They cried, but there was no one to save; even to Yahweh, but he didn’t answer them.
Parallel Translations
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They cried, but there was no one to save; even to Yahweh, but he didn’t answer them.
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They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
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(18-42) They cried, but there was none to save; even unto the LORD, but He answered them not.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Psalms 18:41 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 1:28 Then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me;
- Job 27:9 Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?
- 2 Samuel 22:42-43 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.
- Job 35:12-13 There they cry, but no one answers, because of the pride of evil men. Surely God will not hear an empty cry, neither will the Almighty regard it.
- Psalms 50:22 “Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver.
- Isaiah 1:15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
- Isaiah 59:1-2 Behold, Yahweh’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save; nor his ear dull, that it can’t hear. But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
- Jeremiah 11:11 Therefore Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on them, which they will not be able to escape; and they will cry to me, but I will not listen to them.
- Jeremiah 14:12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”
- Ezekiel 8:18 Therefore I will also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them.”
- Hosea 7:14 They haven’t cried to me with their heart, but they howl on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They turn away from me.
- Micah 3:4 Then they will cry to Yahweh, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil.”
- Zechariah 7:13 It has come to pass that, as he called, and they refused to listen, so they will call, and I will not listen,” said Yahweh of Armies;
- Luke 13:25 When once the master of the house has risen up, and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ then he will answer and tell you, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 41. They shall cry, etc. The change of the…
41. They shall cry, etc. The change of the tense in the verb from the past to the future does not break the continuity of the narration; and, therefore, the words should be explained thus: Although they cried to God, yet their prayers were rejected by him. He pursues the same subject which it was his object to illustrate before, namely, that it was at length manifest from the issue that his enemies falsely boasted of having the support and countenance of God, who showed that he had turned away from them. It is true, that when their affairs continued to go on prosperously, they sometimes received such applause and commendation, that it was commonly believed that God was favorable to them, while, at the same time he seemed to be opposed to David, who although he cried night and day to him, found it of no avail. But after God had sufficiently tried the patience of his servant, he cast them down, and disappointed them of their vain hope; yea, rather he would not deign to hear their prayers. We now perceive the design of David in these words. As the ungodly had long wickedly abused the name of God, by pretending that he favored their unjust proceedings, the Psalmist derides their vain boasting, in which they were completely disappointed. It is to be observed, that he here speaks of hypocrites, who never call upon God in sincerity and truth. For this promise shall never fail,
“The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth,” (Psalm 145:18.)
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David does not, therefore, say that his enemies were repulsed when they had recourse to God with sincere affection of heart, but only when, with their accustomed effrontery, they thought that God was, so to speak, bound to conduct and advance their wicked enterprises. When the ungodly, in the extremity of their distress, pour forth prayers, and when, cast down with fear, and trembling with the dread of impending evils, they show an appearance of humility, they, notwithstanding, do not change their purpose so as truly to repent and amend the evil of their ways. Besides, instead of being influenced by faith, they are actuated by presumption and hardness of heart, or they pour forth their complaints in doubt, rather for the purpose of murmuring against God, than of familiarly and confidently placing their trust in him. from this passage we may gather a profitable warning, namely, that all who treat the afflicted poor with cruel mockery, and who proudly thrust back those who come to them as humble suppliants, will experience that God is deaf to their prayers. We are farther taught by the following verse, that after God has cast off the ungodly, he leaves them to be treated with every kind of indignity, and gives them up to be trampled under foot, as the mire of the streets. He not only declares, that when the proud and the cruel cry to him in their affliction, he will shut his ears against their cry; but he also threatens, that, in the course of his retributive providence, they shall be treated in the same manner in which they treat others.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain They that reject the cry of the afflicted, God…
They that reject the cry of the afflicted, God will also reject them, when they cry for help: for either pain or fear cause those hypocrites to cry.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 18:41 They cried, but [there was] none to…
Psa 18:41 They cried, but [there was] none to save [them: even] unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
Ver. 41. They cried] Through grief and impatience, clamore incondito, as beasts when in durance fill the air with loud outcries.
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Even unto the Lord] As nature prompteth men in an extremity to look up for help; but because it is but the prayer of the flesh for ease, and not of the spirit for grace, and a good use of calamities, and not but in extreme despair of help elsewhere, therefore God hears them not. In Samuel it is, They looked, but there was none to save them; q.d. If they could have made any other shift God should never have heard of them. Therefore Sero, inquit Nero.
