How different the contrasted conditions of the hunted psalmist and his enemies look when the light of such thoughts streams on them! The helpless victim towers above his persecutors, for his desires go up to Him who abides and saturates with His blessed fulness the heart that aspires to Him. Terrors vanish; foes are forgotten; every other wish is swallowed up in one, which is a confidence as well as a desire. The psalmist neither grudges, nor is perplexed by, the prosperity of the wicked. The mysteries of men's earthly lot puzzle those who stand at a lower elevation; but they do not disturb the soul on these supreme heights of mystic devotion, where God is seen to be the only good, and the hungry heart is filled with Him. Assuredly the psalmist's closing expectation embodies the one contrast worth notice: that between the present gross and partial satisfactions of sense-bound lives and the calm, permanent, full delights of communion with God. But does he limit his hopes to such "hours of high communion with the living God" as may be ours, even while the foe rings us round and earth holds us down? Possibly so, but it is difficult to find a worthy meaning for "when I awake" unless it be from the sleep of death. Possibly, too, the allusion to the men of the world as "leaving their substance" makes the reference to a future beatific vision more likely. Death is to them the stripping off of their chosen portion; it is to him whose portion is God the fuller possession of all that he loves and desires. Cheyne ("Orig. of Psalt.," p. 407) regards the "awaking" as that from the "sleep" of the intermediate state by "the passing of the soul into a resurrection body." He is led to the recognition of the doctrine of the resurrection here by his theory of the late date of the psalm and the influence of Zoroastrianism on it. But it is not necessary to suppose an allusion to the resurrection. Rather the psalmist's confidence is the offspring of his profound consciousness of present communion, and we see here the very process by which a devout man, in the absence of a clear revelation of the future, reached up to a conclusion to which he was led by his experience of the inmost reality of friendship with God. The impotence of death on the relation of the devout soul to God is a postulate of faith, whether formulated as an article of faith or not. Probably the psalmist had no clear conception of a future life; but certainly he had a distinct assurance of it, because he felt that the very "sweetness" of present fellowship with God "yielded proof that it was born for immortality."
[PSALM XVIII.]
1 Heartily do I love Thee, Jehovah, my strength!
2 Jehovah, my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
My God, my rock in whom I take refuge,
My shield and the horn of my salvation and my high tower!
3 I call upon Him who is to be praised, Jehovah;
And from mine enemies am I saved.
4 The breakers of death ringed me round,
And streams of destruction terrified me.
5 The cords of Sheol encircled me;
The snares of death fronted me.
6 In my distress I called on Jehovah,
And to my God I loudly cried;
He heard my voice from His palace-temple,
And my loud crying before Him entered His ears.
7 Then the earth rocked and reeled,
And the foundations of the mountains quivered
And rocked again, for He was wroth.
8 Smoke went up in His nostrils,
And fire from His mouth devoured;
Brands came blazing from Him.
9 And He bowed the heavens and came down,
And cloud gloom [was] below His feet.
10 And He rode upon the cherub and flew,
And came swooping on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness His covert, His tent round about Him,
Darkness of waters and cloud masses of the skies.
12 From the brightness before Him there passed through His cloud-masses
Hail and brands of fire.
13 And Jehovah thundered in the heavens,
And the Most High gave forth His voice.
14 And He sent forth His arrows and scattered them,
And lightnings many, and flung them into panic.
15 And the beds of the waters were seen,
And the foundations of the earth bared,
At Thy rebuke, Jehovah,
At the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils.
16 He stretched from on high: He took me;
He drew me from many waters.
17 He rescued me from my strong enemy
And from my haters, because they were too mighty for me.
18 They fell on me in the day of my calamity,
But Jehovah became as a staff to me.
19 And He brought me out into a wide place;
He delivered me, because He delighted in me.
20 Jehovah treated me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands He returned [recompense] to me.
21 For I kept the ways of Jehovah,
And did not part myself by sin from my God.
22 For all His judgments were before me,
And His statutes did I not put away from me.
