in his early life, as a fugitive and a soldier, beset by many foes.
(3) He is all-sufficient for the needs of his people, however numerous and great, for their rescue, defence, permanent security, and complete salvation.
As worthy to be praised, do I call on Jehovah, And (whenever I call) I am saved from mine enemies.
"Faith knows no past and no future. What God has done and will do is present to it.
2. His marvellous deliverance. (Vers. 5-20.) In a single comprehensive picture David describes the many dangers that encompassed him during his persecution by Saul, and the many providential interpositions (1Sa_23:24-28) that were made on his behalf.
(1) Even those whom God loves (ver. 20) are sometimes "greatly afflicted." and reduced to the utmost extremity. (1Sa_30:1-10)
For breakers of death surrounded me, Streams of Belial terrified me; Cords of Sheol girt me about, Snares of death overtook me. (Vers. 5, 6.)
(2) Their extreme need impels them to rely upon God all the more entirely, and to call upon him all the more fervently; nor do they call in vain. "In my distress I called" etc. (ver. 7), "and he heard my voice (instantly) out of his (heavenly) temple.
(3) Very wonderful is the answer of God to their cry, in the discomfiture of their adversaries and their complete deliverance. "The means by which this deliverance was achieved were, as far as we know, those which we see in the Books of Samuel the turns and chances of providence, his own extraordinary activity, the faithfulness of his followers, the unexpected increase of his friends. But the act of deliverance itself is described in the language which belongs to the descent upon Mount Sinai or the passage of the Red Sea" (Stanley). The unseen and eternal King was moved wish wrath, at which the whole creation trembled (vers. 8, 9); he approached in the gathering thunderclouds, and upon the wings of the wind, armed as "a man of war", (Exo_15:3) and preceded by his arrows of lightning (vers. 10-13); then, in the full outburst of the tempest, with the thunder of his power, "hailstones and coals of fire," he scattered the enemy, and disclosed the depths from which the cry for help arose (vers. 14-16); finally, with distinguishing, condescending, and tender care (ver. 36)
He reached from above, he laid hold of me, He drew me out of great waters," etc. (Vers. 17-20.)
"It is true that the deliverance of David was not actually attended by any such extraordinary natural phenomena; but the saving hand of God from heaven was so obviously manifested that the deliverance experienced by him could be poetically described as a miraculous interposition on the part of God" (Keil).
3. His righteous procedure. (Vers. 21-28.) "He delivered me because he delighted in me" (ver. 20). He acted toward David in accordance with his gracious choice of him to be his servant, and delivered him because he was "well pleased" with his faithful service; the ground of this deliverance being now stated more fully
Jehovah rendered me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me," etc.
This language. (comp. 1Sa_26:13-25) neither implies entire freedom from sin nor indicates a boastful spirit, but is expressive of sincerity, integrity, fidelity; in contrast with the calumnies and wickedness of enemies, in fulfilment of a Divine call, in obedience to the Divine will generally, and in the main course of life, as:
(1) An expression and justification of the ways of God in a particular instance.
(2) An illustration of the law of his dealings with men (vers. 26, 27). "The truth which is here enunciated is not that the conception which man forms of God is the reflected image of his own mind and heart, but that God"s conduct to man is the reflection of the relation in which man has placed himself to God" (1Sa_2:30 1Sa_15:23) (Delitzsch). "Jehovah is righteous; he loveth righteousness". (Psa_11:7) This is a most worthy reason for praise.
(3) An admonition and encouragement; "with the design of inspiring others with zeal for the fulfilment of the Law.
And oppressed people thou savest; And thine eyes are against the haughty: them thou humblest.
4. His continued and effectual help. (Vers. 29-46.) The righteousness and faithfulness of God are further confirmed by the experience of David (after his deliverance from the hand of Saul) in his wars with the external enemies of the kingdom.
(1) Having rescued his servant from destruction, he calls him to active conflict with surrounding enemies (vers. 29-32). In the former part of the song, David is represented as a passive object of his aid; in the latter, as an active instrument for effecting his purposes.
(2) He prepares him for the conflict, and strengthens him in it (vers. 3337).
(3) He enables him to overcome his enemies and utterly destroy their power (vers. 38-43).
(4) He extends and establishes his royal dominion, making him to be "head of the heathen" (vers. 44-46). Herein the Messianic element of the song specially appears. Not, indeed, that "it is a hymn of victory, spoken not in the person of the prophet himself, David, but in the Person of his illustrious Son and Lord" (J. Brown, "The Sufferings and Glories of the Messiah"); nor that there is here a direct and conscious prediction of the future Christ; but that the assured triumph of "David and his seed" aver the nations, the extension of the theocratic kingdom, prefigured the more glorious victories of "the King Messiah." "David"s history, from first to last, was a kind of acted parable of the sufferings and glory of Christ" (Binnie). "Prophecy reveals to us the foreknowledge of God; but typical institutions reveal, not only his foreknowledge, but his providential arrangements. The facts of history become the language of prophecy, and teach us that he with whom a thousand years are but as yesterday guides the operations of distant ages with reference to each other; and thus in a typical economy we trace not only the all-beholding eye, but the all-directing hand of the Deity; not only the Divine omniscience, but the Divine omnipotence. The foretold and minute resemblance between characters and transactions, separated from each other by an interval of a thousand years, is too striking an argument of the hand of God to be controverted or explained away" (Thompson, "Davidica"). The kingdom of Christ, nevertheless, is of a higher nature, and established by other means, than the theocratic kingdom of David. "This was the foundation of that resplendent image of the Messiah which it required the greatest of all religions changes to move from the mind of the Jewish nation, in order to raise up instead of it the still more exalted idea which was to take its place an anointed Sovereign conquering by other arts than those of war, and in other dominions than those of earthly empire" (Stanley). "Thus all David"s hopes and all his joy terminate, as ours always should, in the great Redeemer" (Matthew Henry).
II ITS SPIRIT; as it appears throughout the song, and particularly in its conclusion
Living is Jehovah, and blessed is my Rock; Exalted is the Rock God of my salvation," etc. (Vers. 47-51.)
1. Personal, appropriating faith. "Faith it is which gives its peculiar grandeur to David"s song of triumph; his masterpiece, and it may be the masterpiece of human poetry, inspired or uninspired, What is the element in that ode, which even now makes it stir the heart like a trumpet? What protects such words (vers. 7-17) from the imputation of mere Eastern exaggeration? The firm conviction that God is the Deliverer, not only of David, but of all who trust in him; that the whole majesty of God, and all the powers of nature, are arrayed on the side of the good and the opprest" (C. Kingsley, "David: Four Sermons").
1. Heartfelt delight in God.
2. Fervent gratitude.
3. Unreserved consecration to his service, his honour, his glory.
Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Jehovah, among the heathen; And sing praises unto thy Name. (Vers. 50, 51.)
(See on this song, Chandler, Maclaren, W.M. Taylor, and commentaries on Ps 18) "David, King of Judah, a soul inspired by Divine music and much other heroism, was wont to pour himself forth in song; he with a seer"s eye and heart discerned the Godlike among the human! struck tones that were an echo of the sphere harmonies, and are still felt to be such. Reader, art thou one of a thousand, able still to read the psalms of David, and catch some echo of it through the old dim centuries; feeling far off in thine own heart what it once was to other hearts made as thine?" (Carlyle, "Miscellaneous Essays"). D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 10, 17, 26, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 45, 47, 48, 49 David spake unto the Lord the word of this…
2Sa_22:1-51
David spake unto the Lord the word of this song.
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The song of thanksgiving
Some of Davids actions are very characteristic of himself; there are other actions quite out of harmony with his character. This psalm of thanksgiving belongs to the former order. It is quite like David, at the conclusion of his military enterprises, to cast his eye gratefully over the whole, and acknowledge the goodness and mercy that had followed him all along. The date of this song is not to be determined by the place which it occupies in the history. It is likely that this psalm was written considerably before the end of Davids reign. Two considerations make it all but certain that its date is earlier than Absaloms rebellion. In the first place, the mention of the name of Saul in the first verse would seem to imply that the deliverance from Saul was somewhat recent, certainly not so remote as it would have been at the end of Davids reign. And secondly, while the affirmation of Davids sincerity and honesty in serving God might doubtless have been made at any period of his life, yet some of his expressions would not have been likely to be used after his deplorable fall.
