Psalm 18:3 Kommentar

This psalm we met with before, in the history of David's life, 2 Sa. 22. That was the first edition of it; here we have it revived, altered a little, and fitted for the service of the church. It is David's thanksgiving for the many deliverances God had wrought for him; these he desired always to preserve fresh in his own memory and to diffuse and entail the knowledge of them. It is an admirable composition. The poetry is very fine, the images are bold, the expressions lofty, and every word is proper and significant; but the piety far exceeds the poetry. Holy faith, and love, and joy, and praise, and hope, are here lively, active, and upon the wing. I. He triumphs in God (Psa 18:1-3). II. He magnifies the deliverances God had wrought for him (v. 4-19). III. He takes the comfort of his integrity, which God had thereby cleared up (Psa 18:20-28). IV. He gives to God the glory of all his achievements (Psa 18:29-42). V. He encourages himself with the expectation of what God would further do for him and his (Psa 18:43-50). To 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.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 18 To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David. This is the same with that in Sa2 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", Sa2 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; Psa 18:2, in Heb 2:13, and Psa 18:49 in Rom 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, Psa 18:43; and which is expressed in much the same language as the like things are in Isa 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 Psa 18:50; and which is applied to the Messiah by the Jews (q) as Psa 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.

The sorrows of death compassed me,.... These words and the following, in this verse and Psa 18:5, as they respect David, show the snares that were laid for his life, the danger of death he was in, and the anxiety of mind he was possessed of on account of it; and as they refer to Christ, include all the sorrows of his life to the time of his death, who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief personally, and bore and carried the sorrows and griefs of all his people; and may chiefly intend his sorrows in the garden, arising from a view of the sins of his people, which he was about to bear upon the cross; and from an apprehension of the wrath of God, and curse of the law, which he was going to sustain for them, when his soul was encompassed about with sorrow, even unto death, Mat 26:38; when his sorrow was so great, and lay so heavy upon him, that it almost pressed him down to death, he could scarce live under it; and may also take in the very pains and agonies of death; he dying the death of the cross, which was a very painful and excruciating one; see Psa 22:14; The Hebrew word for "sorrows" signifies the pains and birth throes of a woman in travail; and is here fitly used of the sufferings and death of Christ; through which he brought forth much fruit, or many sons to glory. The Targum is, "distress has encompassed me, as a woman that sits upon the stool, and has no strength to bring forth, and is in danger of dying.'' In Sa2 22:5, it is "the waves" or "breakers of death compassed me"; and the word there used is rendered in Hos 13:13; "the breaking forth of children"; moreover the same word signifies "cords" (r), as well as pains and sorrows; and the allusion may be to malefactors being bound with cords when led to execution, and put to death; and may here signify the power of death, under which the Messiah was held for a while, but was loosed from it at his resurrection; to which sense of the word, and to the words here, the Apostle Peter manifestly refers, Act 2:24; and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; meaning either the multitude of them, as Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and people of the Jews, who all gathered together against him; so the Targum renders it, "a company of wicked men"; or the variety of sufferings he endured by them; as spitting upon, buffering, scourging, &c. The word rendered "ungodly men is Belial"; and signifies vain, worthless, and unprofitable men; men of no figure or account; or lawless ones, such as have cast off the yoke of the law, are not subject to it; persons very wicked and profligate. The word in the New Testament seems to be used for Satan, Co2 6:15; where it is so rendered in the Syriac version, and he may be designed here; and by the floods of Belial may be meant, not so much the temptations of Satan in the wilderness, as his violent and impetuous attacks upon Christ in the garden, when being in an agony or conflict with him, his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood, Luk 22:44. The Septuagint render the word, "the torrents of iniquity troubled me"; which was true of Christ, when all the sins of his people came flowing in upon him, like mighty torrents, from all quarters; when God laid on him the iniquity of them all, and he was made sin for them; and in a view of all this "he began to be sore amazed", Mar 14:33; compare with this Psa 69:1. Arama interprets Belial of the evil imagination in David, who had a war in himself. (r) "funes mortis", Musculus, Montanus, Vatablus, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth, Hammond.