23 And I was without fault with Him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.
24 Therefore Jehovah returned [recompense] to me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands before His eyes.
25 With the gracious man Thou showest Thyself gracious;
With the faultless man Thou showest Thyself faultless.
26 With him who purifies himself Thou showest Thyself pure,
And with the perverse Thou showest Thyself froward.
27 For Thou savest humbled people,
And eyes uplifted Thou dost bring low.
28 For Thou lightest my lamp;
Jehovah my God brightens my darkness.
29 For by Thee I run down a troop,
And through my God I spring over a rampart.
30 As for God, His way is faultless;
The word of Jehovah is tried (as by fire):
A shield is He to all who take refuge in Him.
31 For who is God but Jehovah,
And who is a rock besides our God?
32 [It is] God who girded me with strength,
And made my way faultless;
33 Who made my feet like hinds' [feet],
And made me stand upon my high places;
34 Who schooled my hands for war,
So that my arms bend a bow of brass.
35 And Thou didst give me the shield of Thy salvation,
And Thy right hand upheld me,
And Thy humility made me great.
36 Thou didst broaden under me And my ankles did not give.
37 I pursued my enemies, and overtook them;
And I did not turn till I had consumed them.
38 I shattered them, and they could not rise;
They fell beneath my feet.
39 And Thou girdedst me with might for battle;
Thou didst bring my assailants to their knees under me.
40 And my enemies Thou madest to turn their backs to me,
And my haters—I annihilated them.
41 They shrieked, and there was no helper,
To Jehovah, and He answered them not.
42 I pounded them like dust before the wind;
Like street mud I emptied them out.
43 Thou didst deliver me from the strifes of the people;
Thou didst set me for a head of the nations;
A people whom I knew not served me.
44 At the hearing of the ear they made themselves obedient to me;
The children of the foreigner came feigning to me.
45 The children of the foreigner faded away,
And came trembling from their strongholds.
46 Jehovah lives, and blessed be my rock;
And exalted be the God of my salvation,
47 The God who gave me revenges
And subdued peoples under me,
48 My deliverer from my enemies:
Yea, from my assailants Thou didst set me on high,
From the man of violence didst Thou rescue me.
49 Therefore will I give Thee thanks among the nations, Jehovah;
And to Thy name will I sing praise.
50 He magnifies salvations for His king,
And works loving-kindness for His anointed,
For David and for his seed for evermore.
The description of the theophany (vv. 7-19) and that of the psalmist's God-won victories (vv. 32-46) appear to refer to the same facts, transfigured in the former case by devout imagination and presented in the latter in their actual form. These two portions make the two central masses round which the psalm is built up. They are connected by a transitional section, of which the main theme is the power of character to determine God's aspect to a man as exemplified in the singer's experience; and they are preceded and followed by an introduction and a conclusion, throbbing with gratitude and love to Jehovah, the Deliverer.
The Davidic authorship of this psalm has been admitted even by critics who are slow to recognise it. Cheyne asks, as if sure of a negative answer, "What is there in it that suggests the history of David?" ("Orig. of the Psalter," p. 205). Baethgen, who "suspects" that a Davidic psalm has been "worked over" for use in public worship, may answer the question: "The following points speak for the Davidic authorship. The poet is a military commander and king, who wages successful wars, and subdues peoples whom he hitherto did not know. There is no Israelite king to whom the expressions in question in the psalm apply so closely as is the case with David." To these points may be added the allusions to earlier trials and perils, and the distinct correspondence, in a certain warmth and inwardness of personal relation to Jehovah, with the other psalms attributed to David, as well as the pregnant use of the word to flee to a refuge, applied to the soul's flight to God, which we find here (ver. 2) and in the psalms ascribed to him. If the clear notes of the psalm be the voice of personal experience, there is but one author possible—namely, David—and the glow and intensity of the whole make the personification theory singularly inadequate. It is much easier to believe that David used the word "temple" or "palace" for Jehovah's heavenly dwelling, than that the "I" of the psalm, with his clinging sense of possession in Jehovah, his vivid remembrance of sorrows, his protestations of integrity, his wonder at his own victories, and his triumphant praise, is not a man, but a frosty personification of the nation.