I. The leading thought of the song, an adoring acknowledgment of what God had been and was to David (2Sa_22:2-4.)
1. The feeling that recognised God as the Author of all his deliverances was intensely strong, for every expression that can denote it is heaped together: My rock, my portion, my deliverer; the God of my rock, my shield; the horn of my salvation, my high tower, my refuge, my Saviour. He takes no credit to himself; he gives no glory to his captains; the glory is all the Lords. He sees God so supremely the Author of his deliverance that the human instruments that helped him are for the moment quite out of view. He who, in the depths of his penitence, sees but one supremely injured Being,. and says, Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, at the height of his prosperity sees but one gracious Being, and adores Him, who only is his rock and his salvation. In an ago when all the stress is apt to be laid on the human instruments, and God left out of view, this habit of mind is instructive and refreshing. It was a touching incident in English history when, after the battle of Agincourt, Henry V. of England directed the hundred and fifteenth Psalm to be sung; prostrating himself on the ground, and causing his whole army to do the same, when the words were sounded out, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give glory.
2. The emphatic use of the pronoun my by the Psalmist is very instructive. It is so easy to speak in general terms of what God is, and what God does; but it is quite another thing to be able to appropriate Him as ours, and rejoice in that relation. The use of the my indicates a personal transaction, a covenant relation into which the parties have solemnly entered.
3. One other point has to be noticed in this introduction--when David comes to express his dependence on God, he very specially sets Him before his mind as worthy to be praised.
II. Trials and Gods deliverance in his times of danger (2Sa_22:5-20.) That description is eminently poetical. First, there is a vivid picture of his troubles. The waves of death compassed me, and the floods vi ungodly men made me afraid; the sorrows of hell compassed me; the snares of death prevented me. (The cords of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid; the cords of sheol were round about me; the snares of death came upon me, R.V.) It is no overcharged picture. With Sauls javelins flying at his head in the palace, or his best troops scouring the wilderness in search of him; with Syrian hosts bearing down on him like the waves of the sea, and a confederacy of nations conspiring to swallow him up, he might well speak of the waves Of death and the cords of Hades. Then, after a brief account of his calling upon God, comes a most animated description of God coming to his help. The description is ideal, but it gives a vivid view how the Divine energy is roused when any of Gods children are in distress. Faith saw God bestirring Himself for his deliverance, as if every agency of nature had been set in motion on his behalf. And this being done, his deliverance was conspicuous and corn-plebe. He saw Gods hand stretched out with remarkable distinctness. And what a blessed thing to have accumulated through life a store of such providences--to have Ebenezers reared along the whole line of ones history!
III. The grounds on which the Divine protection was thus enjoyed by David. Substantially these grounds were the uprightness and faithfulness with which he had served God. The expressions are strong, and at first sight they have a flavour of self-righteousness. The Lord rewarded me according to my self-righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. But it is impossible to read this Psalm without feeling that it is not pervaded by the spirit of the self-righteous man. It is pervaded by a profound sense of dependence on God, and of obligation to His mercy and love. Now that is the very opposite of the self-righteous spirit. What he here celebrates is not any personal righteousness that might enable him as an individual to claim the favour and reward of God, but the ground on which he, as the public champion of Gods cause before the world, enjoyed Gods countenance and obtained His protection. There would be no self-righteousness in an inferior officer of the navy or the army who had been sent on some expedition, saying, I obeyed your instructions in every particular; I never deviated from the course you prescribed.
IV. His providential mercies, for which he specially praises God. One of the earliest appears to be recalled in the words, By my God have I leaped over a wall the wall, it may be supposed, of Gibeah, down which Michal let him when Saul sent to take him in his house. Still further back: perhaps, in his life is the allusion in another expression--Thy gentleness hath made me great. He seems to go back to his shepherd life, and in the gentleness with which he dealt with the feeble lamb that might have perished in rougher hands, to find an emblem of Gods method with himself. If God had not, dealt gently with him, he never would have become what he was. But what? Can David praise Gods gentleness and in the next words utter such terrible words against his foes? How can he extol Gods gentleness to him and immediately dwell on his tremendous severity to them? We cannot but regard it as the spirit of one who was imperfectly enlightened. We rejoice in the Christian spirit that teaches us to regard even public enemies as our brothers, for whom individually kindly and brotherly feelings are to be cherished. In the closing verses of the Psalm, the views of the Psalmist seem to sweep beyond the limits of an earthly kingdom. His eye seems to embrace the wide-spreading dominion of Messiah; at all events, he dwells on those features of his own kingdom that were typical of the all-embracing kingdom of the Gospel. It is beyond doubt, says Luther, that the wars and victories of David prefigured the passion and resurrection of Christ. At the same time, he admits that it is very doubtful how far the Psalm applies to Christ, anal how far to David,. and he declines to press the type to particulars. But we may surely apply the concluding words to Davids son: He showeth loving-kindness to his anointed, to David and to his seed for evermore. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Psalm singing
Would you know? asks William Law, in his beautiful chapter on singing psalms--would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? Well, it is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives most alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, and who receives everything as an instance of Gods goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for His goodness. And then Law winds up with this, and I wish it would send you all to the golden works of that grace-laden writer: Sometimes, he adds, imagine to yourselves that you saw holy David with his hands upon his harp, and his eyes fixed upon heaven, calling in transport upon all creation, sun and moon, light and darkness, day and night, men and angels, to join with his rapturous soul in praising the Lord of heaven. Dwell upon this imagination till you think you are singing with this Divine musician; and let such a companion teach you to exalt your heart unto God every new morning in his thanksgiving psalms. Or make a morning psalm suitable to your own circumstance out of Davids great thanksgiving psalms. You should take the finest and the selectest parts of Davids finest and selectest psalms, and adding them together make them every morning more and more fit to express your own thankful hearts. (A. Whyte, D. D.)
Abundant cause for thanksgiving
Max ORell has well and wittily said that people are divided into two classes--those who complain that roses have thorns and those who rejoice that thorns have roses. We know to which class we ought to belong. Let us make most of our mercies. God is a great God, and His gifts are like Himself, and more than can be numbered. The Rev. Mark Guy Pearse tells us that, when going home from a meeting once on a starlit night, and wishing to have a little quiet to think, he gave his little girl, who was with him, the task of counting the stars, knowing this would be a task long enough until they reached home, and longer. He heard her count into the third hundred, then she stopped, and he heard her say, Dear me! I never thought they were so many! And so, he said--and we can say it with him--when I begin to count my mercies and the kindnesses of my God, I am surprised, and have to say I never thought they were so many until I began to count them. (Christian Endeavour Times.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER X X X.
THE SONG OF THANKSGIVING.
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2Sa_22:1-51.
SOME of David's actions are very characteristic of himself; there are other actions quite out of harmony with his character. This psalm of thanksgiving belongs to the former order. It is quite like David; at the conclusion of his military enterprises, to cast his eye gratefully over the whole, and acknowledge the goodness and mercy that had followed him all along. Unlike many, he was as careful to thank God for mercies past and present as to entreat Him for mercies to come. The whole Book of Psalms resounds with halleluiahs, especially the closing part. In the song before us we have something like a grand halleluiah, in which thanks are given for all the deliverances and mercies of the past, and unbounded confidence expressed in God's mercy and goodness for the time to come.
The date of this song is not to be determined by the place which it occupies in the history. We have already seen that the last few chapters of Samuel consist of supplementary narratives, not introduced at their regular places, but needful to give completeness to the history. It is likely that this psalm was written considerably before the end of David's reign. Two considerations make it all but certain that its date is earlier than Absalom's rebellion. In the first place, the mention of the name of Saul in the first verse - "in the day when God delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul" - would seem to imply that the deliverance from Saul was somewhat recent, certainly not so remote as it would have been at the end of David's reign. And secondly, while the affirmation of David's sincerity and honesty in serving God might doubtless have been made at any period of his life, yet some of his expressions would not have been likely to be used after his deplorable fall. It is not likely that after that, he would have spoken, for example, of the cleanness of his hands, stained as they had been by wickedness that could hardly have been surpassed. On the whole, it seems most likely that the psalm was written about the time referred to in 2Sa_7:1 - ''when the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies round about." This was the time when it was in his heart to build the temple, and we know from that and other circumstances that he was then in a state of overflowing thankfulness.