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 He speaks of his Israelitish enemies, who in their…
He speaks of his Israelitish enemies, who in their distresses prayed to God for help against him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Then did I beat them small, as the dust…
Then did I beat them small, as the dust before the wind,.... They being given up by God, and he not answering to their cries; the phrase denotes the utter ruin and destruction of them, and represents their case as desperate and irrecoverable; being, as it were, pounded to dust, and that driven away with the wind: just as the destruction of the four monarchies is signified by the iron, clay, brass, silver, and gold, being broken to pieces, and made like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and carried away with the wind, so that no place is found for them any more, Dan 2:35;
I did cast them out as the dirt of the streets; expressing indignation and contempt: in Sa2 22:43; it is, "I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did, spread them abroad"; which also denotes the low and miserable condition to which they were reduced, and the entire conquest made of them, and triumph over them; see Isa 10:6; compare with this Sa2 12:31.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 41. They cried] The Philistines called upon their…
Verse 41. They cried] The Philistines called upon their gods, but there was none to save them.
Even unto the Lord] Such as Saul, Ishbosheth, Absalom, c., who, professing to worship the true God, called on him while in their opposition to David but God no more heard them than their idols heard the Philistines.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain They cried - They cried out for help, for…
They cried - They cried out for help, for mercy, for life. In modern language, “they begged for quarter.” They acknowledged that they were vanquished, and entreated that their lives might be spared.
But there was none to save them - To preserve their lives. No help appeared from their own countrymen; they found no mercy in me or my followers; and God did not interpose to deliver them.
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Even unto the Lord - As a last resort. People appeal to everything else for help before they will appeal to God; often when they come to Him it is by constraint, and not willingly; if the danger should leave them, they would cease to call upon Him. Hence, since there is no real sincerity in their calling upon God - no real regard for his honor or his commands - their cries are not heard, and they perish. The course of things with a sinner, however, is often such that, despairing of salvation in any other way, and seeing that this is the only true way, he comes with a heart broken, contrite, penitent, and then God never turns away from the cry. No sinner, though as a last resort, who comes to God in real sincerity, will ever be rejected.
But he answered them not - He did not put forth his power to save them from my sword; to keep them alive when they were thus vanquished. Had they cried unto him to save their souls, he would undoubtedly have done it; but their cry was for life - for the divine help to save them from the sword of the conqueror. There might have been many reasons why God should not interpose to save them from the regular consequences of valor when they had been in the wrong and had begun the war; but there would have been no reason why he should not interpose if they had called upon him to save them from their sins. There may be many reasons why God should not save sinners from the temporal judgments due to their sins - the intemperate from the diseases, the poverty, and the wretchedness consequent on that vice - or the licentious from the woes and sorrows caused by such a course of life; but there is no reason, in any case, why God should not save from the eternal consequences of sin, if the sinner cries sincerely and earnestly for mercy.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 41. They cried… even unto the Lord—They first cried…
41. They cried… even unto the Lord—They first cried to their gods, but, getting no answer, they called upon Jehovah, as even the heathen sometimes did in their distress, (Jon_1:5-14;) but, as they were insincere, he did not answer them.
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 41. They cried] Cp. Psa_18:6. The Heb. text in…
41. They cried] Cp. Psa_18:6. The Heb. text in 2 Sam. has they looked for help (Isa_17:7-8), but the LXX supports the reading cried, which is certainly right. There is only the difference of one letter in the consonants of the two words (ישועו—ישעו).
Even unto the Lord] At first sight this might seem to indicate that the foes referred to were Israelites. But it is better to understand it of the heathen. After vainly seeking help from their own gods, in the extremity of their despair they cry to Jehovah. Cp. 1Sa_5:12; Jon_3:7 ff.
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 (41) Cried.—Sam. 22 has “looked.”
(41) Cried.—Sam. 22 has “looked.”
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 They cried, but there was none to save them:…
They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. It seems strange, at first sight, that the heathen enemies of David should "cry unto the Lord," i.e. to Jehovah; and hence some have been driven to suppose that a victory over domestic enemies is here interpolated into the series of foreign victories. But it seems better to explain, with Hengstenberg and the "Speaker"s Commentary," that the heathen did sometimes, as a last resort, pray to a foreign god, whom they seemed to find by experience to be more powerful than their own. (see Jon_1:14) Jehovah was known by name, as the God of the Israelites, to the surrounding nations. Mesha mentions him upon the Moabite Stone; and Sennacherib declared, by the mouth of Rabshakeh, "Am I come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord (Jehovah) said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it". (2Ki_18:25)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.