Psalms 18

FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN. A PSALM OF DAVID THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, WHO SPAKE UNTO THE LORD THE WORDS OF THIS SONG IN THE DAY THAT THE LORD DELIVERED HIM FROM THE HAND OF ALL HIS ENEMIES, AND FROM THE HAND OF SAUL: AND HE SAID,

1. I LOVE thee, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my strong rock, in him will I trust; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. 3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: So shall I be saved from mine enemies. 4 The cords of death compassed me, And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. 5 The cords of Sheol were round about me: The snares of death came upon me. 6 In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of his temple, And my cry before him came into his ears. 7 Then the earth shook and trembled, The foundations also of the mountains moved And were shaken, because he was wroth. 8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, And fire out of his mouth devoured: Coals were kindled by it. 9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down; And thick darkness was under his feet. 10 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: Yea, he flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness his hiding place, his pavilion round about him: Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. 12 At the brightness before him his thick clouds passed, Hailstones and coals of fire. 13 The LORD also thundered in the heavens, And the Most High uttered his voice; Hailstones and coals of fire. 14 And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; Yea, lightnings manifold, and discomfited them. 15 Then the channels of waters appeared, And the foundations of the world were laid bare, At thy rebuke, O LORD, At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. 16 He sent from on high, he took me; He drew me out of many waters. 17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, And from them that hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 18 They came upon me in the day of my ca- lamity: But the LORD was my stay. 19 He brought me forth also into a large 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 hath he 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 put not away his statutes from me. 23 I was also perfect with him, And I kept myself from mine iniquity. 24 Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight. 25 With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; With the perfect man thou wilt shew thyself perfect; 26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; And with the perverse thou wilt shew thy- self froward.

27. For thou wilt save the afflicted people ; But the haughty eyes thou wilt bring down.28 For thou wilt light my lamp ; The LORD my God will lighten my darkness.29 For by thee I run upon a troop ; And by my God do I leap over a wall.30 As for God, his way is perfect ; The word of the LORD is tried ; He is a shield unto all them that trust in him.31 For who is God, save the LORD ? And who is a rock, beside our God ?32 The God that girdeth me with strength, And maketh my way perfect.33 He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet ; And setteth me upon my high places.34 He teacheth my hands to war ; So that mine arms do bend a bow of brass.35 Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation ; And thy right hand hath holden me up, And thy gentleness [condescension] hath made me great.36 Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, And my feet have not slipped.37 I will pursue mine enemies, and overtake them ; Neither will I turn again till they are consumed.38 I will smite them through that they shall not be able to rise ; They shall fall under my feet.39 For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle ; Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.

In this magnificent hymn the royal poet sketches in a few grand outlines the tale of his life—the record of his marvellous deliverances and of the victories which Jehovah had given him—the record, too, of his own heart, the truth of its affection toward God, and the integrity of purpose by which it had ever been influenced. Throughout that singularly checkered life—hunted as he had been by Saul before he came to the throne, and harassed perpetually after he became king by rivals who disputed his authority and endeavored to steal away the hearts of his people, compelled to fly for his life before his own son, and engaged afterward in long and fierce wars with foreign nations—one thing had never forsaken him—the love and the presence of Jehovah. By His help he had subdued every enemy, and now, in his old age, looking back with devout thankfulness on the

40. Thou hast also made mine enemies turn their backs unto me, That I might cut off them that hate me.41 They cried, but there was none to save ; Even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.42 Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind ; I did cast them out as the mire of the streets.43 Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people ; Thou hast made me the head of the nations ; A people whom I have not known shall serve me.44 As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me ; The strangers shall submit themselves unto me.45 The strangers shall fade away, And shall come trembling out of their close places46 The LORD liveth ; and blessed be my rock ; And exalted be the God of my salvation ;47 Even the God that executeth vengeance for me, And subdueth peoples under me.48 He rescueth me from mine enemies ; Yea, thou liftest me up above them that rise up against me ; Thou deliverest me from the violent man.49 Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the nations, And will sing praises unto thy name.50 Great deliverance giveth he to his king ; And sheweth lovingkindness to his anointed, To David and to his seed, for evermore.

past, he sings this great song of praise to the God of his life. With a heart full of love, he will tell how Jehovah delivered him, and then there rises before the eye of his mind the whole force and magnitude of the peril from which he had escaped. So much the more wonderful appears the deliverance, which, accordingly, he represents in a bold poetical figure, as a stooping of the Most High from heaven to save him ; who comes, as He came of old to Sinai, with all the terror and gloom of earthquake and tempest and thick darkness. But God delivers those only who trust in Him, and who are like Him. There must be an inner life of communion with God, if man will know His mercy. Hence David passes on to that covenant relationship in which he had stood to God. He had ever been a true Israelite ; and therefore God, the true God of Israel, had dealt with him accordingly. And thus it is at the last that the servant of Jehovah finds His reward. Jehovah, to whom he had ever looked, did not forsake him, but girded him with strength to the battle, and made even distant nations the vassals of his sway. The hymn concludes, as it had opened, with a joyful thanksgiving to Jehovah, who had done so great things for him. The inscription, which informs us that this hymn was composed toward the close of David’s life, is confirmed by the fact that we have the same account given of its composition in 2 Sam. 22, where this hymn is also found, though with a number of variations. (See Vol. iii., p. 400.)

The Psalm consists of three divisions, together with an introduction and conclusion: Introduction, setting forth all that Jehovah is to the Psalmist (vs. 1-3). The record of David’s sufferings and peril, and the mighty deliverance by which he was rescued (vs. 4-19). The reason for this deliverance as based upon the character of God and the principles of His moral government (vs. 20-30). The blessings which he had received in his life; his own preservation and that of his race (v. 28); help and strength in battle, rule over all enemies (vs. 31-45). Conclusion, consisting of a joyful thanksgiving and acknowledgment of all God’s mercies (vs. 46-50). P.