Besides the introduction, the song consists of three leading parts not very definitely separated from each other, but sufficiently marked to form a convenient division, as follows:
I. Introduction: the leading thought of the song, an adoring acknowledgment of what God had been and was to David (2Sa_22:2-4).
II. A narrative of the Divine interpositions on his behalf, embracing his dangers, his prayers, and the Divine deliverances in reply (2Sa_22:5-19).
III. The grounds of his protection and success (2Sa_22:20-30).
IV. References to particular acts of God's goodness in various parts of his life, interspersed with reflections on the Divine character, from all which the assurance is drawn that that goodness would be continued to him and his successors, and would secure through coming ages the welfare and extension of the kingdom. And here we observe what is so common in the Psalms: a gradual rising above the idea of a mere earthly kingdom; the type passes into the antitype; the kingdom of David melts, as in a dissolving view, into the kingdom of the Messiah; thus a more elevated tone is given to the song, and the assurance is conveyed to every believer that as God protected David and his kingdom, so shall He protect and glorify the kingdom of His Son forever.
I. In the burst of adoring gratitude with which the psalm opens as its leading thought, we mark David's recognition of Jehovah as the source of all the protection, deliverance, and success he had ever enjoyed, along with a special assertion of closest relationship to Him, in the frequent use of the word ''my," and a very ardent acknowledgment of the claim to his gratitude thus arising - "God, who is worthy to be praised."
The feeling that recognized God as the Author of all his deliverances was intensely strong, for every expression that can denote it is heaped together: "My rock, my portion, my deliverer; the God of my rock, my shield; the horn of my salvation, my high tower, my refuge, my Saviour." He takes no credit to himself; he gives no glory to his captains; the glory is all the Lord's. He sees God so supremely the Author of his deliverance that the human instruments that helped him are for the moment quite out of view. He who, in the depths of his penitence, sees but one supremely injured Being, and says, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned," at the height of his prosperity sees but one gracious Being, and adores Him, who only is his rock and his salvation. In an age when all the stress is apt to be laid on the human instruments, and God left out of view, this habit of mind is instructive and refreshing. It was a touching incident in English history when, after the battle of Agincourt, Henry V. of England directed the hundred and fifteenth Psalm to be sung; prostrating himself on the ground, and causing his whole army to do the same, when the words were sounded out, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give glory."
The emphatic use of the pronoun "my" by the Psalmist is very instructive. It is so easy to speak in general terms of what God is, and what God does; but it is quite another thing to be able to appropriate Him as ours, and rejoice in that relation. Luther said of the twenty-third Psalm that the word '"my" in the first verse was the very hinge of the whole. There is a whole world of difference between the two expressions, "The Lord is a Shepherd" and "The Lord is my Shepherd." The use of the "my" indicates a personal transaction, a covenant relation into which the parties have solemnly entered. No man is entitled to use this expression who has merely a reverential feeling towards God, and respect for His will. You must have come to God as a sinner, owning and feeling your unworthiness, and casting yourself on His grace. You must have transacted with God in the spirit of His exhortation, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will be a Father unto you; and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."
One other point has to be noticed in this introduction - when David comes to express his dependence on God, he very specially sets Him before his mind as "worthy to be praised." He calls to mind the gracious character of God, - not an austere God, reaping where He has not sown, and gathering where He has not strawed, but ''the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." ''This doctrine," says Luther, "is in tribulation the most ennobling and truly golden. One cannot imagine what assistance such praise of God is in pressing danger. For as soon as you begin to praise God the sense of the evil will also begin to abate, the comfort of your heart will grow; and then God will be called on with confidence. There are some who cry to the Lord and are not heard. Why is this? Because they do not praise the Lord when they cry to Him, but go to Him with reluctance; they have not represented to themselves how sweet the Lord is, but have looked only to their own bitterness. But no one gets deliverance from evil by looking simply upon his evil and becoming alarmed at it; he can get deliverance only by rising above his evil, hanging it on God, and having respect to His goodness. Oh, hard counsel, doubtless, and a rare thing truly, in the midst of trouble to conceive of God as sweet, and worthy to be praised; and when He has removed Himself from us and is incomprehensible, even then to regard Him more intensely than we regard our misfortune that keeps us from Him I Only let one try it, and make the endeavour to praise God, though in little heart for it he will soon experience an enlightenment."
II. We pass on to the part of the song where the Psalmist describes his trials and God's deliverances in his times of danger (2Sa_22:5-20).
The description is eminently poetical. First, there is a vivid picture of his troubles. "The waves of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; the sorrows of hell compassed me; the snares of death prevented me" ("The cords of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid; the cords of sheol were round about me; the snares of death came upon me," R.V.). It is no overcharged picture. With Saul's javelins flying at his head in the palace, or his best troops scouring the wilderness in search of him; with Syrian hosts bearing down on him like the waves of the sea, and a confederacy of nations conspiring to swallow him up, he might well speak of the waves of death and the cords of Hades. He evidently desires to describe the extremist peril and distress that can be conceived, a situation where the help of man is vain indeed. Then, after a brief account of his calling upon God, comes a most animated description of God coming to his help. The description is ideal, but it gives a vivid view how the Divine energy is roused when any of God's children are in distress. It is in heaven as in an earthly home when an alarm is given that one of the little children is in danger, has wandered away into a thicket where he has lost his way: every servant is summoned, every passer-by is called to the rescue, the whole neighbourhood is roused to the most strenuous efforts; so when the cry reached heaven that David was in trouble, the earthquake and the lightning and all the other messengers of heaven were sent out to his aid; nay, these were not enough; God Himself flew, riding on a cherub, yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind. Faith saw God bestirring Himself for his deliverance, as if every agency of nature had been set in motion on his behalf.
And this being done, his deliverance was conspicuous and complete. He saw God's hand stretched out with remarkable distinctness. There could be no more doubt that it was God that rescued him from Saul than that it was He that snatched Israel from Pharaoh when literally " the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils." There could be no more doubt that it was God who protected David when men rose to swallow him up than that it was He who drew Moses from the Nile - ''He sent from above, He took me. He drew me out of many waters." No miracles had been wrought on David's behalf; unlike Moses and Joshua before him, and unlike Elijah and Elisha after him, he had not had the laws of nature suspended for his protection; yet he could see the hand of God stretched out for him as clearly as if a miracle had been wrought at every turn. Does this not show that ordinary Christians, if they are but careful to watch, and humble enough to watch in a chastened spirit, may find in their history, however quietly it may have glided by, many a token of the interest and care of their Father in heaven? And what a blessed thing to have accumulated through life a store of such providences - to have Ebenezers reared along the whole line of one's history! What courage after looking over such a past might one feel in looking forward to the future!
III. The next section of the song sets forth the grounds on which the Divine protection was thus enjoyed by David. Substantially these grounds were the uprightness and faithfulness with which he had served God. The expressions are strong, and at first sight they have a flavour of self-righteousness. "The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His judgments were before me, and I put not away His statutes from me. I was also perfect with Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity." But it is impossible to read this Psalm without feeling that it is not pervaded by the spirit of the self-righteous man. It is pervaded by a profound sense of dependence on God, and of obligation to His mercy and love. Now that is the very opposite of the self-righteous spirit. We may surely find another way of accounting for such expressions used by David here. We may surely believe that all that was meant by him was to express the unswerving sincerity and earnestness with which he had endeavoured to serve God, with which he had resisted every temptation to conscious unfaithfulness, with which he had resisted every allurement to idolatry on the one hand or to the neglect of the welfare of God's nation on the other. What he here celebrates is, not any personal righteousness that might enable him as an individual to claim the favour and reward of God, but the ground on which he, as the public champion of God's cause before the world, enjoyed God's countenance and obtained His protection. There would be no self-righteousness in an inferior officer of the navy or the army who had been sent on some expedition saying, "I obeyed your instructions in every particular; I never deviated from the course you prescribed." There would have been no self-righteousness in such a man as Luther saying, "I constantly maintained the principles of the Bible; I never once abandoned Protestant ground." Such affirmations would never be held to imply a claim of personal sinlessness during the whole course of their lives. Substantially all that is asserted is, that in their public capacity they proved faithful to the cause entrusted to them; they never consciously betrayed their public charge. Now it is this precisely that David affirms of himself. Unlike Saul, who abandoned the law of the kingdom, David uniformly endeavoured to carry it into effect. The success which followed he does not claim as any credit to himself, but as due to his having followed the instructions of his heavenly Lord. It is the very opposite of a self-righteous spirit. He would have us understand that if ever he had abandoned the guidance of God, if ever he had relied on his own wisdom and followed the counsels of his own heart, everything would have gone wrong with him; the fact that he had been successful was due altogether to the Divine wisdom that guided and the Divine strength that upheld him.
