Psalms 18:42

42 I pulverize them like dust before the wind; I trample them like mud in the streets.

Psalms 18:42 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 18:42

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, ( Daniel 2:35 ) ;

I did cast them out as the dirt of the streets;
expressing indignation and contempt: in ( 2 Samuel 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 ( Isaiah 10:6 ) ( Micah 7:10 ) ; compare with this ( 2 Samuel 12:31 ) .

Psalms 18:42 In-Context

40 You have made my enemies retreat before me; I annihilate those who hate me.
41 They cry for help, but there is no one to save [them]- [they cry]to the Lord, but He does not answer them.
42 I pulverize them like dust before the wind; I trample them like mud in the streets.
43 You have freed me from the feuds among the people; You have appointed me the head of nations; a people I had not known serve me.
44 Foreigners submit to me grudgingly; as soon as they hear, they obey me.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Some Hb mss, LXX, Syr, Tg; other Hb mss read I poured them out
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