The author of the Books of Samuel found the song already existing as Davidic; the difference between his text and that of the Psalter shows that even when he wrote, the song had been handed down by tradition for a considerable length of time; here and there writers of the period of the later kings speak in echoes of it; it bears throughout the mark of the classical period of the language and poetry. Everything points us to David and constrains us to admit his authorship; and it is to him also that all the other songs that are introduced as Davidic in the second Book of Samuel (those referring to Saul and Jonathan, to Abner, etc.) really belong. This, the greatest of them all, has sprung entirely from the new self-consciousness, to which he was raised by the promises in 2 Sam 7; toward the end it even expressly refers to these promises; for David’s assurance of the eternal duration of his house and of God’s gracious covenant with it rests upon the announcement made by Nathan. D.

How thickly sown the Psalm is with metaphors, which, in David’s mouth, have a peculiar force and beauty. Such are the names by which he addresses God. Thrice he speaks of God as a rock: “Jehovah is my rock, my fortress, my buckler, the horn of my salvation, my high tower.” And again, “Who is a rock, save our God?” And yet again, “Jehovah liveth, and blessed be my rock.” How suitable are such epithets as coming from one who when hunted by Saul had so often taken refuge among the rocks and fastnesses, the almost inaccessible crags and cliffs of Palestine! As he had escaped by swiftness of foot, so he tells how God had made his feet like the feet of the hinds or gazelles, which he had so often seen bounding from crag to crag before his eyes, and had set him “upon high places” beyond reach of the hunter’s arrow. To the same class of metaphors belong also others in the same Psalm: “Thy right hand hath holden me up,” “Thou hast made room for my steps under me, that my ankles have not slipped;” while the martial character of the whole is thoroughly in keeping with the entire tenor of David’s life, who first, as captain of a band of outlaws, lived by his sword, and who afterward, when he became king, was engaged in perpetual struggles either with foreign or domestic enemies. P.

It is one long outpouring of rapturous thankfulness and triumphant adoration, which streams from a full heart in buoyant waves of song. Nowhere else, even in the Psalms—and if not there, certainly nowhere else—is there such a continuous tide of unmingled praise, such magnificence of imagery, such passion of love to the delivering God, such joyous energy of conquering trust. It throbs throughout with the life blood of devotion. The strong flame, white with its very ardor, quivers with its own intensity as it steadily rises heavenward. All the terrors and pains and dangers of the weary years—the black fuel for the ruddy glow—melt into warmth too great for smoke, too equable to blaze. The plaintive notes that had so often wailed from his harp, sad as if the night wind had been wandering among its chords, have all led up to this rushing burst of full-toned gladness. The very blessedness of heaven is anticipated, when sorrows gone by are understood and seen in their connection with the joy to which they have led, and are felt to be the theme for deepest thankfulness. Thank God that, for the consolation of the whole world, we have this hymn of praise from the same lips which said, “My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.” “We have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” The tremulous minors of trustful sorrow shall swell into rapturous praise; and he who, compassed with foes, cries upon God, will, here or yonder, sing this song “unto the Lord, in the day that the Lord delivers him from the hand of all his enemies.” A. M.

It is a Psalm of deliverance or salvation; the two words are the same. The whole history of the Bible from beginning to end pertains to what God calls deliverance. We find in David’s history a history of deliverance. David was a man of like passions with ourselves, not faultless, not perfect, but falling again and again into sin, and yet plucked out of that iniquity into which he fell by the interposing hand of Him who had great deliverances always in store for him. Israel’s history is a history of deliverance, and very remarkably so. Each section of Israel’s history contains a gospel for us. Each one of Israel’s deliverances proclaims glad tidings of great joy to us in our weakness, weariness, and exposure to continual danger from enemies on the right hand and on the left. The history of the Church is a history of deliverance—deliverances just at the time when she was lowest, deliverances which put a new song in her mouth, and sent her on a new career of gladness and usefulness. The history of each believer is a history of deliverance—deliverance from first to last, deliverance at the hand of the faithful Deliverer. He who came in the name of the Lord to save us, who is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. H. Bonar.

Title. Servant of Jehovah. After Moses and Joshua David is the first who receives this epithet in a special sense. For he, with whom the kingship of promise began, served the people of God in no less epoch-making a manner than Moses, by means of whom they obtained the land of promise. D.

1-3. Looking back upon his eventful life, David pours out his heart, first in the expression of strong and tender love (the verb in this meaning occurs only here) to his God; and then in the attempt to set forth in some measure, by employing one figure after another, all that God had been to him during the days of his pilgrimage. P.

The first clause strikes the key-note. “I love Thee, O Jehovah, my strength.” That personal attachment to God, which is so characteristic of David’s religion, can no longer be pent up in silence, but gushes forth like some imprisoned stream, broad and full even from its well head. The common word for “love” is too weak for him, and he bends to his use another, never elsewhere employed to express man’s emotions toward God, the intensity of which is but feebly expressed by some such periphrasis as, “From my heart do I love

Thee.” The same exalted feeling is wonderfully set forth by the loving accumulation of Divine names which follow, as if he would heap together in one great pile all the rich experiences of that God, unnamed after all names, which he had garnered up in his distresses and deliverances. They tell so much as the poor vehicle of words can tell what his Shepherd in the heavens had been to him. A. M.

