Psalms 18:42

42 And I ground them like dust {in the wind}, I emptied them out like mud of [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 And you {made my enemies turn their backs}, then I destroyed those [who] hated me.

41 They cried out but there was no rescuer, [even] to Yahweh, but he did not answer them.

42 And I ground them like dust {in the wind}, I emptied them out like mud of [the] streets.

43 You rescued me from strife with people; you set me as head (over) nations. People I did not know served me;

44 as soon as {they heard}, they obeyed me. [The] children of a foreign land feigned obedience before me.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "on [the] face of [the] wind"
• [b]. Many Hebrew manuscripts, the LXX, Syriac, and 2 Sam 22:43 read "I crushed them"