Even with this explanation, some of the expressions may seem too strong. How could he speak of the cleanness of his hands, and of his not having wickedly departed from his God? Granting that the song was written before his sin in the case of Uriah, yet remembering how he had lied at Nob and equivocated at Gath, might he not have used less sweeping words? But it is not the way of burning, enthusiastic minds to be forever weighing their words, and guarding against misunderstandings. Enthusiasm sweeps along in a rapid current. And David correctly describes the prevailing features of his public endeavours. His public life was unquestionably marked by a sincere and commonly successful endeavour to follow the will of God. In contrast with Saul and Ishbosheth, side by side with Absalom or Sheba, his career was purity itself, and bore out the rule of the Divine government, "With the merciful Thou wilt show Thyself merciful, and with the upright man Thou wilt show Thyself upright. With the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure, and with the froward Thou wilt show Thyself unsavoury." If God is to prosper us, there must be an inner harmony between us and Him. If the habit of our life be opposed to God, the result can only be collision and rebuke. David was conscious of the inner harmony, and therefore he was able to rely on being supported and blessed.
IV. In the wide survey of his life and of his providential mercies, the eye of the Psalmist is particularly fixed on some of his deliverances, in the remembrance of which he specially praises God. One of the earliest appears to be recalled in the words, "By my God have I leaped over a wall," - the wall, it may be supposed, of Gibeah, down which Michal let him when Saul sent to take him in his house. Still further back, perhaps, in his life is the allusion in another expression - "Thy gentleness hath made me great" He seems to go back to his shepherd life, and in the gentleness with which he dealt with the feeble lamb that might have perished in rougher hands to find an emblem of God's method with himself. If God had not dealt gently with him, he never would have become what he was. The Divine gentleness had made paths easy that rougher treatment would have made intolerable. And who of us that looks back but must own our obligations to the gentleness of God, the tender, forbearing, nay loving, treatment He has bestowed on us, even in the midst of provocations that would have justified far harsher treatment?
But what? Can David praise Gods gentleness and in the next words utter such terrible words against his foes? How can he extol God's gentleness to him and immediately dwell on his tremendous severity to them? "I have consumed them and wounded them that they could not arise; yea, they are fallen under my feet. . . . Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad." It is the military spirit which we have so often observed, looking on his enemies in one light only, as identified with everything evil and enemies of all that was good. To show mercy to them would be like showing mercy to destructive wild beasts, raging bears, venomous serpents, and rapacious vultures. Mercy to them would be cruelty to all God's servants; it would be ruin to God's cause. No! for them the only fit doom was destruction, and that destruction he had dealt to them with no unsparing hand.
But while we perceive his spirit, and harmonize it with his general character, we cannot but regard it as the spirit of one who was imperfectly enlightened. We tremble when we think what fearful wickedness persecutors and inquisitors have committed, under the idea that the same course was to be followed against those whom they deemed enemies of the cause of God. We rejoice in the Christian spirit that teaches us to regard even public enemies as our brothers, for whom individually kindly and brotherly feelings are to be cherished. And we remember the new aspect in which our relations to such have been placed by our Lord: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you."
In the closing verses of the Psalm, the views of the Psalmist seem to sweep beyond the limits of an earthly kingdom. His eye seems to embrace the wide-spreading dominion of Messiah; at all events, he dwells on those features of his own kingdom that were typical of the all-embracing kingdom of the Gospel: "Thou hast made me the head of the nations; a people whom I have not known shall serve me. As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me; the strangers shall submit themselves unto me." The forty-ninth verse is quoted by St. Paul (Rom_15:9) as a proof that in the purpose of God the salvation of Christ was designed for Gentiles as well as Jews. "It is beyond doubt," says Luther, "that the wars and victories of David prefigured the passion and resurrection of Christ." At the same time, he admits that it is very doubtful how far the Psalm applies to Christ, and how far to David, and he declines to press the type to particulars. But we may surely apply the concluding words to David's Son: "He showeth loving-kindness to his anointed, to David and to his seed for evermore."
It is interesting to mark the military aspect of the kingdom gliding into the missionary. Other psalms bring out more clearly this missionary element, exhibit David rejoicing in the widening limits of his kingdom, in the wider diffusion of the knowledge of the true God, and in the greater happiness and prosperity accruing to men. And yet, perhaps, his views on the subject were comparatively dim; he may have been disposed to identify the conquests of the sword and the conquests of the truth instead of regarding the one as but typical of the other. The visions and revelations of his later years seem to have thrown new light on this glorious subject, and though not immediately, yet ultimately, to have convinced him that truth, righteousness, and meekness were to be the conquering weapons of Messiah's reign.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 20, 29, 41, 47 2Sa_22:1. This Psalm, with a few unimportant variations, is…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES
2Sa_22:1. This Psalm, with a few unimportant variations, is identical with the eighteenth in the Psalter. Wordsworth suggests that the modifications which there appear, where the title has “to the chief musician,” may be accounted for from the circumstance that in the present chapter the song appears as used by David for his own private devotions; and in the Psalms 18, it exhibits the form in which he delivered it for the general liturgical use of the Hebrew Church. The genuineness of the Psalm is acknowledged by all critics, except Olshausen and Hupfield, but there is a difference of opinion as to the time when it was composed. Keil thinks it belongs to David’s later years. The “Biblical Commentary” refers it “to the early part of David’s reign, when he was recently established upon the throne;” and Erdmann says “the time of composition (the reference in 2Sa_22:51 to 2 Samuel 7 being unmistakeable) cannot be before the date when David, on the ground of the promise given him through Nathan, could be sure that his dominion, despite all opposition, was immovable, and that the throne of Israel would remain for ever with his house. The words of the title agree with the description of victories in 2Sa_22:29-46, and point to a time when David had established his kingdom by war, and forced heathen princes to do homage (comp. 2Sa_22:44-49). But as God’s victorious help against external enemies is celebrated in the second part of the song, and the joyous tone of exultation shows that David’s heart is taken up with the gloriousness of that help, it is a fair assumption that the song was written not after the toil of Absalom’s conspiracy and the succeeding events, but immediately after the victorious wars narrated in chaps. 8 and
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10.” “Spake unto the Lord,” etc. “These expressions are borrowed from Exo_15:1, and Deu_31:30. This is the more observable because the Psalm contains obvious allusions to the song of Moses in Deuteronomy.” (Alexander). “The hand of Saul.” “Not because Saul was the last of his enemies, but rather because he was first, both in power and importance.” (Alexander). “The poet’s imagination, in its contemplation of the two principal periods of war, moves backwards, presenting first the external wars, which were the nearest, and then the internal, with Saul and his house.” (Erdmann.)
2Sa_22:2. “My rock” Sela, my rock-cleft, a place for refuge; not the same word as that used in 2Sa_22:3. “First and frequently used by David, who had often found refuge on a sela in his persecution; indeed, it is only once used by any other writer (Isa_32:2) in the Old Testament, in a figurative sense, and there the metaphor is derived from the shadow and not from the height of the rock.” (Wordsworth.) “My deliverer.” “The explanation of the foregoing figures. Whilst David took refuge in rocks, he placed his hope of safety not in their naccessible character, but in God the Lord.” (Keil).
2Sa_22:3. “God of my rock.” Rather my rock-God. The word here rendered rock (tsur) indicates what is solid and immovable. “Horn.” “A term borrowed from animals which have their strength and defensive weapons in their horns.” (Kiel and others). “Not only a protection against attack (as a shield), but also a weapon of attack.” (Erdmann).
2Sa_22:4. “I will call.” “Shall be saved.” Not to be taken as future, but as “indefinite as to time, the English general present.” (Trans. of Lange’s Commentary). “Worthy to be praised.” Rather the praised one.
2Sa_22:6. “Hell.” Sheol, the under world, the place of departed spirits. “In the wide old English sense, a poetical equivalent to death.” (Alexander.) Prevented, rather encountered.