All these designations of God are fruits of the affliction out of which David’s song has sprung—viz., his persecution by Saul, when, living in a country that was rich in caves but poor in respect of forests, he betook himself to rocks, and mountains served him as fortresses. In the refuge which the mountainous country afforded him in these days, and in the happy accidents which occasionally brought about his deliverance when he was in situations of the very greatest danger, David sees only special manifestations of that which Jehovah Himself was to him in the last result. The confession of the God who has authenticated Himself in so many ways is continued in v. 4, a statement of a general fact of experience. D.

2. Jehovah (is) my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God (is) my rock, I will trust in Him; my shield and my horn of salvation, my height (or high place). By this accumulation of descriptive epithets the Psalmist represents God as the object of his trust and his protector. The first two figures, my rock and my fortress, contain an allusion to the physical structure of the Holy Land, as well as to David’s personal experience. The caves and fissures of the rocks, with which the land abounded, had often afforded him shelter and concealment when pursued by Saul. A.—Christ is my “shield,” my “rock.” A shield protects me by receiving the arrow aimed at my heart. A rock shelters me by enduring for me the fury of the billow or the blast. Therefore if Christ be my Saviour, He not only hath borne my sins, but He does every day bear my sorrows. And so let the load which comes upon my poor, weak, sinful soul be terrible as it may, if I only hear the footstep of my gracious Master, I know that He comes to lift off my burden, and thus my burden is really His burden, and therefore is light. C. Wadsworth.

In Him will I trust. Faith is that act and habit of the soul by which the idea of God is brought in from the far distance and enthroned over character and over life. It is an act of the whole mind, not of the intellect only which sees, but also of the conscience which responds; of the heart which adores and loves and trusts, and of the will which chooses. It is the act and habit of the soul by which the fact concerning God becomes a present and potent reality, filling the whole sphere of vision and of thought, and holding under its domination all plans, all purposes, all sentiments and estimates and desires and affections. Bishop Andrews.

Faith is sometimes spoken of in the New Testament as “toward Christ Jesus,” which describes that great act of the soul by its direction, as if it were a going out or flight of the man’s nature to the true goal of all active being. It is sometimes spoken of as “on Christ Jesus,” which describes it as reposing on Him as the end of all seeking, and suggests such images as that of a hand that leans or of a burden borne, or a weakness upheld by contact with Him. But more sweet and great is the blessedness of faith considered as “in Him,” as its abiding place and fortress-home, in union with and indwelling in whom the seeking spirit may fold its wings, and the weak heart may be strengthened to lift its burden cheerily, heavy though it be, and the soul may be full of tranquillity and soothed into a great calm. Toward, on, and in—so manifold are the phases of the relation between Christ and our faith. In all, faith is the same simple confidence, precisely like the trust which we put in one another. It covers the whole ground of man’s relation to God. All religion, all devotion, everything which binds us to the unseen world is included in or evolved from trust in God. And this trust is the foundation of love to men and of everything else good and fair. A. M.

4-6. Then follows the record of his past experience, which gives the reason both for his love of Jehovah, and his prayer to Him. As he looks back on the past, he gathers into one all the perils to which he had been exposed, all the sufferings which he had endured, and so measures them not by the depth or intensity of any one, but by their aggregated volume and pressure. It was as if they had risen and swelled above him, wave upon wave; he had been as a swimmer, beaten and buffeted to and fro till his strength was spent, and it had like to have gone hard with him for his life. He was sinking, and, like Jonah, seemed beyond reach of succor; or, varying the figure, he had been taken in the toils which death, like a mighty hunter, had cast about him (v. 5). But even in this his uttermost strait he was not beyond the reach of God’s arm. Neither the depths of the sea nor the gates of death can resist Jehovah’s power. Therefore, when from the lowest depths the prayer goes up to Jehovah in heaven, He reaches forth His hand from the highest heaven to the uttermost abyss, and plucks His servant from the jaws of death. P.—The more earnest we have been with God for deliverance, the more direct answer it is to our prayers. David’s deliverances were so. David was found a praying man, and God was found a prayer-hearing God. If we pray as he did we shall speed as he did. H.

6. In my distress.** If you listen even to David’s harp, you shall hear as many hearselike airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Spirit hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see, in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a light-some ground; judge, therefore, of the pleasures of the heart by the pleasures of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors—most fragrant when they are crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. Bacon.—How true is that saying, that “Faith is safe when in danger, and in danger when secure; and prayer is fervent in straits, but in joyful and prosperous circumstances, if not quite cold and dead, at least lukewarm.” Oh, happy straits, if they hinder the mind from flowing forth upon earthly objects, if they favor our correspondence with heaven and quicken our love to celestial objects, without which what we call life may more properly deserve the name of death! Leighton.

I called upon the Lord and cried. Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; it is the cry of faith to the ear of mercy. Hannah More.—Fervent prayer prevails much. Cold prayers, like cold suitors, never speed. Prayer without fervency is like a sacrifice without fire. Fervency is to prayer as fire to the incense; it makes it ascend to heaven as a sweet perfume. Prayer without fervency is speaking, not praying: lifeless prayer is no more prayer than the picture of a man is a man. Christ prayed with strong cries (Heb. 5: 7). Watson.

7-15. This passage, unsurpassed in sublimity and grandeur, describes a Theophany, or personal manifestation of the Lord. Natural phenomena supply the imagery, and are described with the minute and graphic accuracy characteristic of Hebrew poetry: earthquake followed by dense smoke, an outburst of flame, and showers of burning coals; then heavy clouds, thick darkness, a sound as of chariot-wheels sped by rushing winds; black thunder-clouds rifted by sudden flashes, then the crash of thunder, Jehovah’s voice; hailstones intermingled with frequent lightnings. In the brief account of David’s victories (1 Sam. 8) no mention is made of natural convulsions, but it is hard to resist the impression that the Psalmist describes a storm which he saw, and in which he realized the outward manifestation of God’s Presence. Cook.

