Psalm 18, Smoke and Consuming Fire! (Part 1)

For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD. 

He sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. 

He said:

A version of this psalm (an earlier draft?) appears in II Samuel 22 with the same historical prelude.

Psalm 18:1-3, My rock, my fortress, my deliverer

I love you, O LORD, my strength.

The LORD is my rock, 

my fortress and my deliverer; 

my God is my rock, 

in whom I take refuge. 

He is my shield 

and the horn of my salvation, 

my stronghold.

I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, 

and I am saved from my enemies.

The first verse does not appear in the passage in II Samuel.  It is a rare statement for David, very passionate, ecstatic.

In verse 2, "horn" is a metaphor for strength.  Some of the phrasing in verses 2 and 3 alludes to past events in David's conflict with Saul, including I Sam 23:25-28 where David experiences a miraculous escape from Saul's army.

Vangameren, in his commentary on the Psalms, argues that this song has a chiasmic (concentric) structure of five circles, with the first three verses echoed by verses 46 to 50 at the end of the song.

Psalm 18:4-6, Cords drag me down

The cords of death entangled me; 

the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

The cords of the grave coiled around me; 

the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called to the LORD; 

I cried to my God for help. 

From his temple he heard my voice; 

my cry came before him, into his ears.

David describes his past despair and closeness with death.  Swallowed up by death and destruction, David is astounded and delighted when God lifts him up.

This is a long psalm of ecstatic  praise, different from any of the earlier psalms.  David has prayed to and petitioned God.  Now, dramatically, God has answered.  And David goes wild with praise.  The passage that follows dramatically describes David's perception of God.

Kidner suggests that there are echoes of the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32), another Old Testament hero who had a covenant with God.

Psalm 18:7-15, Thunder of YHWH

The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; 

they trembled because he was angry.

Smoke rose from his nostrils; 

consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.

He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.

He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.

He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky.

Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning.

The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. 

He shot his arrows and scattered [the enemies], great bolts of lightning and routed them.

The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of breath from your nostrils.

This dramatic theophany echoes the appearance of God at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19:18 and Ezekiel's vision of God in Ezekiel 1:4.  The appearance is vivid, frightening, otherworldly.  In all of this God is viewed as the Creator, in control of all Nature.

Psalm 18:16-19, Plucked out of the rapids

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; 

he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

David's vision of God turns personal.  Not only is God the YAHWEH of Mt. Sinai, but also a personal savior, who has intervened in David's life.
Note David's claim that God "delighted in me"!

Saul's many attempts to kill David are described in I Samuel 19-31.  Especially interesting passages are:

• I Samuel 18:5-9 where we see that the attacks are motivated by jealousy.
• I Samuel 19, where the first attacks occur, and David makes a covenant with Jonathan.
• I Samuel 22:18-23 where Saul slaughters a village which harbored David.
• I Samuel chapters 24  and 26 where David twice abstains from killing Saul, despite having perfect opportunities.

It is not surprising that David is ecstatic about escaping from Saul!

Psalm 18:20-24, According to my righteousness

The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness; 

according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.

For I have kept the ways of the LORD; 

I have not done evil by turning from my God.

All his laws are before me; 

I have not turned away from his decrees.

I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.

The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, 

according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

To the New Testament sinner, saved by the sacrificial grace of Jesus, this insistence on righteousness may seem strange.  But David, in the Old Testament view of justice, has submitted to God's laws and been eager in following God.

It is unlikely that David could say this so confidently after his disastrous affair with Bathsheba and the national scandal that followed.

Psalm 18:25-28, Faithful with the faithful

To the faithful you show yourself faithful, 

to the blameless you show yourself blameless,

to the pure you show yourself pure, 

but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.

You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.

You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.

In verses 25-26, God's actions are seen as reactions to those of others.  God is faithful to the faithful, pure to the pure, etc.  To those who are crooked and devious, God is "shrewd" (or "deals in twists".)

The word translated "faithful" in verse 25 is hasid, says Kidner, often translated "loyal".  It is closely related to hesed ("steadfast love"), the covenantal love between committed partners.  A version of the word appears in Psalms 17:7.  (See, for example, the book of Ruth, for a beautiful picture of "hesed"! That's my suggestion, not Kidner's!)

Psalm 18: 29, But with you!

With your help I can advance against a troop; 

with my God I can scale a wall.

Psalms commentator Derek Kidner sees here (and in verse 33) a reference to fighting on foot, typical of David, prior to the application of the battle chariot in the time of Solomon.

We are halfway through this famous psalm and so will break off our study and this point and look at the second half of this psalm in our next scripture blog.

A question.  How is that psalm so different from those we have been reading to this point?  Why?