2Sa_22:7. Temple. Better, palace, “for Jehovah is here represented as a King enthroned in heaven.” (Erdmann.) The Hebrew word means both.
2Sa_22:8. “The earth shook,” etc. A few writers understand the following as a description of a real storm, and refer it to a battle with the Syrians when a storm occurred (2Sa_7:5), but most agree with Kiel that it is a poetical description of David’s deliverance which “had its type in the miraculous phenomenon which accompanied the descent of God upon Sinai, and which suggested, as in Jdg_5:4-5, the idea of a terrible storm that the saving hand of God from heaven was so obviously manifested, that the deliverance experienced by him could be poetically described as a miraculous interposition on the part of God.”
2Sa_22:9. “Smoke,” etc. The figurative idea is that of snorting or violent breathing, which indicates the rising of wrath.” (Keil and others.) Tholuck sees in the picture thus far an image “to be referred to the rising of the storm-cloud, and the flashes of sheet-lightning which announces the storm.”
2Sa_22:10. “Bowed the heavens.” A picture of the low hanging storm-clouds, at whose approach the heaven seems to bend down to the earth.” (Erdmann.) “Came down.” “The scene here seems to be transferred from heaven to earth, where the Psalmist sees not only the Divine operation, but the personal presence of Jehovah.” (Alexander). Darkness, rather gloom. A poetical expression applied to thick clouds and vapours. (Alexander.)
2Sa_22:11. “A cherub,” “The cherubim of the Mosaic system were visible representations of the whole class of creatures superior to man. The singular form seems to be used here to convey the indefinite idea of a superhuman, yet created being. As earthly kings are carried by inferior animals, so the heavenly King is here described as being borne through the air in His descent by beings intermediate between Himself and man.” (Alexander.) “The poetical figure is borrowed from the fact that God was enthroned between the two cherubim upon the lid of the ark of the covenant, and above their outspread wings. As the idea of His ‘dwelling between the cherubim’ (2Sa_6:2, etc.) was founded upon this typical manifestation of the gracious presence of God in the Most Holy place, so here David thus depicts the descent of Jehovah, picturing the cherub as a throne upon which God appears in the clouds of heaven, though without imagining Him as riding upon a sphinx or driving in a chariot-throne. Such notions are precluded by the addition of the term, ‘did fly.’ ” (Keil.)
2Sa_22:12. “Pavilions,” i.e., tents or coverts. Alexander takes this as expressive of the brightness insupportable by mortal sight; Keil thinks that it represents Jehovah as hiding His face from man in wrath. “Dark waters.” Literally, water gatherings, or watery darkness. “A beautiful description of clouds charged with rain.” (Alexander.) “Thick clouds,” or cloud-thicket. “This second noun is used only in the plural, and seems properly to designate the whole body of vapours constituting the visible heavens or sky.” (Alexander.)
2Sa_22:13. “Through,” or out of, were kindled, rather burned.
2Sa_22:14. “Thundered.” “Uttered His voice.” The second clause is a poetical repetition of the first. (Alexander.)
2Sa_22:15. “Arrows.” “The lighthings of the last clause may be understood as explaining the arrows of the first.” (Alexander.) “Discomfited.” “The standing expression for the destruction of the foe accomplished by the miraculous interposition of God.” (Keil.)
2Sa_22:16. “The breakers of death” and the streams of evil, have, according to 2Sa_22:5, overwhelmed David. Under the image of water-waves he has thus depicted the dangers that have threatened his life. The Lord in revealing His anger against his enemies, saves him by laying bare the depths of the sea to which he had sunk, and uncovering the foundations of the earth by the storm-wind of His wrath. Thither descending from on high the Lord seized him and drew him forth from the waves as described in the following verses.” (Delitzsch and Erdmann.) Some writers also see here a reference to the early history of Moses. “The verb to draw,” says Dr. Jamieson, “naturally suggests it.” “Luther,” says Hengstenberg, “already called attention to this reference. It is the more important as Moses was a type of the Israelitish people; the waters an image of the hostile oppression to which he was exposed; and the event, a prophecy constantly fulfilling itself under different circumstances.”
2Sa_22:18. Here is a transition from the figurative to the literal.
2Sa_22:19. Prevented. (See on 2Sa_22:6). “Day of calamity.” Most writers think the time of Saul’s persecution is here specially intended.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—2Sa_22:1-19
DAVID’S SONG OF THANKSGIVING.—PART I
I. Deep gratitude in the heart will find its way to the lip. It seems altogether unnatural that any being should experience real and deep emotion without in some way making it manifest to others—we should as soon expect to see the cup filled above the brim without running over as to find a man with a heart overflowing with grateful love who gave no expression to his feeling. The one seems as great a contradiction of the laws of our soul-life as the other does of the physical world outside of us. True it is that speech is not the only index of what men feel, and there are often many words where there is little or no emotion, still there appears to be a divinely ordained connection between all deep stirring of the inner life—especially when it is of a joyous nature—and the utterance of it in speech, so that the experience of each man may be helpful to all, and individual joy be increased by the sympathy of others. It is so in the heavenly world, for there we are told the redeemed Church gives expression to its grateful love in songs of praise, and it was so with David. Even while surrounded with much to sadden him, he could not look back upon a life so filled with tokens of Divine favour without bursting forth into a song of thanksgiving, which, although addressed in the first instance to Jehovah, was doubtless intended also to be a testimony to his fellow-men.
II. The foundation of all joy in God is found in a conviction of His personal interest in the individual man. The key-note of this psalm, and, indeed, of the whole psalter, is a sense of personal relationship to an Almighty and Loving-Father; not simply a share in a general providence which extends to all, or even to a few, but of special interposition and guidance on behalf of one man as truly if he were the sole object of God’s care. There are many ascriptions of praise in the Bible to God as the God of nations and of all created beings, but there are many in which the writers confine themselves principally, and often entirely, to celebrating His goodness to them as individual men and women, and this not because they were selfish, entirely or chiefly occupied with their own concerns and thinking little of the needs of others. In this song David makes no mention of anybody but himself, and yet we know he had the welfare of his people very near his heart, and grieved deeply when his sin brought trouble upon them (see 2Sa_24:17). Nehemiah gave up his place in the king’s palace to devote himself to his people, yet he could not feel heart-satisfaction merely in the help God gave to him as one of a nation, but craved a special and individual remembrance also (see Neh_5:19; Neh_13:14; Neh_13:22; Neh_13:31). Nor is this feeling confined to Old Testament saints. Paul was, perhaps, the most self-forgetful man who has ever lived, yet, amidst all his praises for the riches of Christ’s mercy to the world, his gratitude is never deeper than when he speaks of the Saviour who “loved him and gave himself for him” (Gal_2:20); and he never penned a more glowing ascription of praise to God than when he contemplated the abundant grace which had been manifested to himself personally (1Ti_1:12-17). The Bible does not require men to ignore their individuality, on the contrary Christ himself appeals to that Divinely-implanted self-love, which is so far removed from selfishness (Mar_8:36), that those who obey its instincts are never at rest unless they can persuade others to partake of the same blessedness. An unshaken confidence that God is his God in a personal and direct sense, is the only foundation for that rest and satisfaction of the spirit without which no obedience to God or service to man can ever be rendered.
III. No material similitude is too strong to express soul-experience. The ocean-depths are great, but they are not too great to set forth the deep agony into which a soul is sometimes plunged by remorse or by a sense of God’s displeasure. The waves of the sea are often rough, and buffet the weary swimmer until his bodily strength entirely fails him; but they are not rougher than the waves of adverse circumstances which often overwhelm his soul. God’s hand was seen very plainly when He drew Moses out of the water and made a way for Israel through the sea, but when David looked back on his eventful life he felt that Divine interposition was as plainly seen in the deliverances which he had experienced. Storm and fire and earthquake are wonderful manifestations of the power of God, but they are not so mighty nor so glorious as the omnipotence which rules in the world of spirit, and works all things there also according to the counsel of His own will. It is great to still the noise of the waves, but it is greater to keep in check the passions of evil men (Psa_65:7) and more glorious to rule over the the countless myriads that people the globe than to ride upon the wings of the wind. Therefore no metaphor that David here uses can even adequately set forth what he desires to express, because nothing that belongs to the world of sense can perfectly represent the unseen and the spiritual.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
2Sa_22:1. God lets out His mercies to us for this rent of our praises, and is content we have the benefit of them, so Ho have the glory.—Trapp.