I know not anything in all Greek, Latin, or English poetry that matches the sublimity and grandeur, the magnificent sweep, of this description of the providence of God as manifested in the phenomena of nature. It is Hebraistic to the core; Gentile poetry has nothing like it. F. Bowen.—No comment can heighten and no translation can adequately represent, while none can altogether destroy, the unapproachable magnificence of the description which follows, of the majestic coming forth of God in answer to his cry. It stands at the very highest point, even when compared with the other sublime passages of a like kind in Scripture. A. M.

7-19. David’s deliverance was, of course, not really accompanied by such convulsions of nature, by earthquake and fire and tempest, but his deliverance, or rather his manifold deliverances, gathered into one, as he thinks of them, appear to him as marvellous a proof of the Divine power, as verily effected by the immediate presence and finger of God, as if He had come down in visible form to accomplish them. The image is carefully sustained throughout. First, we have the earthquake, and then, as preluding the storm and as herald of God’s wrath, the blaze of the lightning (vs. 7, 8). Next, the thick gathering of clouds, which seem to touch and envelop the earth; the wind, and the darkness, which shrouds Jehovah riding on the cherubim (9-11). Lastly, the full outburst of the storm, the clouds parting before the presence and glory of Jehovah, and pouring upon the earth the burden with which they were heavy—the thunder, and the lightning, and the hail—the weapons of Jehovah by which, on the one hand, He discomfits His enemies, and, on the other, lays bare the depths of the sea, and the very foundations of the world, that He may save His servant who trusts in Him (12-16). The image with which the description opened in v. 4, of a sinking, drowning man, is resumed in v. 16, and thus completes the whole.

In vs. 17-19 the figure is dropped, and the language falls into a lower key. P.

In order to thoroughly appreciate the beauty and truthfulness of the figure, we should endeavor to realize the full power of an Oriental storm, as it is described in Psalm 29. Solitary lightning precedes the discharge—this is meant by the coals in v. 8; the clouds approach the mountain summits—the heavens bow, as v. 9 has it; the storm shakes its pinions; enwrapped in thick clouds, as in a tent, God descends to the earth; hail (not unfrequently attending Eastern storms) and lightning issue from the black clouds, through the dissolving layers of which is seen the fiery splendor which hides the Lord of nature. He speaks, and thunder is His voice; He shoots, and flashes of lightning are His arrows. At His rebuke, and at the blast of His breath, the earth recedes—the sea foams up, and its beds are seen—the land bursts, and the foundations of the world are discovered. And lo! an arm of deliverance issues forth from the black clouds, and the destructive fire grasps the wretched one who had cried out from the depths, pulls him forth, and delivers him from all his enemies! Yes, the hand of the Lord has done marvellous things in the life of David. But the eye of faith alone could perceive in them all the hand of God. Thousands whose experiences of the delivering hand of God are not less signal than those of David, stop short at the powers of nature, and instead of bending the knee before the All-merciful God, content themselves to express with cold hearts their admiration of the changes of the destiny of man. Tholuck.

Every circumstance that can add to the splendor of Jehovah’s descent upon His enemies is thrown into the narrative by the inspired poet. It is not enough that the heavens should bend beneath Him, and that clouds of darkness should be seen rolling, in terrible majesty, under His feet; cherubic legions also are the willing supporters of His throne, and, swift as air, He flies “upon the wings of the wind.” Into this amazing scene the awful appendages of the mercy-seat are introduced; on the bending heavens, the cloudy chariot rides sublime, and the winds of heaven bear it majestically along. J. Morison.

16. The majestic self-revelation of God as the deliverer has for its occasion the Psalmist’s cry of distress, and for its issue, “He drew me out of many waters.” All the splendor flames out because a poor man prays, and all the upheaval of earth and the artillery of heaven has simply this for its end, that a poor man may be delivered. The paradox of prayer never found a more bold expression than in this triumphant utterance, of the insignificant occasion for, and the equally insignificant result sought by, the exercise of the energy of Omnipotence. The Divine deliverance is set forth under the familiar image of the coming of God in a tempest. Before it bursts, and simultaneous with the prayer, the “earth rocks and quivers,” the sunless “pillars of the hills reel and rock to and fro,” as if conscious of the gathering wrath which begins to flame far off in the highest heavens. There has been no forth-putting yet of the Divine power. It is but accumulating its fiery energy, and already the solid framework of the world trembles, anticipating the coming crash. The firmest things shake, the loftiest bow before His wrath. A. M.

20-24. God deals with men according as He sees their heart to be toward Him. Those who walk before Him in simplicity and uprightness of heart may expect His succor. And David here, as in the last Psalm, asserts not his freedom from sin, but the consciousness of his own integrity. The general tenor of the Psalm everywhere breathes a spirit of confidence and trust in God, as far removed as possible from the spirit of self-righteousness. The words are, in truth, words of childlike, open-hearted simplicity, not of arrogant boastfulness. P.—The righteousness here claimed is not an absolute perfection or entire exemption from all sinful infirmity, but what Paul calls submission to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10: 3), including faith in His mercy and a sincere governing desire to do His will. This is a higher and more comprehensive sense than innocence of some particular charge, or innocence in reference to man though not in reference to God. A.—No apology whatever is needed for the language of the Psalmists. It proceeds not out of any unseemly arrogance, but from “the free and princely heart of innocence.” It is the childlike, joyful declaration of conscious integrity of purpose, and uprightness of heart toward God, as against all imputations of dissembling and hypocrisy. Paul had the same rejoicing in the testimony of his conscience, to his own “simplicity and godly sincerity.” D. F.

