Psalm 18:8 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.

He bowed the heavens also, and came down,.... To execute wrath and vengeance on wicked men; which is always the sense of these phrases when they go together; see Psa 144:6; The Targum is, "he bowed the heavens, and his glory appeared"; that is, the glory of his power, and of his mighty hand of vengeance; for not his grace and mercy, but his indignation and wrath, showed themselves; for it follows, and darkness was under his feet; the Targum is, "a dark cloud", expressive of the awfulness of the dispensation to wicked men; who are not allowed to see the face of God, are debarred his presence, and denied, communion with him, and to whom everything appears awful and terrible, Psa 97:2.

"There went up smoke in His wrath" [Psalm 18:8]. The tearful supplication of penitents went up, when they came to know God's threatenings against the ungodly. "And fire burns from His face." And the ardour of love after repentance burns by the knowledge of Him. "Coals were kindled from Him." They, who were already dead, abandoned by the fire of good desire and the light of righteousness, and who remained in coldness and darkness, re-enkindled and enlightened, have come to life again.

"There ascended." Here, expounding corporally, the effect from above is set forth. Now the effect of the earth from above is when the earth is burned by celestial fire in some part of itself; and regarding this he does two things. First he touches on the matter itself. Second, the kindling of the fire and the burning. Its matter is dry smoke dissolved and ascending until it is inflamed; and therefore he says, "smoke ascended in his wrath," that is, by his will, that is, God's, by which he thus punishes. "From his face," that is, from his power, "fire blazed forth," that is, was kindled; "and coals," that is, combustible matter, were set ablaze here. Mystically, two things are signified by this: namely the devotion of prayer and the inflammation of charity. "There ascended": and from this the wrath of God against sinners is considered. "Smoke ascended," of devout prayer: Rev. 8: "The smoke of the incense ascended," that is, of the fire of charity. "From his face," that is, Christ's, "it blazed forth": Lk. 12: "I came to cast fire upon the earth." "Coals were kindled by him," namely those receptive of kindling. A coal once had fire; so a person from the beginning had charity, but was extinguished; but these were kindled by Christ. Also coals that are not moist are thus kindled, but moist ones are not -- like those moist with the flow of carnal things: Ps. 119: "Sharp arrows of the mighty with coals," etc. "The earth was moved and trembled; the foundations of the mountains were disturbed and were moved, because he was angry with them." God is said to be angry because he bears himself in the manner of one who is angry, not in himself, but as to the effect; now an angry lord makes his servant tremble, and a lion its cub. For which it should be known that the power containing the members is released outwardly and returns inwardly, namely to the heart, as if fleeing and yielding to the imagined evil, or to the power rising against it that it cannot resist, and the members tremble, just as a wall trembles when its foundation is shaken. For the soul contains the body and is, as it were, its foundation; and a part of the soul sustains a part of the body. Hence when the foundation is shaken, the wall is shaken; and when the power is disturbed, the member is disturbed. Thus therefore the effect of anger in an animal is trembling. Now an animal is said to tremble when a part of it is shaken while the whole remains in the same place; and similarly, because this occurs in an earthquake, the earth is said to tremble by likeness to animals. For God is said to be angry at the earth in an earthquake. Or thus: in a human being there are four things: namely reason, sensitive powers, nature, and the body. But in the world there are God, angels, animals, plants, and elements. For we see that when an evil is imagined which the body cannot resist, the body immediately trembles -- not from cognition, but by a certain natural order or naturally, inasmuch as the power of the imagined evil is stronger. And similarly, when God turns his power upon the earth, although it does not know wrath, it naturally trembles. "The foundations," that is, certain cavities or hollow earth, which when moved cause the mountains to shake. "Because he was angry," etc. The first cause is the will of God or his power willing to act upon them; but he does this through secondary causes, so that all secondary causes are compared to the earth as the imagined evil moving the members. "Smoke ascended." Note here that according to the Philosopher, from moist earth a warm and moist vapor is released by the power of the sun's heat; but from dry earth, a dry and warm vapor; and naturally the second ascends higher than the first. For