The preluding invocation in vv. 1-3 at once touches the high-water mark of Old Testament devotion, and is conspicuous among its noblest utterances. Nowhere else in Scripture is the form of the word employed which is here used for "love." It has special depth and tenderness. How far into the centre this man had penetrated, who could thus isolate and unite Jehovah and himself, and could feel that they two were alone and knit together by love! The true estimate of Jehovah's ways with a man will always lead to that resolve to love, based on the consciousness of God's love to him. Happy they who learn that lesson by retrospect; happier still if they gather it from their sorrows while these press! Love delights in addressing the beloved and heaping tender names on its object, each made more tender and blessed by that appropriating "my." It seems more accordant with the fervent tone of the psalm to regard the reiterated designations in ver. 2 as vocatives, than to take "Jehovah" and "God" as subjects and the other names as predicates. Rather the whole is one long, loving accumulation of dear names, a series of invocations, in which the restful heart murmurs to itself how rich it is and is never wearied of saying, "my delight and defence." As in Psalm xvii., the name of Jehovah occurs twice, and that of God once. Each of these is expanded, as it were, by the following epithets, and the expansion becomes more extended as it advances, beginning with one member in ver. 1, having three in ver. 2 a and four in ver. 2 b. Leaving out the Divine names proper, there are seven in ver. 2, separated into two groups by the name of God. It may be observed there is a general correspondence between the two sets, each beginning with "rock" (though the word is different in the two clauses), each having the metaphor of a fortress, and "shield and horn of salvation," roughly answering to "Deliverer." The first word for rock is more properly crag or cliff, thus suggesting inaccessibility, and the second a rock mass, thus giving the notion of firmness or solidity. The shade of difference need not be pressed, but the general idea is that of safety, or by elevation above the enemy and by reason of the unchangeable strength of Jehovah. In that lofty eyrie, a man may look down on all the armies of earth, idly active on the plain. That great Rock towers unchangeable above fleeting things. The river at its base runs past, the woods nestling at its feet bud and shed their leaves, but it stands the same. David had many a time found shelter among the hills and caves of Judah and the South land, and it may not be fancy that sees reminiscences of these experiences in his song. The beautiful figure for trust embodied in the word in 2 b belongs to the metaphor of the rock. It is found with singular appropriateness in Psalm lvii., which the title ascribes to David "in the cave," the sides of which bent above him and sheltered him, like a great pair of wings, and possibly suggested the image, "In the shadow of Thy wings will I take refuge." The difference between "fortress" and "high tower" is slight, but the former gives more prominence to the idea of strength, and the latter to that of elevation, both concurring in the same thought as was expressed by "rock," but with the additional suggestion of Jehovah as the home of the soul. Safety, then, comes through communion. Abiding in God is seclusion from danger. "Deliverer" stands last in the first set, saying in plain words what the preceding had put in figures. "My shield and the horn of my salvation" come in the centre of the second set, in obedience to the law of variety in reiteration which the poet's artistic instincts impose. They shift the figure to that of a warrior in actual conflict. The others picture a fugitive from enemies, these a fighter. The shield is a defensive weapon; horns are offensive ones, and the combination suggests that in conflict we are safe by the interposition of God's covering power, and are armed by the same power for striking at the foe. That power ensures salvation, whether in the narrower or wider sense. Thus Jehovah is all the armour and all the refuge of His servant. To trust Him is to have His protection cast around and His power infused for conflict and victory. The end of all life's experience is to reveal Him in these characters, and they have rightly learned its lessons whose song of retrospect begins with "I will love Thee, Jehovah," and pours out at His feet all happy names expressive of His sufficiency and of the singer's rest in possessing Him. Ver. 3 is not a resolution for the future—"I will call; ... so shall I be saved"—but the summing up of experience in a great truth: "I call, ... and I am saved." It unfolds the meaning of the previous names of God, and strikes the key-note for the magnificent sequel.