24. I have not wickedly departed from my God**—that is, with a purpose and resolution of heart to continue in a way of sinning; and that is the property of sincerity. A man indeed may be overtaken and surprised by a temptation, but it is not with a resolution to forsake God and to cleave unto the sin, or rest in it. He will not sleep in it, spare it, or favor it.

23. I was upright before Him.** Hence observe: first, that a godly man may have his heart upright and perfect even in the imperfection of his ways. Secondly, a man that is sincere is in God’s account a perfect man; sincerity is the truth of all grace, the highest pitch that is to be attained here. Thirdly, sincerity of heart gives a man boldness even in the presence of God, notwithstanding many failings. It is a strange boldness that the saints have in the presence of God by virtue of the new covenant. All their sins shall be laid open at the last day as a cancelled bond; but the same spirit of sonship that shall give them perfect boldness then doth give them boldness in a great measure even now in this life; that they shall be able to say, “Neither height nor depth,” nothing “shall separate us from the love of Christ.” W. Strong.

25,26. What he had previously mentioned as the method of God’s dealings toward himself he now describes as a general law of the Divine administration. The essential idea is that God is, in a certain sense, to men precisely what they are to Him. The particular qualities specified are only given as examples, and might have been exchanged for others without altering the general sense. The form of expression is extremely strong and bold, but scarcely liable to misapprehension. No one is in danger of imagining that God can act perversely even to the most perverse. But the same course of proceeding which would be perverse in itself or toward a righteous person, when pursued toward a sinner becomes a mere act of vindicatory justice. A.—God requires the ardent love of the godly man with cordial love, the entire surrender of the upright man with a full communication of grace, the striving after purity with an unreservedly loving mind, moral self-perversion with paradoxical judgments, by giving the perverse man over to his perverseness (Rom. 1: 28) and leading him by strange ways to final damnation. D.

It is God’s way to carry to men as they carry to Him. If thou hast a design to please Him, He will have a design to please thee; if thou wilt echo to Him when He calls, He’ll echo to thee when thou callest. On the other side, if a man will wrestle with God, He will wrestle with him; if thou wilt be fast and loose with Him, and walk frowardly toward Him, thou shalt have as good as thou bringest; if thou wilt provoke Him with never-ending sins, He will pursue thee with never-ending torments.

R. Steele.—As all things are pure unto the pure, so all things are lovely unto the loving, all things good unto the good; and, universally, such as thou art thyself, such is God Himself unto thee, though He is not a creature. He is perverse unto the perverse, and holy unto the holy. Hence nothing can be good or saving unto him who is evil; nothing sweet unto him unto whom the law of God is not sweet. Luther.—God is pure and upright with the unclean and hypocritical as well as with the pure and upright, and His actions show Him to be so. God shows Himself froward with the froward when He deals with him as He hath said He will deal with the froward—deny them and reject them. God shows Himself pure with the pure when He deals with them as He hath said He will—hear them and accept them. Though there be nothing in purity and sincerity which deserveth mercy, yet we cannot expect mercy without them. Our comforts are not grounded upon our graces, but our comforts are the fruits or consequences of our graces. Caryl.

These declarations concerning God, in which human emotions and changes in these emotions are attributed to Him, are not to be regarded purely as figurative expressions. They actually express real relations of God to the world, and are only designated after the analogy of human conditions. If a change of such conditions is spoken of, this means only a change of the relation in which the Divine holiness, which is in itself changeless, enters to changeable man. The same God whose guidance approves itself to the pious as pure and good must appear like a malicious power to the perverse whose path He crosses. O.—By the very necessity of our moral nature God appears to man what man is to God: loving to the loving, upright to the upright, pure to the pure, and froward to the froward. Our thoughts of God are shaped by our moral character; the capacity of perceiving depends on sympathy. “Unless the eye were light, how could it see the sun?” The self-revelation of God in His providence, of which only the Psalm speaks, is modified according to our moral character, being full of love to those who love, being harsh and antagonistic to those who set themselves in opposition to it. There is a higher law of grace, whereby the sinfulness of man but draws forth the tenderness of a father’s pardoning pity; and the brightest revelation of His love is made to froward prodigals. But that is not in the Psalmist’s view here, nor does it interfere with the law of retribution in its own sphere. A. M.

27. With the froward, the impetuous, the headstrong, the men who act from the impulse of their own intractable wills, God will evince a strength and determination of will that shall utterly overmaster and overthrow them. It is thus that while He saves the afflicted people He brings down the high looks. Chalmers.

28. My lamp.** The lamp lighted in the house is the image at once of prosperity and continuance of life and happiness. On the other hand, the extinction of the royal race is compared to the quenching of the lamp (2 Sam. 21: 17). P.

