Psalms 18

1 I love you, God - you make me strong.

2 God is bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight. My God - the high crag where I run for dear life, hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout.

3 I sing to God, the Praise-Lofty, and find myself safe and saved.

4 The hangman's noose was tight at my throat; devil waters rushed over me.

5 Hell's ropes cinched me tight; death traps barred every exit.

6 A hostile world! I call to God, I cry to God to help me. From his palace he hears my call; my cry brings me right into his presence - a private audience!

7 Earth wobbles and lurches; huge mountains shake like leaves, Quake like aspen leaves because of his rage.

8 His nostrils flare, bellowing smoke; his mouth spits fire. Tongues of fire dart in and out;

9 he lowers the sky. He steps down; under his feet an abyss opens up.

10 He's riding a winged creature, swift on wind-wings.

11 Now he's wrapped himself in a trenchcoat of black-cloud darkness.

12 But his cloud-brightness bursts through, spraying hailstones and fireballs.

13 Then God thundered out of heaven; the High God gave a great shout, spraying hailstones and fireballs.

14 God shoots his arrows - pandemonium! He hurls his lightnings - a rout!

15 The secret sources of ocean are exposed, the hidden depths of earth lie uncovered The moment you roar in protest, let loose your hurricane anger.

16 But me he caught - reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out

17 that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning.

18 They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me.

19 He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved - surprised to be loved!

20 God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him. When I got my act together, he gave me a fresh start.

21 Now I'm alert to God's ways; I don't take God for granted.

22 Every day I review the ways he works; I try not to miss a trick.

23 I feel put back together, and I'm watching my step.

24 God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

25 The good people taste your goodness, The whole people taste your health,

26 The true people taste your truth, The bad ones can't figure you out.

27 You take the side of the down-and-out, But the stuck-up you take down a peg.

28 Suddenly, God, you floodlight my life; I'm blazing with glory, God's glory!

29 I smash the bands of marauders, I vault the highest fences.

30 What a God! His road stretches straight and smooth. Every God-direction is road-tested. Everyone who runs toward him Makes it.

31 Is there any god like God? Are we not at bedrock?

32 Is not this the God who armed me, then aimed me in the right direction?

33 Now I run like a deer; I'm king of the mountain.

34 He shows me how to fight; I can bend a bronze bow!

35 You protect me with salvation-armor; you hold me up with a firm hand, caress me with your gentle ways.

36 You cleared the ground under me so my footing was firm.

37 When I chased my enemies I caught them; I didn't let go till they were dead men.

38 I nailed them; they were down for good; then I walked all over them.

39 You armed me well for this fight, you smashed the upstarts.

40 You made my enemies turn tail, and I wiped out the haters.

41 They cried "uncle" but Uncle didn't come; They yelled for God and got no for an answer.

42 I ground them to dust; they gusted in the wind. I threw them out, like garbage in the gutter.

43 You rescued me from a squabbling people; you made me a leader of nations. People I'd never heard of served me;

44 the moment they got wind of me they listened.

45 they came on their bellies, crawling from their hideouts.

46 Live, God! Blessings from my Rock, my free and freeing God, towering!

47 This God set things right for me and shut up the people who talked back.

48 He rescued me from enemy anger, he pulled me from the grip of upstarts, He saved me from the bullies.

49 That's why I'm thanking you, God, all over the world. That's why I'm singing songs that rhyme your name.

50 God's king takes the trophy; God's chosen is beloved. I mean David and all his children - always.

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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.

Taken from Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Concise)

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.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible