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18. Psalm 18

¹ I love you, LORD, my strength.

    ² The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
   my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
   my shield Or sovereign and the horn Horn here symbolizes strength. of my salvation, my stronghold.

    ³ I called to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
   and I have been saved from my enemies.
⁴ The cords of death entangled me;
   the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
⁵ The cords of the grave coiled around me;
   the snares of death confronted me.

    ⁶ In my distress I called to the LORD;
   I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
   my cry came before him, into his ears.
⁷ The earth trembled and quaked,
   and the foundations of the mountains shook;
   they trembled because he was angry.
⁸ Smoke rose from his nostrils;
   consuming fire came from his mouth,
   burning coals blazed out of it.
⁹ He parted the heavens and came down;
   dark clouds were under his feet.
¹⁰ He mounted the cherubim and flew;
   he soared on the wings of the wind.
¹¹ He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—
   the dark rain clouds of the sky.
¹² Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
   with hailstones and bolts of lightning.
¹³ The LORD thundered from heaven;
   the voice of the Most High resounded. Some Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint (see also 2 Samuel 22:14); most Hebrew manuscripts resounded, / amid hailstones and bolts of lightning
¹⁴ He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy,
   with great bolts of lightning he routed them.
¹⁵ The valleys of the sea were exposed
   and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at your rebuke, LORD,
   at the blast of breath from your nostrils.

    ¹⁶ He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
   he drew me out of deep waters.
¹⁷ He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
   from my foes, who were too strong for me.
¹⁸ They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
   but the LORD was my support.
¹⁹ He brought me out into a spacious place;
   he rescued me because he delighted in me.

    ²⁰ The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
   according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
²¹ For I have kept the ways of the LORD;
   I am not guilty of turning from my God.
²² All his laws are before me;
   I have not turned away from his decrees.
²³ I have been blameless before him
   and have kept myself from sin.
²⁴ The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
   according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

    ²⁵ To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
   to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
²⁶ to the pure you show yourself pure,
   but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.
²⁷ You save the humble
   but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
²⁸ You, LORD, keep my lamp burning;
   my God turns my darkness into light.
²⁹ With your help I can advance against a troop Or can run through a barricade;
   with my God I can scale a wall.

    ³⁰ As for God, his way is perfect:
   The LORD’s word is flawless;
   he shields all who take refuge in him.
³¹ For who is God besides the LORD?
   And who is the Rock except our God?
³² It is God who arms me with strength
   and keeps my way secure.
³³ He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
   he causes me to stand on the heights.
³⁴ He trains my hands for battle;
   my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
³⁵ You make your saving help my shield,
   and your right hand sustains me;
   your help has made me great.
³⁶ You provide a broad path for my feet,
   so that my ankles do not give way.

    ³⁷ I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
   I did not turn back till they were destroyed.
³⁸ I crushed them so that they could not rise;
   they fell beneath my feet.
³⁹ You armed me with strength for battle;
   you humbled my adversaries before me.
⁴⁰ You made my enemies turn their backs in flight,
   and I destroyed my foes.
⁴¹ They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—
   to the LORD, but he did not answer.
⁴² I beat them as fine as windblown dust;
   I trampled them Many Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint, Syriac and Targum (see also 2 Samuel 22:43); Masoretic Text I poured them out like mud in the streets.
⁴³ You have delivered me from the attacks of the people;
   you have made me the head of nations.
People I did not know now serve me,
    ⁴⁴ foreigners cower before me;
   as soon as they hear of me, they obey me.
⁴⁵ They all lose heart;
   they come trembling from their strongholds.

    ⁴⁶ The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock!
   Exalted be God my Savior!
⁴⁷ He is the God who avenges me,
   who subdues nations under me,
    ⁴⁸ who saves me from my enemies.
You exalted me above my foes;
   from a violent man you rescued me.
⁴⁹ Therefore I will praise you, LORD, among the nations;
   I will sing the praises of your name.

    ⁵⁰ He gives his king great victories;
   he shows unfailing love to his anointed,
   to David and to his descendants forever.

16. He sent down from above. Here there is briefly shown the drift of the sublime and magnificent narrative which has now passed under our review, namely, to teach us that David at length emerged from the profound abyss of his troubles, neither by his own skill, nor by the aid of men, but that he was drawn out of them by the hand of God. When God defends and preserves us wonderfully and by extraordinary means, he is said in Scripture language to send down succor from above; and this sending is set in opposition to human and earthly aids, on which we usually place a mistaken and an undue confidence. I do not disapprove of the opinion of those who consider this as referring to the angels, but I understand it in a more general sense; for by whatever means we are preserved, it is God who having his creatures ready at his nod to do his will, appoints them to take charge of us, and girds or prepares them for succouring us. But, although every kind of aid comes from heaven, David, with good reason, affirms that God had stretched out his hand from on high to deliver him. In speaking thus, he meant to place the astonishing benefit referred to, by way of eminence, above others of a more common kind; and besides, there is in this expression a tacit comparison between the unusual exercise of the power of God here celebrated, and the common and ordinary means by which he succours his people. When he says, that God drew him out of great waters, it is a metaphorical form of expression. By comparing the cruelty of his enemies to impetuous torrents, by which he might have been swallowed up a hundred times, he expresses more clearly the greatness of the danger; as if he had said, I have, contrary to the expectation of men, escaped, and been delivered from a deep abyss in which I was ready to be overwhelmed. In the following verse he expresses the thing simply and without a figure, declaring that he had been delivered from a strong enemy, ⁴⁰⁸⁴⁰⁸ Bishop Patrick paraphrases the verse thus:— “He delivered me first from that mighty giant, Goliath, and then from Saul, whose power I was not able to withstand; and afterwards from the Philistines and Syrians, and many other nations, whose forces were far superior unto mine, and whose hatred instigated them to do all they could to destroy me.” who mortally hated and persecuted him. The more to exalt and magnify the power of God, he directs our attention to this circumstance, that no strength or power of men had been able to prevent God from saving him, even when he was reduced to the greatest extremity of distress. As in the end of the verse there is the Hebrew particle כי, ki, which generally denotes the cause of what is predicated, almost all interpreters agree in explaining the verse thus: God has succoured me from above, because my enemies were so numerous and so strong that no relief was to be expected by the mere aid of men. From this we deduce a very profitable doctrine, namely, that the most seasonable time for God to aid his people is when they are unable to sustain the assaults of their enemies, or rather, when, broken and afflicted, they sink under their violence, like the wretched man who having in a shipwreck lost all hope of being able to swim to the shore, sinks with great rapidity to the bottom of the deep. The particle יכ, ki, however, might also be explained by the adversative particle although, in this way: Although the enemies of David were superior to him in number and power, he nevertheless was saved.