Lighten my darkness. Three dark shadows fall across every human life. There is, first of all, the shadow of sin. It falls dark and thick upon the life of human beings. Sin is the transgression in will or in fact of the eternal moral law, of that law which, unlike the law of nature, could not be other than what it is unless God could be other than what He is, of that law which is not an arbitrary enactment of His will, but the outflow of the expression of His very being. Sin thus is the contradiction of God, the resistance of the created will to the will of the Creator. And this resistance means darkness, not in the sky above our heads, but, far worse, darkness in the moral nature, darkness in the moral intelligence, darkness at the centre of the soul. There is also the shadow of pain. As the races and generations pass, whatever else may distinguish them from each other, whatever else they may have in common, they pass each and all, sooner or later, under the weird shadow of pain. How to deal with pain, how to alleviate it, how to do away with it—these have been questions which men have discussed for thousands of years; and anodynes there are, such as they are, for pains of body and pains of mind, anodynes of very varying moral worth, but of which this much must be said, that they do but at most curtail the fringe of the great realm of pain. And there is the shadow of death. The thought that death must come at last casts over thousands of lives a deep gloom. There is the uncertainty of the time and manner of its approach; there is the unimaginable experience of what in itself it will be; there is the dread of what may or may not follow it. Sin, pain, death—these are the three shadows that fall across the life of men in this day of preparation for the great future; and that our Lord makes these dark shadows to be light is the experience in all ages of thousands of Christians. Only a robust faith in the unseen, only the faith of our Lord and God, can relieve the human heart when face to face with these solemn and irremovable conditions of our human life. So long as they last, the religion of the Crucified will last too. H. P. L.

29. By thee I have run through a troop.** David ascribes his victories to God, declaring that, under His conduct, he had broken through the wedges or phalanxes of his enemies, and had taken by storm their fortified cities. Thus we see that, although he was a skilled and valiant warrior, he arrogates nothing to himself. Calvin.

30. The word of the Lord is tried.** Like silver refined in the furnace. The doctrines are glorious, the precepts are pure, the promises are faithful, and the whole revelation is superlatively full of grace and truth. David had tried it, thousands have tried it, and it has never failed. S.—Christ’s own teaching, the doctrine of His apostles, the tradition of the Jews, the universal consent of the Christian Church of all times, place the Divine authority of both Old and New Testaments on a foundation which cannot be moved. To let go the blessed truth of the plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture is to lose the sheet anchor of Revelation, and to drift away toward the dark and restless sea of human speculation, and science, falsely so called. But there is internal as well as external evidence of this inspiration; hundreds and thousands of simple Christians, who know nothing of argument or controversy, have discovered, through the witness of God’s Spirit in their own hearts, that the Bible is the very voice of God; and there is no argument half so efficacious with the great majority of readers, for proving the Divine authorship of Scripture, as the spiritual, hallowing influence that the Bible itself seems to breathe over us when we bring ourselves into real contact with its contents. Bishop Thorold.

The company of the Divine Scriptures is a haven free from billows, a wall that cannot be broken, a tower that cannot be shaken, a glory that cannot be taken away, armor impenetrable, gladness imperishable, pleasure uninterrupted, and every good thing you can mention. It keeps off sadness, it preserves cheerfulness, it makes the poor man wealthier than the rich, it compasses the rich with security, it makes the sinner righteous, it places the righteous in safe keeping, it plucks up evils that exist, it plants the good that existed not, it drives away wickedness, it leads back to virtue—and not only so, but it roots virtue in men, and makes it remain steadfast; it is a spiritual medicine, a Divine, mysterious spell, a destroyer of passions. Chrysostom.—Of all books, the Bible loses least of its force and dignity and beauty from being translated into other languages, wherever the translation is not erroneous. One version may indeed excel another, in that its diction may be more expressive, or simple, or more majestic; but in every version the Bible contains the sublimest thoughts uttered in plain and fitting words. It was written for the whole world, not for any single nation or age; and though its thoughts are above common thoughts, they are so as coming from the primal Fountain of Truth. Anon.

The Word of the Lord is tried in respect of endurance. Think how much the Bible has had to stand from the mere lapse of time. Every one knows that it is the oldest book in the world; that it is as old, some part of it, and perhaps older, than the pyramids of Egypt; that it is perhaps the oldest human monument as it certainly is the oldest human writing in existence; that the part of it to which David referred was already hundreds of years old in his time, when not a single book of any nation besides that has come down to us yet existed; and that the very latest part of it has an age of nearly eighteen centuries. All that time the Bible has had no miraculous guard upon it; no sacred ark, except for a comparatively brief period, to enshrine it; no company of angels to keep watch around it; no caste of priests even, or learned men, to hand it down as their sole business from age to age. It has been submitted to the chances of all other writings; its original copies have long perished; it has been left to the care of those who loved it to transcribe it, to preserve it, to keep it separate from other books, like the Apocrypha, calling themselves, or called by others, Divine. It has come down to us with the marks of time upon it—such slighter changes as occur even now in the misprints of our Bibles or the errors of spelling, and occasionally in so putting one word for another as would be done by some hundreds of scholars if they were all set to copy the same piece of writing. Yet the Bible, either in the Old Testament or in the New, has suffered no essential change in all these processes of transcription from age to age. It has been attacked by argument and sophistry. A long line of unbelievers, unhappily not yet ended, have directed against it every kind of missile that bore the shape of reasoning, denying its miracles, affirming that its prophecies were mere guesses or written after the event, denouncing its morality as narrow, gloomy, and bigoted, controverting its history, and triumphing in its fancied contradictions—accusing its doctrine now of being a mere theft from human reason, and now of being a flagrant outrage to it, and assailing its hopes and revelations of the future as no better than delusion and enthusiasm. Multitudes more that could not reason could mock, could shoot out the lip and wag the head at the Bible, as if it were at length expiring on the cross—could make it the jest of the profane and the song of the drunkard, reading it only to extract materials of ribaldry, and dealing with it as Herod with Christ—to array it in a fool’s dress and send it away, as fit only to be the serious care of dotage and superstition. All this has been; and yet what is the result! Where are the tyrants, the sophists, the mockers and blasphemers? We will not judge them: that belongs to God. But we know where the Bible is, after this torrent of violence and breath of slander, as from the bottomless pit, has to some extent spent its rage. It is read, and the books written against it are unread; it endures, and they are forgotten. The Bible has been tried and has come forth as gold. Their opposition has only developed its energies; their strokes only drawn forth, like the axe from the sandal-tree, its perfumes and odors. They came to curse, but the curse has been turned into a blessing; and the Church has had its faith in the Bible only strengthened by the unsuccessful attacks of all its adversaries, and can triumphantly say, in a way it could not before such onsets were made, “Where is the wise? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? The Bible has been tried in point of efficiency. It deals with infinity and eternity. It lifts man from hell to heaven, from earth to God. It secures pardon, purity, peace with God; hope beyond the grave. What other book even proposes so much, far less effects it? We see men who were distressed and spirit-broken through the terrors of guilt finding in the Bible a peace that irradiates their countenances, and shines through their lives. We see those who grovelled in the dust elevated by it, as by a magnet, toward the skies. We see those who trembled like an aspen leaf at the very mention of death in the state of nature, and passed every hour by day and upon their bed in sad foreboding of its approach, meet it at length cheerfully, with the Bible clasped in their embrace, and confronting the last enemy with a word that prostrated him, and opened a level path to heaven: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Show us achievements like these attempted or realized in any other quarter than where the

