1 > I love you, Yahweh, my strength.
2 Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
3 I call on Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised; And I am saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.
5 The cords of Sheol were round about me; The snares of death came on me.
6 In my distress I called on Yahweh, And cried to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple, My cry before him came into his ears.
7 Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the mountains quaked and were shaken, Because he was angry.
8 Smoke went out of his nostrils. Consuming fire came out of his mouth. Coals were kindled by it.
9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet.
10 He rode on a cherub, and flew. Yes, he soared on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion around him, Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
12 At the brightness before him his thick clouds passed, Hailstones and coals of fire.
13 Yahweh also thundered in the sky, The Most High uttered his voice: Hailstones and coals of fire.
14 He sent out his arrows, and scattered them; Yes, great lightning bolts, and routed them.
15 Then the channels of waters appeared, The foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, Yahweh, At the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
16 He sent from on high. He took me. He drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, From those who hated me; for they were too mighty for me.
18 They came on me in the day of my calamity, But Yahweh was my support.
19 He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me, because he delighted in me.
20 Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness. According to the cleanness of my hands has he recompensed me.
21 For I have kept the ways of Yahweh, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all his ordinances were before me. I didn't put away his statutes from me.
23 I was also blameless with him. I kept myself from my iniquity.
24 Therefore Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.
25 With the merciful you will show yourself merciful. With the perfect man, you will show yourself perfect.
26 With the pure, you will show yourself pure. With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
27 For you will save the afflicted people, But the haughty eyes you will bring down.
28 For you will light my lamp, Yahweh. My God will light up my darkness.
29 For by you, I advance through a troop. By my God, I leap over a wall.
30 As for God, his way is perfect. The word of Yahweh is tried. He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.
31 For who is God, except Yahweh? Who is a rock, besides our God,
32 The God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect?
33 He makes my feet like deer's feet, And sets me on my high places.
34 He teaches my hands to war; So that my arms bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your right hand sustains me. Your gentleness has made me great.
36 You have enlarged my steps under me, My feet have not slipped.
37 I will pursue my enemies, and overtake them. Neither will I turn again until they are consumed.
38 I will strike them through, so that they will not be able to rise. They shall fall under my feet.
39 For you have girded me with strength to the battle. You have subdued under me those who rose up against me.
40 You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, That I might cut off those who hate me.
41 They cried, but there was none to save; Even to Yahweh, but he didn't answer them.
42 Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind. I cast them out as the mire of the streets.
43 You have delivered me from the strivings of the people. You have made me the head of the nations. A people whom I have not known shall serve me.
44 As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me. The foreigners shall submit themselves to me.
45 The foreigners shall fade away, And shall come trembling out of their close places.
46 Yahweh lives; and blessed be my rock. Exalted be the God of my salvation,
47 Even the God who executes vengeance for me, And subdues peoples under me.
48 He rescues me from my enemies. Yes, you lift me up above those who rise up against me. You deliver me from the violent man.
49 Therefore I will give thanks to you, Yahweh, among the nations, And will sing praises to your name.
50 He gives great deliverance to his king, And shows loving kindness to his anointed, To David and to his seed, forevermore.
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.