Psalms 18

1 To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of this song on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said: I will love You, O Lord, my strength.

2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3 I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies.

4 The pangs of death surrounded me, And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

5 The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.

6 In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears.

7 Then the earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, Because He was angry.

8 Smoke went up from His nostrils, And devouring fire from His mouth; Coals were kindled by it.

9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down With darkness under His feet.

10 And He rode upon a cherub, and flew; He flew upon the wings of the wind.

11 He made darkness His secret place; His canopy around Him was dark waters And thick clouds of the skies.

12 From the brightness before Him, His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire.

13 The Lord thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered His voice, Hailstones and coals of fire.

14 He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe, Lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them.

15 Then the channels of the sea were seen, The foundations of the world were uncovered At Your rebuke, O Lord, At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

16 He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters.

17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, From those who hated me, For they were too strong for me.

18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity, But the Lord was my support.

19 He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.

20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me.

21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord, And have not wickedly departed from my God.

22 For all His judgments were before me, And I did not put away His statutes from me.

23 I was also blameless before Him, And I kept myself from my iniquity.

24 Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.

25 With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;

26 With the pure You will show Yourself pure; And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.

27 For You will save the humble people, But will bring down haughty looks.

28 For You will light my lamp; The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

29 For by You I can run against a troop, By my God I can leap over a wall.

30 As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.

31 For who is God, except the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?

32 It is God who arms me with strength, And makes my way perfect.

33 He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places.

34 He teaches my hands to make war, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

35 You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great.

36 You enlarged my path under me, So my feet did not slip.

37 I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them; Neither did I turn back again till they were destroyed.

38 I have wounded them, So that they could not rise; They have fallen under my feet.

39 For You have armed me with strength for the battle; You have subdued under me those who rose up against me.

40 You have also given me the necks of my enemies, So that I destroyed those who hated me.

41 They cried out, but there was none to save; Even to the Lord, but He did not answer them.

42 Then I beat them as fine as the dust before the wind; I cast them out like dirt in the streets.

43 You have delivered me from the strivings of the people; You have made me the head of the nations; A people I have not known shall serve me.

44 As soon as they hear of me they obey me; The foreigners submit to me.

45 The foreigners fade away, And come frightened from their hideouts.

46 The Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted.

47 It is God who avenges me, And subdues the peoples under me;

48 He delivers me from my enemies. You also lift me up above those who rise against me; You have delivered me from the violent man.

49 Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the Gentiles, And sing praises to Your name.

50 Great deliverance He gives to His king, And shows mercy to His anointed, To David and his descendants forevermore.

Psalms 18 Commentary

Chapter 18

David rejoices in the deliverances God wrought for him. (1-19) He takes the comfort of his integrity, which God had cleared up. (20-28) He gives to God the glory of all his mighty deeds. (29-50)

Verses 1-19 The first words, "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength," are the scope and contents of the psalm. Those that truly love God, may triumph in him as their Rock and Refuge, and may with confidence call upon him. It is good for us to observe all the circumstances of a mercy which magnify the power of God and his goodness to us in it. David was a praying man, and God was found a prayer-hearing God. If we pray as he did, we shall speed as he did. God's manifestation of his presence is very fully described, ver. ( 7-15 ) . Little appeared of man, but much of God, in these deliverances. It is not possible to apply to the history of the son of Jesse those awful, majestic, and stupendous words which are used through this description of the Divine manifestation. Every part of so solemn a scene of terrors tells us, a greater than David is here. God will not only deliver his people out of their troubles in due time, but he will bear them up under their troubles in the mean time. Can we meditate on ver. 18, without directing one thought to Gethsemane and Calvary? Can we forget that it was in the hour of Christ's deepest calamity, when Judas betrayed, when his friends forsook, when the multitude derided him, and the smiles of his Father's love were withheld, that the powers of darkness prevented him? The sorrows of death surrounded him, in his distress he prayed, ( Hebrews 5:7 ) . God made the earth to shake and tremble, and the rocks to cleave, and brought him out, in his resurrection, because he delighted in him and in his undertaking.

