13 Jehovah also thundered in the heavens, And the Most High uttered his voice, Hailstones and coals of fire.
At thy rebuke they fled; At the voice of thy thunder they hasted away
And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel; but Jehovah thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten down before Israel.
And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off.
`They shall be' wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat And bitter destruction; And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust.
He gave over their cattle also to the hail, And their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
What shall be given unto thee, and what shall be done more unto thee, Thou deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, With coals of juniper.
And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of God Almighty when he speaketh.
Before him went the pestilence, And fiery bolts went forth at his feet.
And out of the throne proceed lightnings and voices and thunders. And `there was' seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God;
And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 18
Commentary on Psalms 18 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 18
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.
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.
Psa 18:1-19
The title gives us the occasion of penning this psalm; we had it before (2 Sa. 22:1), only here we are told that the psalm was delivered to the chief musician, or precentor, in the temple-songs. Note, The private compositions of good men, designed by them for their own use, may be serviceable to the public, that others may not only borrow light from their candle, but heat from their fire. Examples sometimes teach better than rules. And David is here called the servant of the Lord, as Moses was, not only as every good man is God's servant, but because, with his sceptre, with his sword, and with his pen, he greatly promoted the interests of God's kingdom in Israel. It was more his honour that he was a servant of the Lord than that he was king of a great kingdom; and so he himself accounted it (Ps. 116:16): O Lord! truly I am thy servant. In these verses,
In singing this we must triumph in God, and trust in him: and we may apply it to Christ the Son of David. The sorrows of death surrounded him; in his distress he prayed (Heb. 5:7); God made the earth to shake and tremble, and the rocks to cleave, and brought him out, in his resurrection, into a large place, because he delighted in him and in his undertaking.
Psa 18:20-28
Here,
Let those that walk in darkness, and labour under many discouragements in singing these verses, encourage themselves that God himself will be a light to them.
Psa 18:29-50
In these verses,
In singing these verses we must give God the glory of the victories of Christ and his church hitherto and of all the deliverances and advancements of the gospel kingdom, and encourage ourselves and one another with an assurance that the church militant will be shortly triumphant, will be eternally so.