Psalm 18
David’s Hymn in Retrospect of a Life Crowned with Many Mercies
Ps 18:1-3
It is the longest of all the hymnic Psalms, and bears the inscription: “To the Precentor, by the servant of Jahve, by David, who spake unto Jahve the words of this song in the day that Jahve had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saûl..”
The very existence of this psalm speaks against the modern notion that the Christian life is always to be a victorious and happy experience. As David will describe here, he has just come out of a time of great unhappiness, of terrible persecutions, and of trials to his faith and his resolve.
His public life had begun in great glory first with the anointing to be king by Samuel followed by being taken into the court of king Saul to be his musician and comforter. Then had come the great victory over Goliath
and the Philistines. He was given Saul’s daughter as his wife and had formed a fast friendship with Jonathan, Saul’s son and heir. He had eaten daily at the kings table as a family member and enjoyed all the blessings and privileges of high rank in the kingdom.
But soon after these events, Saul was set upon by an evil spirit which drove him to insane acts, many of which were directed at David to murder him. David was forced to flee for his life and live the next several years as an outlaw and a hunted man. Saul hunted him almost continually, even though he was delivered twice into David’s hand and was spared by David. At one point David was forced to flee to Gath, a stronghold of the Philistines, and pretend to be insane so that the Philistines would not kill him. Later, after a number of men from Judah had surrounded David, forming a small army, David had entered into the service of the king of Gath and was given the city of Ziklag as his fortress. But the Philistine princes did not trust David and, so, he was not fully accepted even there. During the last great battle between the Philistines and Israel under Saul’s reign, Saul was killed, but so was David’s best friend, Jonathan.
David earnestly and agonizingly mourned both Saul and Jonathan. Saul had for a time been like a father to him and Jonathan had always been closer to David than his own brothers.
2 Sam 1:19-27 19 “Your beauty, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How have the mighty fallen! 20 “Tell it not in Gath, Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. 21 “O mountains of Gilboa, Let not dew or rain be on you, nor fields of offerings; For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. 22 “From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty,The bow of Jonathan did not turn back,And the sword of Saul did not return empty. 23 “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their life,And in their death they were not parted;They were swifter than eagles,They were stronger than lions. 24 “O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,Who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet,Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. 25 “How have the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan is slain on your high places. 26 “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful Than the love of women. 27 “How have the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished!” NAS
David writes Psalm 18 against the backdrop of all this suffering and difficulty. Whereas many would be angry with God for putting them through such suffering after promising the kingship at his anointing, David does no such thing. He rather rejoices in the deliverance into his hand of that which was promised even though he had waited and suffered for a long time. We might also mention that even the kingdom did not come to him all at once because one of the sons of Saul was anointed king over the norther tribes and David did not unite the kingdom for some time and that also only after struggles.
The people of God should expect difficulty and hardship but also should keep themselves to two great duties:
1. To abide faithful, as David did, during the struggle, and;
2. Remember to give thanks to God when the struggle is over and the promises are realized.
Let us now look at the Psalm. First of all, we should note that it is divided into two great divisions: 1-31 and 32-51. In the first half, David is seen as passive, the object of God’s favor. In the second half, he is active, being enabled by God.
Ps 18:1-2
1 I will love thee, 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 buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. (KJV)
He begins by gathering together in one several different names for God, which he uses in praise.
Ps 18:1; Ps 18:2
[My strength.] 1. Thou who hast given me power over my adversaries, and hast enabled me to avoid evil and do good. [The Lord is my rock] 2. I stand on him as my foundation, and derive every good from him who is the source of good. The word celª`iy (OT:5553) signifies those craggy precipices which afford shelter to men and wild animals where the bees often made their nests, and whence honey was collected in great abundance. “He made him to suck honey out of the rock,” Deut 32:13. 3. He was his fortress a place of strength and safety, fortified by nature and art, where he could be safe from his enemies. He refers to those inaccessible heights in the rocky, mountainous country of Judea, where he had often found refuge from the pursuit of Saul. What these have been to my body, such has the Lord been to my soul. [And my deliverer] 4. “He who causes me to escape.” This refers to his preservation in straits and difficulties. He was often almost surrounded and taken, but still the Lord made a way for his escape-made a way out as his enemies got in, so that, while they got in at one side of his strong hold, he got out of the other, and so escaped with his life. These escapes were so narrow and so unlikely that he plainly saw the hand of the Lord was in them. 5. [My God] ‘Eeliy (OT:410), my strong God, not only the object of my adoration, but he who puts strength in my soul. 6. [My strength] tsuwriy (OT:6697). This is a different word from that in the first verse. When applied to God it signifies fountain, source, origin, etc. God is not only the source whence my being was derived, but he is the fountain whence I derive all my good; in whom, says David, I will trust. And why? Because he knew him to be an eternal and inexhaustible fountain of goodness. This fine idea is lost in our translation; for we render two Hebrew words of widely different meaning, by the same term in English, strength. 7. [My buckler] maaginiy (OT:4043), my shield, my defender, he who covers my head and my heart, so that I am neither slain nor wounded by the darts of my adversaries. 8. Horn of my salvation. Horn was the emblem of power, and power in exercise. The horn of salvation means a powerful, an efficient salvation. 9. My high tower; not only a place of defense, but one from which I can discern the country round about, and always be able to discover danger before it approaches me. (from Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft) Ps 18:1-3
All these epithets applied to God are the fruits of the affliction out of which David’s song has sprung, viz., his persecution by Saul, when, in a country abounding in rugged rocks and deficient in forest, he betook himself to the rocks for safety, and the mountains served him as his fortresses. In the shelter which the mountains, by their natural conformations, afforded him at that time, and in the fortunate accidents, which sometimes brought him deliverance when in extreme peril, David recognises only marvellous phenomena of which Jahve Himself was to him the final cause. (from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
— April 20, 2020