Verses 20-28 Those that forsake the ways of the Lord, depart from their God. But though conscious to ourselves of many a false step, let there not be a wicked departure from our God. David kept his eye upon the rule of God's commands. Constant care to keep from that sin, whatever it be, which most easily besets us, proves that we are upright before God. Those who show mercy to others, even they need mercy. Those who are faithful to God, shall find him all that to them which he has promised to be. The words of the Lord are pure words, very sure to be depended on, and very sweet to be delighted in. Those who resist God, and walk contrary to him, shall find that he will walk contrary to them, ( Leviticus 26:21-24 ) . The gracious recompence of which David spoke, may generally be expected by those who act from right motives. Hence he speaks comfort to the humble, and terror to the proud; "Thou wilt bring down high looks." And he speaks encouragement to himself; "Thou wilt light my candle:" thou wilt revive and comfort my sorrowful spirit; thou wilt guide my way, that I may avoid the snares laid for me. Thou wilt light my candle to work by, and give me an opportunity of serving thee. Let those that walk in darkness, and labour under discouragements, take courage; God himself will be a Light to them.

Verses 29-50 When we praise for one mercy, we must observe the many more, with which we have been compassed all our days. Many things had contributed to David's advancement, and he owns the hand of God in them all, to teach us to do likewise. In verse Verse 32 , and the following verses, are the gifts of God to the spiritual warrior, whereby he is prepared for the contest, after the example of his victorious Leader. Learn that we must seek release being made through Christ, shall be rejected. In David the type, we behold out of trouble through Christ. The prayer put up, without reconciliation Jesus our Redeemer, conflicting with enemies, compassed with sorrows and with floods of ungodly men, enduring not only the pains of death, but the wrath of God for us; yet calling upon the Father with strong cries and tears; rescued from the grave; proceeding to reconcile, or to put under his feet all other enemies, till death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed. We should love the Lord, our Strength, and our Salvation; we should call on him in every trouble, and praise him for every deliverance; we should aim to walk with him in all righteousness and true holiness, keeping from sin. If we belong to him, he conquers and reigns for us, and we shall conquer and reign through him, and partake of the mercy of our anointed King, which is promised to all his seed for evermore. Amen.

Footnotes

• [a]. Following Masoretic Text, Targum, and Vulgate; a few Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint omit Hailstones and coals of fire.

Chapter Summary

To the chief Musician, [a Psalm] of David. This is the same with that in 2 Samuel 22:1, with some variations, omissions, and alterations:

the servant of the Lord; not only by creation, nor merely by regeneration, but by office, as king of Israel, being put into it by the Lord, and acting in it in submission and obedience to him; just as the apostles under the New Testament, on account of their office, so style themselves in their epistles:

who spake unto the Lord the words of this song; that is, who delivered and sung this song in so many express words, in public, before all the congregation of Israel, to the honour and glory of God:

in the day [that] the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul, Not that this psalm was composed and sung the selfsame day that David was delivered from Saul, and set upon the throne; for it seems to have been written in his old age, at the close of his days; for immediately after it, in the second book of Samuel, it follows, "now these be the last words of David," 2 Samuel 23:1: but the sense is, that whereas David had many enemies, and particularly Saul, who was his greatest enemy, the Lord delivered him from them all, and especially from him, from him first, and then from all the rest; which when he reflected upon in his last days, he sat down and wrote this psalm, and then sung it in public, having delivered it into the hands of the chief musician for that purpose. There are two passages cited out of it in the New Testament, and applied to Christ; Psalm 18:2, in Hebrews 2:13, and Psalm 18:49 in Romans 15:9; and there are many things in it that very well agree with him; he is eminently the "servant" of the Lord as Mediator; he was encompassed with the snares and sorrows of death and hell, and with the floods of ungodly men, when in the garden and on the cross God was his helper and deliverer, as man; and he was victorious over all enemies, sin, Satan, the world, death and hell; as the subject of this psalm is all along represented: and to Christ it does most properly belong to be the head of the Heathen, whose voluntary subjects the Gentiles are said to be, Psalm 18:43; and which is expressed in much the same language as the like things are in Isaiah 55:4; which is a clear and undoubted prophecy of the Messiah; to which may be added, that the Lord's Anointed, the King Messiah, and who is also called David, is expressly mentioned in Psalm 18:50; and which is applied to the Messiah by the Jews {q} as Psalm 18:32 is paraphrased of him by the Targum on it;

and he said; the following words:

{q} Echa Rabbati, fol. 50. 2. & Midrash Tillim in Tzeror Hammor, fol. 47. 3.