(To the chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David, the servant of Jehovah, who spoke to Jehovah the words of this song in the day that Jehovah had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul. And he said,) I will love thee, O Jehovah, my strength.
David sang this song on the day the Lord rescued him from Saul and from every enemy. Yet his first words are not about the rescue. They are love for the Rescuer. So what draws such love out of a person, and whose voice is really singing here?
The heading tells us exactly when the song was sung. Yet the words run past anything that happened to David.
We know from the book of Samuel that this psalm celebrates David's rescues from Saul and from all his enemies. But the language of the psalm clearly does not stop at anything that happened in David's life... The Spirit of God takes up the event that has real personal interest for the man He uses as prophet. He uses it only as the occasion to bring out the larger and wider scene, and Christ alone can be the centre of it.
This song appears again in 2 Samuel 22. The opening words of love are not there. (Older translations read "I will love you.")
The key-note is, "I will love You, O Jehovah my strength" (v. 1), an expression not found in 2 Sam. 22... Here God's government is set up in blessing, in and for the King, so that His love for Jehovah may find an echo in the hearts of His people.
Rescue can leave a person relieved. This psalm goes further: the heart comes to know the Rescuer, not only the rescue.
The psalm teaches us to call on the Lord in distress, whatever brings it and however it comes. So we come to know not only the deliverance, but the Lord Himself — His sympathy, His kindness, His interest in us. I love Jehovah, he says. Or rather, the heart turns to Jehovah Himself and says, "I will love You, O Jehovah, my strength." Then the heart thinks of all He is for us... Note also, there are holy affections drawn out by the dealings of the Lord... not only praise, because He has redeemed us forever, but a daily working of sympathy and tender thoughts of compassion.
One writer starts from God as the source of every blessing, then walks through the titles one by one.
Here is the Source and the Basis of all blessing, and the heart that depends on Him cannot help crying out, "I love You, O Lord, my strength" (v. 1)... God is His "Rock," the solid foundation of all blessing. He is His "fortress," His unfailing protection from every evil. He is His deliverer, who saves Him from every enemy around Him. "My strength" is the Source of the power that rested on Him without a break. "My shield" is His personal defence from every attack of the enemy. "The horn of my salvation" speaks of power that saves from harm and danger. And "my stronghold" is one more picture of His perfect protection. All of these show the greatness and power of God on behalf of the Lord Jesus. In a small measure David could say them of himself, and believers may too.
Two different Hebrew words stand behind the rock imagery, and each carries its own picture.
The first word means "a cleft in a rock, then a cleft rock." The second means "a great and hard mass of rock." So the first puts a safe, comfortable hiding place first. The second puts forward firm ground that no enemy can reach. For the Christian, the cleft Rock is a picture full of tender, wonderful meaning: the firm, unbreakable, eternal Rock, yet split open as a refuge for the soul that runs to it for escape. This double thought runs through all these titles, and by them the psalmist shows the good reason he has for fervent love toward his God.
Some commentators hear another voice in these opening verses — the voice of David's promised descendant.
Here we hear the voice of Jesus declaring the praises of Jehovah, the God of His salvation. As the descendant of David, He had now become able to receive in His own blessed Person the mercy promised in the covenant.
One writer holds up David's words as a declaration any believer can make his own.
It is true that we love to think about God's love toward us. We are "beloved ones," loved by the Father and the Son, and that goes beyond anything a person can understand or imagine. But the Bible speaks, in the Old Testament as well as the New, of our love to God and to the Lord Jesus. David put it in black and white one day when he made that wonderful declaration of love: "I love You, O Jehovah, my strength."
- Occasion: A real rescue from Saul and every enemy started the song. But the words reach past David to a wider scene, with Christ at the centre.
- Addition: This declaration of love is the psalm's keynote, and it is missing from the song in 2 Samuel 22. The King's love for the Lord is meant to echo in the hearts of His people.
- Direction: The rescued heart turns to the Rescuer, not to the rescue. Deliverance draws out affection, not only praise.
- Ground: "My strength," rock, fortress, shield, stronghold — each title is one more good reason for fervent love.
- Echo: What David said aloud, every believer the Lord has rescued may say back to Him.
Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I will trust; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
I will call upon Jehovah, who is to be praised so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
David's song of rescue turns on one line: he calls, and the LORD saves him. But who is speaking here — a hunted king remembering his escapes, or someone greater?
One writer calls this verse the discovery the whole psalm rests on — the LORD proved to be the rock of the soul:
The third verse gives the realization of Jehovah as the rock of the soul: "I call upon Jehovah, the object of my praise, and I am saved from my enemies." This is what the speaker has found, and everything that follows here opens it out.
The tense matters. This is not a promise to pray some day. One rendering shows a man calling now and already saved:
Verse 3 is more correctly translated, "Upon Jehovah do I call, and from my enemies I am saved" (Numerical Bible). So, as we have noted, this psalm looks at God's work, not at an appeal to God like the one in Psalm 17.
The order matters: trust, then the call, then salvation. Translations differ over the tense — "I am saved" or "so shall I be saved" — but not over the outcome. One writer follows that chain in the same words in 2 Samuel:
Verse 3 has told us, "in Him will I trust," and verse 4 adds, "I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised." So he can say with calm, settled confidence, "so shall I be saved from my enemies" (2 Samuel 22:4). There is no uncertainty about this.
David sang out of his own life, yet the song reaches past him. One writer explains why:
David was a prophet. His prophetic songs grow out of his own experiences. But they would not have been prophetic if Christ were not their object. In his experiences David is a reflection of Christ, and that is an immense privilege. But it is only a faint light, a small copy of the perfect Model.
One writer hears Christ Himself in these opening lines, standing with the faithful remnant of Israel. Three things mark Him: love, trust, and a cry:
The Psalm opens by presenting Christ in the circumstances of the godly remnant in Israel. He appears as the One devoted to God — "I will love You, O Lord." He is dependent on God — "in whom I will trust." And He calls on the Lord while surrounded by enemies — "I will call upon the Lord."
If Christ is the speaker, His rescue is not private. One writer links the rock of the earlier line to the salvation of this one:
Hebrew authorities tell us that the proper translation of "The LORD is my Rock" is "Jehovah, my cleft of the rock." Christ is the rock, split open for us, and in Him the believer has found refuge. And He Himself was saved from His enemies and in Him His people are saved and will be saved from their enemies (verse 3).
The verse is also words to use. One writer sends this psalm to a young man troubled by doubts about God, as the song to put in his own mouth:
Will you still listen to the voice of the enemy who has slandered God to you and robbed you of your joy? Or will you let the Lord show Himself to you as the Great Physician, who can heal your soul by His grace and put you back in His service again? … Let this be your child-like and trusting attitude. Then you will surely be able to sing, "I will love You, O Lord, my strength… I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from my enemies" (Ps. 18).
- Call. The verse is the seed of the psalm: one man calls on the LORD, and the rest of it opens out what that call produced.
- Praise. He calls on One already worthy of praise. Trust comes first, and the rescue is certain.
- Christ. David sings from his own escapes, but the song is prophetic. His experience is a faint copy of the perfect Model it points to.
- Together. The rescue is shared. Christ is saved from His enemies, and in Him His people are saved from theirs.
- Sing. When the enemy accuses you and steals your joy, these are the words to take up as your own answer.
The bands of death encompassed me, and torrents of Belial made me afraid.
Psalm 18 is David's praise after God rescued him from Saul and from all his enemies, and verse 4 looks back at how close death came. But the tightening ropes and the rising flood raise a question: is this only David's memory, or is a greater Sufferer speaking here?
Commentators start with the history behind the psalm. Then they notice that its words outgrow the man who wrote them.
We know from the Book of Samuel that this Psalm was written to celebrate how God rescued David from Saul and from all his enemies. But clearly the language of the Psalm does not stop at any event in David's life... The Spirit of God takes an event that mattered at the time to the man He was using only as a prophet. He makes it the occasion for bringing out a larger and wider scene, and Christ alone can be its centre.
One writer points to David's place as a prophet. Older translations, which these writers quote, read "sorrows of death" and "floods of Belial" where the ESV has "cords of death" and "torrents of destruction."