The mention of Saul in the title does not indicate that the Psalm was composed in David’s early life, but rather that, even though thirty years had gone since his persecution by the son of Kish, the deliverances which he then experienced had not faded from his memory, but still stood out before him as the greatest mercies which he had ever received. We are prone to forget past favors. The benefactors of our youth are not always remembered in our after years; and in the crowd and conflict of events in our later history we have too often little thought to spare, and few thanks to express, for our early mercies. We do not enough consider that, in mounting the ladder of life, it is often more difficult to set our foot on the first round than to take any single step thereafter; and, therefore, that those who aided us in the beginning have given us by far the most effectual assistance. But it was not so with David, for as he sits here looking back on his career, his first conflicts seem still his greatest; and much as he blessed God for after-kindness, he places high above all the other favors which he had received his deliverance out of the hand of Saul.—Dr. Taylor.
2Sa_22:2. In the chapter that immediately follows the names of David’s great captains are faithfully recorded and their exploits duly chronicled, but in his address to God there does not occur the name of a single human being.… In the intensity of the gaze which is fixed on him who is invisible, the eye of faith lost sight for a time of the human instruments through whom much of the work was done. He who in the depths of his penitence saw but One injured Being, and said “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned;” now at the height of his prosperity sees but one gracious Being.—Blaikie.
2Sa_22:2-3. It pleased holy David more that God was his strength than that God gave him strength; that God was his deliverer than that he was delivered; that God was his fortress, buckler, horn, his high tower, than that he gave him the effect of all these. It pleases all the saints more that God is their salvation, whether temporal or eternal, than that he saves them; the saints look more at God than at all that is God’s.—Caryl.
This is no vain repetition, neither is it a straining after effect, like that of the young orator who piles epithet upon epithet, weakening only where he meant to strengthen; but it is an attempt to describe, from many sides, that which he felt could not be fully shown from any single standpoint. He means to say, that for every sort of peril in which he had been placed, God had been a protection appropriate thereto; as if he had said, “those whom God intends to succour and defend are not only safe against one kind of danger, but are, as it were, surrounded by impregnable ramparts on all sides; so that, should a thousand deaths be presented to their view, they ought not to be afraid even at this formidable array.” Nor is this many-sided description of God’s protection without its value to us; for though we may have proved his power to help us in one way, we are apt to fall into despair when some new danger threatens us, and therefore it is reassuring to have David’s testimony to the fact that those whom God shields are incased all round, and will have perfect protection in every emergency.—Dr. W. M. Taylor.
2Sa_22:4. When David called on God in danger, he very specially set Him before his mind as “worthy to be praised.” A very remarkable habit this, and the key to many of his spiritual triumphs. He first sets before his mind the gracious, encouraging, reassuring aspects of God’s character, then asks deliverance from his enemies.—Blaikie.
This doctrine is in tribulation the most ennobling and truly golden. One cannot believe what assistance such praise to God is in pressing danger. For as soon as you begin to praise God, the sense of the evil will also begin to abate, the comfort of your heart will grow, and God will be called upon with confidence.—Luther.
2Sa_22:4-7. The cordial intercourse of prayer between the Old Testament saints and their covenant-God is the factual proof of the positive self-revelation of the personal, Iiving God, without whose initiative such over-springing of the chasm between the holy God and sinful man were impossible, and also the most striking refutation of the false view that the religion of the old covenant presents an absolute chasm between God and man. The real life communion between the heart that goes immediately to its God in prayer and the God who hears such prayer, is, on the one hand, in contrast to the extra testamental religion of the pre-Christian world, alone founded on God’s positive historical self-revelation to his people and the thereby established covenant relation between them, and, on the other hand, as sporadic anticipation of the life-communion with God established by the New Testament Mediator, it is a factual prophecy of the religious ethical life-communion (culminating in prayer) between man redeemed by Christ and His heavenly Father.—Erdmann.
2Sa_22:7. Prayer is that postern-gate which is left open even when the city is straitly beseiged by the enemy; it is that way upward from the pit of despair to which the spiritual miner flies at once when the floods from beneath break forth upon him. Observe that he calls, then he cries—prayer grows in vehemence as it proceeds. Note also that he first invokes his God under the name of Jehovah, and then advances to a more familiar name—“My God.” Thus, faith increases by exercise, and He who we first viewed as Lord may soon be our God in covenant.… Above the noise of the raging billows of death or the barking dogs of hell, the feeblest cry of a true believer will be heard in heaven. Far up within the bejewelled walls and through the gates of pearl the cry of the suffering suppliant was heard. Music of angels and harmony of seraphs availed not to drown or even impair the voice of that humble call. The King heard it in His palace of light unsufferable, and lent a willing ear to the cry of his beloved child.—Spurgeon.
If you listen even to David’s harp you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols, and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needlework and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a light-some ground. Judge, therefore, of the pleasures of the heart by the pleasures of the eye. Certainly, virtue is like precious odours—most fragrant when they are crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.—Lord Bacon.
2Sa_22:12. Blessed is the darkness which encurtains my God. If I may not see Him, it is sweet to know that He is working in secret for my eternal good. Even fools can believe that God is abroad in the sunshine and in the calm, but faith is wise and discerns them in the terrible darkness and threatening storm.—Spurgeon.
2Sa_22:1; 2Sa_22:19. The means by which this deliverance was achieved were, as far as we know, those which we see in the books of Samuel—the turns and chances of Providence, his own extraordinary activity, the faithfulness of his followers, the unexpected increase of his friends. But the act of deliverance itself is described in language which belongs to the descent upon Mount Sinai and the passage of the Red Sea. It was the exodus, though of a single human soul, yet of a soul which reflected the whole nation. It was the giving of a second law, though through the living tablets of a heart deeper and vaster than the whole legislation of Moses. It was the beginning of a new dispensation.—Dean Stanley.
At the basis of the symbolism of nature lies the idea that certain peculiarities in the nature and action of God correspond with it. Thence God Himself is at times described as present and active in these phenomena of nature, not merely accompanied by them, and in bold but contemplative expressions the stirring up and expression of his wrath is represented as the kindling of His light—nature in all the turns of fiery and flaming figures.
… These natural phenomena, not so much in themselves as under certain circumstances and more particular forms, form partly the symbol, partly the means of a Theophany.—Dr. Moll.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 2Sa 22:31
2Sa 22:31
No. 1
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The way of God may mean: (1) the way which He prescribes, the simple, absolute way of holy duty into which He seeks to guide the soul; or (2) the way which He Himself pursues, the method of His dealings with His children, humanity, and the world.
I. Consider first our knowledge of the way of God. (1) There is a light in man—call it the practical reason, the conscience, the moral sense, or what you will—which, even in a fallen state, is capable of furnishing to man certain broad lines of duty which will be coincident mainly with the ways of God. (2) God sent His word to reinforce conscience and to inspire it to be a guide. (3) God is a Person; and in Christ, the express image of His person, we may talk to Him as a friend to a friend.
II. Notice the ways of man with which David had had opportunity to compare the perfect way of God. (1) The way of passion; (2) the way of pride; (3) the way of the world.
III. Notice the reason of the perfectness of God’s way as the way of a soul. (1) It stands square with the possibilities, constitution, convictions, and needs of our being; (2) with the laws and orders of the great universe; (3) with the fact of eternity.
No. 2
I. The way of God is perfect in that grand order of the universe which He has established and maintains.
II. In the order and progress which, as Lord of men, He secures in the human world; in the discipline and education of individual souls. The leading principles of His way are: (1) To establish a strong attraction; (2) to leave that principle to develop itself and have control of the whole nature and of the world by struggle; (3) to make it learn, by extreme severities of discipline if need be, patience, power, and knowledge of a fitness for Himself.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Perfect Way of God: Two Discourses.
2Sa 22:36
These words gather up into their brief utterance all the song of the great king David when he recounted his greatness, and reveal at once the secret of his greatness and the heart of his song. David knew God as few human souls have done. He knew Him as the Creator and the Judge, but when he comes to consider his own life, it is to the gentleness of God he turns. All the lights and shadows and depths and heights of his manifold spiritual life had this for their source, and only this: the gentleness of God.