the latter is likened to fire, the former to air; and this vapor the Psalmist calls smoke, according to its warm and dry quality. The Philosopher, however, calls it the matter of combustion. For this vapor, carried aloft, with a slight increase of heat, is kindled in a circular motion. This dry smoke, if it has length and breadth, after it is kindled, is called a flame. For a flame, according to the Philosopher, is the burning of a dry exhalation. If it has length only, it is called a "daly" or firebrand, and "aegibes" or goats, and stars. A "daly" is when that combustible matter is long and continuous without scintillation. "Goats" is the name when there is scintillation, that is, when it seems to leap and run about, like goats. "Stars" is when the matter is discontinuous and seems to fly like stars; and this has the least matter. There is also another kind of star, which is cold expelling heat; and such stars do not seem to fly but rather to be cast down, as the Philosopher says; and they are generated not from entirely dry smoke, but from a vapor that is more moist and warm, which by its nature does not ascend as high as the dry, as has been said. And because it is dry, it is affected by the cold and repelled, and is projected downward. And this happens during the day and in clear weather; otherwise it would be extinguished by the density and moisture of the air. And because it is seen during the day, this is a sign that it is near the earth. Now it is kindled in two ways: by continuation, as an upper flame kindles a lower lamp; or by motion from cold and compression, or the concentration of heat. Thus he says, "smoke ascended," that is, dry exhalation, "in his wrath," that is, by the will of him who wills to act upon it. "And fire," that is, that smoke which is called fire also by the Philosopher at the beginning of the Metaphysics, as it were because it does not have a proper name -- just as moist exhalation is called vapor; but it is called fire because it is disposed to ascend and because it is warm and dry like fire. For "this fire blazed forth," that is, was kindled, namely by God as by the first cause; and this kindled fire is called a firebrand, flame, and star -- stars, I say, generated in the first way, as was said. "And coals were kindled by him," that is, stars generated in the second way. Or thus: "The earth was moved," etc. A dry vapor raised from the earth by the power of the sun's heat is sometimes thin, and then it is raised higher and produces intensification, as was said above. Sometimes on the surface of the earth it is somewhat thicker; hence, repelled by the cold, it does not ascend as high, and becomes wind. Sometimes a thicker dry vapor is raised within the earth, which on account of its thickness and the solidity and depth of the earth does not expire outward, but is enclosed in the earth and collects in some cavity of the earth similar to itself, and is compressed by some body not similar to it in kind, and thus is agitated in the bowels of the earth; and thus it moves it. Nor is this surprising, since we see the wind making waves like mountains in the sea, and on land uprooting trees and causing buildings to collapse, and in the air producing the greatest tempests. That wind is the cause of earthquakes is indicated by the fact that before an earthquake there is usually calm from winds; but after an earthquake there are winds. The matter of the earthquake, refined by the heat of the sun, expires from the earth, and thus the earthquake ceases and wind arises. The cause of the earthquake is the driving of one wind by another; and for this reason it cannot occur in the whole earth at once, but lasts for up to two hundred miles at most, as Seneca says. And he says that an earthquake separated Sicily from Calabria and Spain from Africa. And it lasts sometimes for forty days, sometimes for a year. Also note that solid earth from which vapor cannot exit outward is apt to be moved quickly; for earth that is of a stony nature is not easily moved and shaken. Nevertheless, it must be porous on some side, so that vapor may enter; so that it enters through the pores and is contained by the solidity. And if you say that if it enters it cannot exit, it should be said that this cannot always happen, because sometimes the entry and rising of vapor to that place continues uninterruptedly. And again, because heat does not go downward, the ocean wave cooperates in this by closing the pores and, as it were, reclosing them below against the cold. Hence cavernous places near the sea frequently produce earthquakes. Also note that this vapor continually exits from the earth to some extent, and therefore during earthquakes, animals that carry their heads near the ground are often infected by that poisonous vapor exiting from the earth.

"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.

smoke out . . . his nostrils--bitter in His wrath (compare Psa 74:1). by it--that is, the fire (Exo 19:18).