David wrote it, but not everything in it could be his own experience. He was a prophet (Acts 2:30) and he prophesied. Much in this Psalm is prophecy. It describes how Christ was delivered from the jaws of death, and the glory God has given Him... Verses 4-6 describe His own experience of death: "The sorrows of death surrounded me, and the floods of Belial (the marginal reading) made me afraid." Then, in His distress, He called and cried to God, and God heard Him.
One writer hears Christ in these words, passing through the sorrows of death as He did in Gethsemane.
Here we see Christ, with the sorrows of death closing round Him and floods of wicked men pressing on Him, the sorrows of hades upon Him and the cords of death about His soul. I have no doubt that the words themselves first expressed what David had felt... Still, as I have said, that was only the occasion. What they really speak of applies to Christ. In His mind He passes through the sorrows of death, as He did in Gethsemane. This is the groundwork laid for all the rest.
Commentators differ on how far these floods reach. Another writer sees them carrying the guilt of the whole world:
The pangs of death and the floods of wickedness pressed on Him as on no one else. These floods carried the overwhelming horror of the guilt of all mankind, when this blessed Sufferer "bore our sins in His own body on the tree."
The distress does not have the last word. It leads to a cry, and the rescue of others depends on that cry.
The trial deepens. In verses 4 to 6 we see Christ surrounded by the sorrows of death and by the floods of wicked men, with the grave and the snares of death in front of Him. Out of His distress He calls upon God, and God hears Him... Deliverance for others depends on a perfect One taking up their cause and calling upon God. His deliverance, and the deliverance of those identified with Him, comes in answer to His call.
The floods had a limit. One writer shows what they could not do.
The Lord Jesus faced the "many waters," but they could not quench His love. He faced the "floods," but they could not drown His love... There the sorrows of death surrounded Him, and the floods of wicked men made Him afraid, but they could not make Him give up His love (Ps. 18:4).
One writer sees the same flood in a persecution still to come, and sees God's answer to it.
Satan's rage is not satisfied when God's people are driven out of Jerusalem. He still chases them with his hatred, pouring out a flood to swallow them up. This probably means another persecution, as David says, "The floods of ungodly men made me afraid" (Ps. 18:4). But whatever form his spite takes, God cares for His people, and He opens a way of escape — the earth swallows up the flood.
- Occasion — David's rescue from Saul is the real event behind the verse. But its words run past his life to a scene where Christ is the centre.
- Cords — The verse pictures death as ropes tied round a man and wickedness as a flood sweeping over him. Older translations read "floods of Belial" and "floods of ungodly men."
- Christ — Commentators hear these floods closing over the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane. They differ on whether the guilt of mankind is carried in them here.
- Cry — The distress of verse 4 leads to the cry of verse 6, and the rescue of everyone else hangs on God hearing that perfect One.
- Result — The floods could not quench His love. When they rise again against His people, God opens a door of escape.
The bands of Sheol surrounded me, the cords of death encountered me.
Verse 5 finishes a picture started in the line before it. A man is wrapped round by death, with its traps set in front of him. So who is speaking? Is it David, remembering how God rescued him? Or Someone greater?
Older translations end the verse with "the snares of death prevented me." Today that sounds like something stopped death. It means the opposite. A dictionary of Bible words traces the word back to Latin:
'To go before,' anticipate (from the Latin praevenio) 'to come before.' Ps. 18:5, 18 …
So the snares got there first. They met him head on: "the snares of death confronted me." The other key word is Sheol. One writer explains what it means, and why that state had a limit:
"The cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me" (v. 5). Sheol is the unseen state of the soul and spirit as separated from the body. But while it meant deep sorrow, it was not permanent: "For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let Your Holy One see corruption" (Ps. 16:10).
The psalm's title points back to a real rescue. Years later, another king facing death heard of the God of David:
Isaiah had told Hezekiah that the time had come for him to die. That upset the king. He prayed to God and wept much. He didn't want to die. God sent Isaiah back to the king with the good news that God would answer his prayers and tears. Isaiah was to begin his message with the words "Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father." … The heading of the psalm reads: "A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who addressed the words of this song to the LORD on the day when the LORD rescued him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul." David knew that it was his God who had enabled him to triumph over his enemies. He, like Hezekiah, had been afraid of death. … The God of David was to Hezekiah, David's descendant, what He had been to David.