Bible holds sway, and then we will admit that its trial is indecisive! Cairns.

Unto all them that trust in Him. In the midst of the clearest and strongest statements of God’s Word some people are not willing to believe that God will do all that He promises; whereas, if they did take hold of the Word of God with a firm grasp, it would lift them up into the very atmosphere of heaven. Now what we want is a faith in God that shall be somewhat suitable to His infinite grace and to our needs—a faith steady as the nature and promises of God Himself—as broad and as comprehensive as the promises of God to man. Bishop Andrews.

31-45. For this division of the Psalm the way has already been prepared in vs. 28-30, as descriptive both of what God is and of the help which He had vouchsafed to His servant. David now dwells in a strain of triumph on the victories and successes which God had given him. The central thought is the relation in which David stands to God. Before the holy God he has walked in his integrity (vs. 20-27); and therefore, on the one hand, God delivered him from his peril (4-19), and, on the other, made him victorious over all enemies (31-45).

35. Yet it is not the bow of brass which has been David’s protection; but Jehovah’s shield covered him; Jehovah’s right hand held him up; Jehovah’s wonderful condescension (by which he was taken from the sheepfolds to be king) made him great; Jehovah made room for him to stand, and subdued those that rose up against him. Thy gentleness, lit. “meekness,” “lowliness,” a very remarkable word as applied to God, and just one of those links connecting the Divine with the human, which in the Old Testament so strikingly foreshadow an incarnation. P.—The original word, as applied to men, means usually humility, lowliness; and as used of God, condescension, said, it would seem, with special reference to God’s bending low to his prayer and coming down low, i.e., from the high heavens above, in His glorious help. The Hebrew verb from which this noun comes means both to answer and to be lowly—ideas which naturally blend, for all answering implies more or less inclination toward, but especially is this true of God’s answering to His lowly creature, man. C.

The God of revelation, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, hides His power and withholds the stress of His will, that He may put confidence and courage in the feeling of His children. Let us not shrink then from this epithet of Scripture, as if it must imply some derogation from God’s real greatness and majesty; for precisely here do His greatness and majesty culminate. It means that He does not set Himself, as a ruler, to drive His purpose straight through, but that, consciously wise and right, abiding in His purposes with majestic confidence, and expecting to reign with a finally established supremacy, He is only too great to fly at His adversary, and force him to the wall, if he does not instantly surrender; that, instead of coming down upon him thus, in a manner of direct onset, to carry His immediate submission by storm, He lays gentle siege to him, waiting for his willing assent and choice. He allows dissent for the present, defers to prejudice, watches for the cooling of passion, gives room and space for the weaknesses of our unreasonable and perverse habit to play themselves out, and so by leading us round, through long courses of kind but faithful exercise, He counts on bringing us out into the ways of obedience and duty freely chosen. Force and crude absolutism are thus put by; the irritations of a jealous littleness have no place; and the great God and Father, intent on making His children great, follows them and plies them with the gracious indirections of a faithful and patient love. Bushnell.

Spiritual greatness — sanctified character, beauty of soul, the likeness of God upon the life, heart-qualities—shall endure forever. Into this true spiritual greatness God wants to train every one of us. Many Christians grow sadly disheartened because they seem never to become any better. Year after year the struggle goes on with the old tempers and ugly dispositions, the old selfishness, pride and hatefulness, and they appear never to be growing victorious. Yet Christ is a most patient teacher. He never wearies of our slowness and dulness as scholars. He will teach the same lesson over and over until we have learned it. If we only persevere, He will never tire of us, and His gentleness will make us great. J. R. M.

Consider how the gentleness of a loving correction makes God’s children great. For we ought, all of us, to wish to be great—great in the school of Christ, great in the Divine life, great in holiness, great in usefulness. A real sorrow takes us out of the old groove of triviality; it restores things to their right proportion, making the little great and the great little. Correction, whatever else it does, sets a man free, and puts him in a position that he may become great. A time of sorrow is and must be a time of thought. And what most of us want is to be brought really to think. It is not too much to say that every one who is at the pains to think and to think truly will become great. But it specially leads us to think about our own state before God, for as soon as ever we are in sorrow it is in the gentleness of God that He wishes to comfort us. J. V.