The superb idealisation of past deliverances under the figure of a theophany is prepared for by a retrospect of dangers, which still palpitates with the memory of former fears. "A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things," and a joy's crown of joy is remembering past perils. No better description of David's early life could have been given than that contained in the two vivid figures of vv. 4 and 5. If we adopt the more congruous reading of the other recension of the psalm in 2 Sam. xxii., we have in both members of ver. 4 a parallel metaphor. Instead of "sorrows" or "cords" (both of which renderings are possible for the text of the psalm here), it reads "breakers," corresponding with "floods" in the second clause. "Destruction" is better than ungodly men as the rendering of the unusual word "Belial." Thus the psalmist pictures himself as standing on a diminishing bit of solid ground, round which a rising flood runs strong, breaking on its crumbling narrowness. Islanded thus, he is all but lost. With swift transition he casts the picture of his distress into another metaphor. Now he is a hunted creature, surrounded and confronted by cords and snares. Sheol and Death have marked him for their prey, and are drawing their nets round him. What is left for him? One thing only. He has a voice, and he has a God. In his despair one piercing cry breaks from him; and, wonder of wonders, that thin shoot of prayer rises right into the heavenly palace-temple and the ears of God. The repetition of "I called upon the Lord" connects this with ver. 3 as the experience on which the generalisation there is based. His extremity of peril had not paralysed the psalmist's grasp of God as still "my God," and his confidence is vindicated. There is an eloquent contrast between the insignificance of the cause and the stupendous grandeur of the effect: one poor man's shrill cry and a shaking earth and all the dread pomp attending an interposing God. A cupful of water poured into a hydraulic ram sets in motion power that lifts tons; the prayer of faith brings the dread magnificence of Jehovah into the field. The reading of 2 Samuel is preferable in the last clause of ver. 6, omitting the superfluous "before Him."
The phenomena of a thunderstorm are the substratum of the grand description of Jehovah's delivering self-manifestation. The garb is lofty poetry; but a definite fact lies beneath, namely some deliverance in which the psalmist saw Jehovah's coming in storm and lightning flash to destroy, and therefore to save. Faith sees more truly because more deeply than sense. What would have appeared to an ordinary looker-on as merely a remarkable escape was to its subject the manifestation of a present God. Which eye sees the "things that are,"—that which is cognisant only of a concatenation of events, or that which discerns a Person directing these? The cry of this hunted man has for first effect the kindling of the Divine "wrath," which is represented as flaming into action in the tremendous imagery of vv. 7 and 8. The description of the storm in which God comes to help the suppliant does not begin with these verses, as is commonly understood. The Divine power is not in motion yet, but is, as it were, gathering itself up for action. The complaining prayer is boldly treated as bringing to God's knowledge His servant's straits, and the knowledge as moving Him to wrath towards the enemies of one who takes shelter beneath His wings. "What have I here that my"—servant is thus bestead? saith the Lord. The poet can venture to paint a picture with the pen, which the painter dare not attempt with the pencil. The anger of Jehovah is described in words of singular daring, as rising like smoke from His nostrils and pouring in fire from His lips, from which blazing brands issue. No wonder that the earth reels even to the roots of the mountains, as unable to endure that wrath! The frank anthropomorphism of the picture, of which the features are taken from the hard breathing of an angry man or animal (compare Job's crocodile in Job xli. 10-13), and the underlying conception are equally offensive to many; but as for the former, the more "gross" the humanising of the picture, the less likely is it to be mistaken for prose fact, and the more easy to apprehend as symbol: and as for the latter, the New Testament endorses the conception of the "wrath of God," and bids us take heed lest, if we cast it away, we maim His love. This same psalm hymns Jehovah's "gentleness"; and the more deeply His love is apprehended, the more surely will His wrath be discerned as its necessary accompaniment. The dark orb and its radiant sister move round a common centre.