"With praise will I call upon the Lord, and I shall be safe from Mine enemies" [Psalm 18:3]. Seeking not My own but the Lord's glory, I will call upon Him, and there shall be no means whereby the errors of ungodliness can hurt Me.

There you have something you can do. Praising, call—but remember it is the Lord you praise and call on. Because if you praise yourself, you will not be saved from your enemies. Praising, call on the Lord, and you will be saved from your enemies.

Praise issuing from a pure conscience delights the Lord, and so the same psalmist exhorts us, “Praise ye the Lord because a psalm is good; to our God be joyful and comely praise.” With this in mind, aware of how pleasing to God is this ministry, the psalmist again declares, “Seven times a day I have given praise to you.” To this he adds a further promise: “And my tongue shall meditate your justice, your praise all the day long.” Without doubt, he had experience of the good to be derived from this work, for he reminds us [in the psalm before us]: “Praising I will call on the Lord, and I shall be saved from my enemies.” It was with such a shield of praise to protect him that as a boy [David] destroyed the great power of the giant Goliath, and, in many other instances, came out victorious over the invaders.

He is my refuge, he is my liberator; as I praise and call on him I will be safe from my enemies. Let me say this in the present so that I may not doubt it in the future.

"My God." Here he sets forth the affection of hope. And there is a difference between hope and love, because love is a unitive power -- for we love something insofar as we consider it our own; and therefore he says that God is his strength: Is. 12: "The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he has become my salvation." Hope implies defense from without; and God does both. Or thus: the object of hope is a good that is arduous, future, and possible to attain. Just as one loves on account of a good already given, so one hopes for a future good from the confidence conceived from love and from similar experiences, inasmuch as he believes he will receive similar things in the future. And therefore here he does three things. First he hopes for the refuge and firmament that consists in good things. Second he asks for protection against evils that have already occurred. He says therefore first, "My God, my helper": Ps. 93: "Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul would soon have dwelt in hell," etc. "And I will hope in him": Sir. 2: "You who fear the Lord, hope in him, and mercy shall come to you with delight." Second, we hope to be freed from evils to which we have not yet been subjected, because he defends us. First, lest we be harmed. Second, that we may overcome them, and for the victory he crowns us. As to the first he says, "my protector." Jerome has "shield," which protects so that one cannot be pierced by evils; so God does: Ps. 63: "You have protected me, O God, from the assembly of the malignant." As to the second he says, "and the horn of my salvation," because animals strike with their horn; so the power of God resists against adversaries, because he fights to overcome temporal and spiritual evils: Ps. 43: "In you we shall gore our enemies with the horn, and in your name we shall despise those who rise up against us." 1 Sam. 2: "My heart has rejoiced in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God," that is, my power. As to the third, "and my upholder." When someone conquers, he is received in triumph; so also God does: Jn. 14: "I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you also may be." Ps. 72: "You have received me with glory." A similar passage is found in 2 Sam. 22. Next he sets forth the consequent effect, namely praise. Praise is speech that elucidates the greatness of power, or at least follows from this. First therefore he sets forth the praise. Second, its efficacy. He says therefore, "Praising, I will call upon the Lord"; as if to say: from this I do not have praise of my own, but I seek yours, because you have done it. Is. 63: "I will remember the mercies of the Lord, the praise of the Lord for all the things he has bestowed upon me." "And I will call upon" you securely and with efficacy, because thus calling, "I shall be saved from my enemies": Joel 2: "Everyone who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

"The servant of the LORD," which in the Hebrew precedes "David," is a significant part of the title (and not a mere epithet of David), denoting the inspired character of the song, as the production of one entrusted with the execution of God's will. He was not favored by God because he served Him, but served Him because selected and appointed by God in His sovereign mercy. After a general expression of praise and confidence in God for the future, David gives a sublimely poetical description of God's deliverance, which he characterizes as an illustration of God's justice to the innocent and His righteous government. His own prowess and success are celebrated as the results of divine aid, and, confident of its continuance, he closes in terms of triumphant praise. 2Sa. 22:1-51 is a copy of this Psalm, with a few unimportant variations recorded there as a part of the history, and repeated here as part of a collection designed for permanent use. (Psa. 18:1-50) I will love thee--with most tender affection.

to be praised--for past favors, and worthy of confidence.