I. The gentleness of God is the secret spring of all the worth to which the great ones of God’s kingdom have ever reached. Above and underneath all virtues are the dews and fountain-springs of the gentleness of God. From verge to verge, over all the sea of redeemed life, rises the thankful, joyous, self-abasing song, "Lamb of God, slain for us, Thy gentleness hath made us great."
II. It is not only the lives of saintly thinkers and workers in former centuries that illustrate this fact. It is borne out by the experience and testimony of God’s people at the present day. Under all varieties of experience each arrives at the same conclusion: "By His grace we are what we are."
III. Of this gentleness which maketh great, Christ is the manifestation to us. The work Christ came to accomplish was the bestowal of gentleness upon a world which had lost the very elements of it. The light which shines from the Cross is the gentleness of God. He passed into the shadow of death, and there, with the gentleness of a Divine mother, laid His hand on the hand, His heart on the heart, of the very race which crucified Him, that He might overcome their enmity and bring them back to God.
IV. This is still the greatness of Christ as a Saviour and His power over the hearts of men. He is strong to save because He is longsuffering, and merciful, and generous. We are surprised when we read, "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us," but it is the same wonder of mercy, the same manifestation of gentleness, that He still lives to save His enemies.
A. Macleod, Days of Heaven upon Earth, p. 184.
References: 2Sa 22:36.—A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, p. 204; W. H. Jackson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 172; J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 433. 2Sa 22:51.—J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 371. 2Sam 22-23.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 214.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v40 2 Samuel
2 Samuel
DAVID’S HYMN OF VICTORY
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2Sa 22:40 f11 - 2Sa 22:51.
The Davidic authorship of this great hymn has been admitted even by critics who are in general too slow to recognise it. One of these says that ‘there is no Israelite king to whom the expressions in the psalm apply so closely as to David.’ The favourite alternative theory that the speaker is the personified nation is hard to accept. The voice of individual trust and of personal experience sounds clear in the glowing words. Two editions of the hymn are preserved for us,-in Psa 18:1 - Psa 18:50 and 2Sa 22:1 - 2Sa 22:51. Slight variations exist in the two copies, which may probably be merely accidental. Nothing important depends on them. The text begins with the closing words of a description of God’s arming the singer for his victories, and goes on to paint the tumult of battle and the rout of the foe {2Sa 22:40 f11 - 2Sa 22:43}; then follows triumphant expectation of future wider victories {2Sa 22:44 - 2Sa 22:46}; and that leads up to the closing burst of grateful praise {2Sa 22:47 - 2Sa 22:51}.
I. We are not to forget that what is described in 2Sa 22:40 f11 - 2Sa 22:43 is a literal fight, with real swords against very real enemies. We may draw lessons of encouragement from it for our conflict with spiritual wickednesses, but we must not lose sight of the bloody combat with flesh and blood which the singer had waged. He felt that God had braced his armour on him, had given him the impenetrable ‘shield’ which he wore on his arm, and had strengthened his arms to bend the ‘bow of steel.’ We see him in swift pursuit, pressing hard on the flying foe, crushing them with his fierce charge, trampling them under foot. ‘I did beat them small as the dust of the earth.’ His blows fell like those of a great pestle, pulverising some substance in a mortar. ‘I did stamp them as the mire of the streets,’-a vivid picture of trampling down the prostrate wretches, for which Psa 18:1 - Psa 18:50 gives the less picturesque variant, ‘did cast them out.’ In their despair the fugitives shriek aloud for God’s help, and the Psalmist has a stern joy in knowing their cries to be unheard.
Now, such delight in an enemy’s despair and destruction, such gratification at the vanity of his prayers, are far away from being Christian sentiments, and the gulf is not wholly bridged by the consideration that David felt himself to be God’s Anointed, and enmity to him to be, consequently, treason against God. His feelings were most natural and entirely consistent with the stage of revelation in which he lived. They were capable of being purified into that triumph in the victory of good and the ruin of evil without which there is no vigorous sympathy with Christ’s conflict. They kindle, by their splendid energy and condensed rapidity, an answering glow even in readers so far away from the scene as we are. But still they do belong to a lower level of feeling, and result from a less full revelation than belongs to Christianity. The light of battle which blazes in them is not the fire which Jesus longed to kindle on earth.
But we may well take a pattern from the stern soldier’s recognition that all his victory was due to God alone. The strength that he put forth was God’s gift. It was God who subdued the insurgents, not David. The panic which made the foe take to flight was infused into them by God. No name but Jehovah’s was to be carved on the trophy reared on the battlefield. The human victor was but the instrument of the divine Conqueror. Such lowly reference of all our power and success to Him will save us from overweening self-adulation, and is the surest way to retain the power which He gives, and which is lost most surely when we take the credit of it to ourselves.
II. The enemies thus far have been from among his own subjects, but in 2Sa 22:44 - 2Sa 22:46 a transition is made to victory over ‘strangers’; that is, foreign nations. The triumph over ‘the strivings of my people’ heartens the singer to expect that he will be’ head of the nations.’ The other version of the hymn {Psa 18:1 - Psa 18:50} reads simply ‘the people.’
The picture of hasty surrender ‘as soon as they hear of me’ is graphic. His very name conquers. ‘The strangers shall submit themselves unto me’ is literally ‘shall lie,’ or yield feigned obedience. They ‘fade away’ as if withered by the hot wind of the desert. ‘They shall come limping’ {as the word here used signifies}, as if wounded in the fight, for which Psa 18:1 - Psa 18:50 reads ‘trembling.’
Now this vision of extended conquests, based as it is on past smaller victories, carries valuable lessons. David here lays hold of the great promises to his house of a wide dominion, and expects the beginnings of their fulfilment to himself. And he did extend his conquests beyond the territory of Israel. But we may take the hope as an instance in a particular direction of what should be the issue of all experience of God’s mercies. ‘To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.’ Smaller victories will be followed by greater. Our reception of God’s favouring help should widen our anticipations. Our gratitude to Him should be ‘a lively sense of favours to come.’ Progressive victory should be the experience of every believer.
We may see, too, dimly apparent through the large hope of the Psalmist-King, the prophecy of the worldwide victories of his Son, in whom the great promises of a dominion ‘from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth,’ are fulfilled.
III. 2Sa 22:46 - 2Sa 22:51 make a noble close to a noble hymn, in which the singer’s strong wing never flags, nor the rush of thought and feeling ever slackens. In it, even more absolutely than in the rest of the psalm, his victory is all ascribed to Jehovah. He alone acts, David simply receives. To have learned by experience that’ He lives,’ and is ‘my Rock,’ and to gather all the feelings excited by the retrospect of a long life into ‘Blessed be my Rock,’ is to have reaped and garnered the richest harvest which earth can yield. So at last sings the man whose early years had been full of struggles and privations. A morning of tempest has cleared into sunny evening calm, as it will with us all if the tempest blows us into our true shelter.
This psalm begins with a rapturous heaping together of the precious names of God, as the singer has had them revealed to him by experience. Foremost among these stands that one, ‘my Rock,’ which is caught up again in this closing burst of thanksgiving. That great Rock towers unchangeable above fleeting things. The river runs past its base, the woods nestling at its feet bud, and shed their pride of foliage, but it stands the same. David had many a time hid in ‘the clefts of the rocks’ in his years of wandering, and the figure is eloquent on his lips.
These closing strains gather together once more the main points of the previous verses, his deliverance from domestic foes, and his conquests over external enemies. These are wholly God’s work. True thankfulness delights to repeat its acknowledgments. God does not weary of giving, we should not weary of praising the Giver and His gifts. We renew our enjoyment of our long-past mercies by reiterating our thankfulness for them. They do not die as long as gratitude keeps their remembrance green.
But the Psalmist’s experience impels him to a vow {2Sa 22:50}. He will give thanks to God among the nations. God’s mercies bind, and, if rightly felt, will joyfully impel, the receiver to spread His name as far as his voice can reach. Love is sometimes silent, but gratitude must speak. The most unmusical voice is tuned to melody by God’s great blessings received and appreciated, and they need never want a theme who can tell what the Lord has done for their souls. ‘Then shall. . . the tongue of the dumb sing.’ A dumb Christian is a monstrosity. We are ‘the secretaries of His praise,’ and have been saved ourselves that we may declare His goodness.