He wants no slaves about His throne. He refuses, therefore, to subdue us unless by some such method that we may seem, in a certain other sense, to subdue ourselves. Most true it is that He carries a strong hand with us. He covers up no principle, tempers the exactness of no law. There is no connivance in His methods, no concealment of truths disagreeable and piercing, no proposition of compromise or halving in a way of settlement. His providence moves strong. His terrors flame out on the background of a wrathful sky. He thunders marvellously with His voice. And so His very gentleness stands glorious and strong and sovereignly majestic round us. Were He only soft or kind, bending like a willow to our wicked state, there were little to move and affect us even in His goodness itself. But when we look on Him as the Almighty Rock, the immovable Governor and Keeper of the worlds, girding Himself in all terrible majesty when He must, to let us know that impunity in wrong is impossible, then it is that we behold Him in the true meaning of His gentleness—how good! how firm! how adorably great! Come nigh, O thou sinning, weary prodigal, and acknowledge and receive in blissful welcome the true greatness of thy God! Be not jealous any more that religion is going to depress your manly parts, or weaken the strength of your high aspirations. In your lowest humiliations and deepest repentances you will be consciously raised and exalted. Every throb of heaven’s life in your bosom will be only a throb of greatness. Every good affection, every holy action, into which your God may lead you, all your bosom struggles, your hungers, and tears, and prostrations, will be the travailing only of a princely birth, and a glorious sonship with God. Bushnell.

In the temper which is most fitted to be victorious over sin, the warp of a sunny gentleness must be woven across the woof of a strong character. That will make the best tissue to stand the wear and tear of the world’s trials. Our Lord was divinely gentle, but He was also strong with a wondrous strength and firmness. W. H. Lyttleton.—Where there is great strength, full of sweet and gentle dealing, there is gentleness in its most perfect form. And the true Christian disposition is seen when a man is clothed with all manner of vigor and power and knowledge and intuition, and carries them in the midst of an offending, sinful world, not only with the utmost longsuffering, but with extreme gentleness. Anon.—God is calling us even to be great, great in courage and candor, steadfast in honor and truth, immovable in our promises, heroic in our sacrifices, right, and bold, and holy—men whom He is training, by His own great spirit, for a world of great sentiment, and will, and might, and majesty. Be it ours to live, then, with a sense of our high calling upon us, abiding in all the holy magnanimities of love, honor, sacrifice and truth; sincere, exact, faithful, bountiful and free; showing thus to others and knowing always in ourselves that we do steadily aspire to just that height of good into which our God Himself has undertaken to exalt us. Bushnell.

36-45. That which makes him victorious is not the brazen bow by itself, but the helping strength of his God. Jehovah’s salvation covered him like a shield, from which every blow of the enemy rebounded; Jehovah’s right hand supported him, so that his hands did not become weak in battle. So fighting in God’s strength, with God’s weapons, and with God’s assistance, he smote, overthrew, destroyed all his enemies both in foreign and in civil wars. D.

46-59. The hymn now concludes with the praise of Jehovah, who had done so great things for David and for his seed. And as Jehovah has not only placed him on the throne of Jerusalem, but has given him dominion over foreign nations, he will proclaim among these also the name and the praises of his God. Here we have the first utterance of a hope, which in later times became clear and distinct, that the heathen should learn to fear and worship Jehovah. P.

46. Again he recurs to the one thought which flows like a river of light through all the Psalm—that all his help is in God. The names which he lovingly heaped together at the beginning are in part echoed in the close. “The Lord liveth, and blessed is my rock, and the God of my salvation is exalted.” His deliverances have taught him to know a living God, swift to hear, active to help, in whom he lives, who has magnified His own name in that He has saved His servant. A. M.

Honors die, pleasures die, the world dies; but “the Lord liveth.” My flesh is as sand; my fleshly life, strength, glory, is as a word written on sand; but “blessed be my Rock.” Those are for a moment; this stands forever. Let outward salvations vanish; let the saved be crucified; let the “God” of our salvations “be exalted.” This Lord is my rock; this God is my salvation. Peter Sterry.

The whisper in the heart of the moral fool, “There is no God,” can never add to his stock of moral strength. This faith of the Psalmist, “The Lord liveth,” is at once followed by the exclamation, “and blessed be my strong helper, and praised be the God of my salvation.” The soul cannot rest upon the void which is the result of that vast negation; it can and does draw comfort, strength, support, determination, as it grasps and leans upon this greatest of all assertions. Liddon.—Were we but familiar with this kind of reasoning with God, how undaunted we should be in all troubles! We should be as secure in time to come as for the time past; for all is one with God. We do exceedingly wrong our own souls and weaken our faith by not minding God’s favors. Every former mercy should strengthen our faith for a new, as conquerors whom every former victory encouraged to a new conquest. Sibbes.

49. Paul quotes this verse (Rom. 15: 9), as well as Deut. 32: 43, and Psalm 117: 1, as proof that the salvation of Christ belonged, in the purpose of God, to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. The Psalm therefore looks beyond David. David and David’s rule over the nations are but a type and image of Christ, and of that spiritual kingdom which he came to establish. P.

50. In Christ, the son of David, David’s fallen throne has lasting continuance, and in Him everything that was promised to David’s seed has eternal truth and reality. According to its final purport, the praise of Jehovah, the God of David, His anointed, is praise of the Father of Jesus Christ. D.

David. This is the only passage in which David names himself; it may be with reference to the special promise through Nathan “to thy servant David,” or because the Psalm was intended for public recitation, reminding the whole nation of the grounds on which their allegiance to the house of David rested. The question whether the text of the Psalm is more ancient or more accurate in the Book of Samuel or here has been much discussed. Both texts have internal proofs of independence and originality; in fact, it is now admitted that neither could have been taken from the other, nor are the deviations generally such as could be accounted for by inaccurate transcription. The most natural and probable explanation is, that David toward the close of his reign prepared a revision for public recitation. Cook.