2Sa 22:51 has been supposed by some to be a liturgical addition, on the ground that, if David were the author, he would not be likely to name himself thus. But there does not seem to be anything unnatural in his mentioning himself by name in such a connection, and the reference to his dynasty, based as it is on Nathan’s promise, is most fitting. The last thought about his mercies which the humble gratitude of the Psalmist utters is that they were not given to him for any good in himself, nor to be selfishly enjoyed, but that they were bestowed on him because of the place that he filled in the divine purposes, and belonged to ‘his seed’ as truly as to himself. So lowly had his prosperity made him. So truly had he sunk himself in his office, and in the great things that God meant to do through him and his house. We know better than David did what these were, and how the promise on which he rested his hopes of the duration of his house is fulfilled in his Son, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and who bears God’s name to all the nations.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 David's Thanksgiving Psalm
David's Thanksgiving Psalm
This beautiful poem has also been preserved as the Eighteenth Psalm. It probably belongs to the earlier portion of David's reign, when his conquests and God's promise (2 Samuel 7) were still fresh in his mind. See on Psalms 18.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv3, 31 (See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
trust
(See Scofield "Psa 2:12").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 2. David’s Song of Deliverance
2. David’s Song of Deliverance
CHAPTER 22
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1. The praise of Jehovah (2Sa 22:1-4)
2. The sorrows of the past (2Sa 22:5-7)
3. God’s presence and intervention (2Sa 22:8-20)
4. Reward and approval (2Sa 22:21-28)
5. The judgment of the enemies (2Sa 22:29-43)
6. The exaltation above the adversaries (2Sa 22:44-49)
7. The praise of Jehovah (2Sa 22:50-51)
It would take many pages to give an exposition of this great song which in the Book of Psalms, with a few changes, is known as Psalm 18. He uttered these words through the Spirit of the Lord. “The Spirit of the LORD spake by me and His word was in my tongue” (2Sa 23:2). It is therefore a great prophetic utterance. The song takes us beyond David and his experience. His sufferings and deliverances are indicated, but they are but prophetic of Him, whose sufferings and whose victory are foreshadowed in David’s life and experience. The great deliverance psalm includes therefore prophetically the story of David’s greater Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In verses 5-7 we have David’s suffering when an exile, persecuted by Saul; prophetically the suffering of Christ, who was compassed by the waves of death and who was plunged beneath these dark waves and saved out of death. Verses 8-20 describe the intervention. Nothing in the life of David could be made to fit this; but being a prophetic utterance there is no difficulty to trace here the resurrection of Christ, who was brought forth into a large place (verse 20). “He delivered me, for He delighted in Me” can only be truthfully applied to Christ. And all looks forward to a still greater intervention and manifestation of God. Verses 21-28 equally can only be true of our Lord. “For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God.” It is impossible to say that David spoke of himself. The history we have traced gives a far different story. But every word is true if we think of David’s Son, our Lord. And the judgment and exaltation described in the closing stanzas of this song will be realized in Him into whose hands the Father has committed all judgment. He will be “the head of the nations” and a people will serve Him (verses 44-45). That David had before his heart the great covenant-promise (chapter 7) and that his vision was enlarged so that he beheld “His Anointed” and His coming manifestation and kingdom becomes sufficiently clear in the last two verses of the song.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 21 Gratitude for Deliverance in the Past
Gratitude for Deliverance in the Past
v. 1. And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song, which is simply another version of Psalms 18, from which it is distinguished only by slight deviations, in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul.
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v. 2. And he said, The Lord is my Rock and my Fortress, in whom he may confidently trust, and my Deliverer;
v. 3. the God of my rock, Deu 32:4, with reference to His unchangeable faithfulness; in Him will I trust. He is my Shield, covering him against the attacks of his enemies, and: the Horn of my salvation, yielding help and strength in overcoming the enemies, my high Tower, the inaccessible and safe stronghold, and my Refuge, my Savior; Thou savest me from violence. This is said of God by way of a general introduction.
v. 4. I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, or, upon Him whom I praised, who is the Praised One, I will call; so shall I be saved from mine enemies. The application is now made to David’s own case.
v. 5. When the waves of death compassed me, they came upon him from all sides like breakers on the shore of the ocean, the floods of ungodly men, the streams of destruction, made me afraid.
v. 6. The sorrows of hell compassed me about, like sudden pangs of pain, or like ropes which threatened to throttle him; the snares of death prevented me, fell on him in a treacherous attack, especially during the persecutions of Saul.
v. 7. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God; and he did hear my voice out of His temple, out of the palace of His heavenly dwelling, and my cry did enter into His ears. The Lord’s deliverance is next pictured.
v. 8. Then the earth shook and trembled, quaking to its very center; the foundations of heaven moved and shook because He was wroth, as when a terrible storm, with an accompanying earthquake, sweeps over the earth, sent by the wrath of His indignation.
v. 9. There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, the snorting being a sign of His anger, and fire out of His mouth devoured, like a fire ready to consume everything that comes into its path; coals were kindled by it, glowing coals burned out of Him. The picture is that of the rising of a storm-cloud and the flaming of the sheet-lightning which announces the storm.
v. 10. He bowed the heavens also, for the lowering storm-clouds seem to draw the heaven down to the earth, and came down; and darkness was under His feet, a symbol of the terror struck by God’s wrath, as He hides His face in darkness.
v. 11. And He rode upon a cherub, as a bearer of the divine majesty and glory, and did fly; and He was seen upon the wings of the wind, as the bearers of the appearance of His glory.
v. 12. And he made darkness pavilions round about Him, like the tabernacles in which He made His habitation, dark waters and thick clouds of the skies, they served as the booths in which He was hidden.
v. 13. Through the brightness before Him were coals of fire kindled, glowing forth from the intense gloom like live coals.
v. 14. The Lord thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered His voice, God’s wrathful judgment, as that of the all-powerful, unapproachable Judge, burst forth upon the enemies.
v. 15. And he sent out arrows and scattered them, shafts of lightning, like a warrior armed with bow and arrow; lightning, and discomfited them, all this tending toward the complete destruction of the enemy.
v. 16. And the channels of these a appeared, the very beds of the ocean becoming visible, the foundations of the world were discovered, laid bare by the terrible storm and the earthquake, at the rebuking of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils, at the noise of His angry crashes of thunder.
v. 17. He sent from above, He took me, stretching out His hand from heaven to the very abyss, in order to save the drowning man; he drew me out of many waters.
v. 18. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me, Saul being thought of as the principal one; for they were too strong for me, they were able to overpower him without the help of God.
v. 19. They prevented me in the day of my calamity, falling upon him in a sudden attack; but the Lord was my Stay.
v. 20. He brought me forth also into a large place, setting him free from all narrowness and straits, procuring for him a condition of freedom; He delivered me because He delighted in me, loving him because of his integrity which flowed from his faith in the God of his salvation. In a similar manner every believer praises his God, who was so often his Help and his Stay, delivering him in the midst of danger, distress, and death.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 47, 50 General Information:
General Information:
David's song to Yahweh starts. He uses parallelism to emphasize what he is saying. (See: Parallelism)
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out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul
This is a progression from enemies in general to one specific enemy of David, King Saul.
out of the hand of
This metonym means "out of the power of." (See: Metonymy)
Yahweh is my rock, my fortress
This metaphor shows a progression from a part, "rock," to the whole, "fortress." A fortress is built of many large rocks. This means Yahweh has the strength to protect his people from harm. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
David
Yahweh
hand
Saul (OT)
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 14, 21, 22, 31, 32, 34, 38, 51 22:1-51 Although this prayer of thanksgiving (also recorded in…
22:1-51 Although this prayer of thanksgiving (also recorded in Ps 18) is placed near the end of David’s story, David probably offered it to God much earlier in his life. This prayer and Hannah’s (1 Sam 2:1-10) together enclose the book of Samuel with an inclusio (literary bookends). Hannah was saved from barrenness; David was saved from his enemies. The placement of this hymn also provides a parallel to Moses. The stories of both Moses and David end with a song or hymn giving lavish praise to God (see also Deut 31:30–32:43). Both highlight God as a “Rock” (Deut 32:4, 15, 18, 30, 31; 2 Sam 22:2, 3, 32, 47). Both are followed by second and shorter poetic pieces—Moses’ final blessing to the Israelite tribes (Deut 33), and David’s last words (2 Sam 23:1-7).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.