Commentators read these verses as reaching past David to Christ. One separates the letter from the substance:
Here we see Christ, with the sorrows of death surrounding Him and floods of ungodly men pressing in on Him, the sorrows of hades on Him and the cords of death around His soul. I have no doubt the letter of this expressed what David had felt, as verse 50 shows. Still, as I have said, that was only the occasion. The substance of it applies to Christ. In His mind He passes through the sorrows of death, as He did in Gethsemane.
Commentators mark a careful limit here. One writer sets out what these verses do not describe:
But in Psalm 18 the Lord takes the place of the faithful remnant of Israel. He is upright as an Israelite, and He goes down into the sorrows of death. He is not there suffering the pain that makes atonement, that is, suffering under divine wrath. He cries to the LORD while death's power presses on His soul — "the sorrows of death," "the sorrows of hell." … In truth, the psalm does not speak of actual death, but of its sorrows.
Another writer marks the same limit from the other side:
Here God appears only as the deliverer of the righteous Sufferer, in faithfulness and with power. … Only the powers of darkness are lined up against the Holy One.
In verse 6 the man in the snare calls out. One writer traces what hangs on that cry:
The trial deepens. In verses 4 to 6 we see Christ surrounded by the sorrows of death and by the floods of ungodly people, with the grave and the snares of death in front of Him. Out of His distress He calls on God, and God hears Him. This introduces the great theme of the psalm. All deliverance for Israel turns on Christ having entered into their sorrows and, in that place, calling on the Lord. Deliverance for others depends on a perfect One taking up their cause and calling on God. His deliverance, and the deliverance of those joined with Him, comes in answer to His call.
The snares closed, but they did not hold. One writer describes the enemy's last effort:
So the great enemy of God and man fought fiercely at the cross and at the grave of Christ. The strong man made violent efforts to stop anyone taking his armour or plundering his house. It was all in vain. Jesus triumphed.
- Snared. "Prevented" means anticipated — the traps of death reached him first and met him face to face.
- Sheol. The unseen state of soul and spirit apart from the body: real sorrow, but not permanent for the Holy One.
- David. A real memory of God rescuing him from all his enemies, including Saul — and later a comfort to Hezekiah, David's descendant, facing death.
- Christ. David gives the letter; Christ gives the substance. He goes into the sorrows of death — not under divine wrath here, but under death's power pressing on His soul.
- Delivered. From inside the snare He called, and God heard Him. Every deliverance for those joined to Him answers that one cry.
In my distress I called upon Jehovah, and I cried out to my God; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, into his ears.
Psalm 18 is David's song of thanks after the LORD rescued him from Saul and from all his enemies. The lines just before verse 6 show a man surrounded by the sorrows of death; here he calls out, and God answers.
Distress does not by itself produce prayer. It can harden a person instead. One writer sets David beside King Ahaz, a later king of Judah who met trouble by turning further from God:
"And in the time of his distress he sinned still more against the LORD." How different was his great ancestor David! "In my distress," he says, "I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help."
The verse names two movements in one breath — the man's cry going up, and God's ear receiving it. One rendering of the Hebrew brings out the plea for help and the arrival of that plea:
In my distress I call upon Jehovah, and to my God do I cry for help; from His temple He hears my voice, and my supplication before Him comes into His ears.
Commentators hear more here than David's escape from Saul. The sorrows of death in the lines before point to Christ, and God appears as deliverer, not as judge:
The voice of Jesus is heard here declaring the praises of Jehovah, the God of His salvation... There is a memorial of His passion (4, 5), of the hour of His trouble, when the sorrows of death surrounded Him... God is seen only as the deliverer, in faithfulness and with power, of the righteous Sufferer. God's own stroke of wrath, falling in judgment on the Bearer of our sins, is not the Spirit's subject here. Only the powers of darkness stand against the Holy One. His cry goes up in His distress and is accepted into the ears of Him who was able to deliver Him from death.
Another writer links the answered cry to the New Testament record of Christ's prayers during His life on earth:
Verse 6 looks back to record His distressed call to God which brought a clear response. God heard Him from His temple, His dwelling place. Hebrews 5:7 tells us that "in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from (out of) death," He "was heard because of His godly fear."
(The ESV renders the last phrase "he was heard because of his reverence.")
Where God hears from matters. So does the ground on which He answers:
In that distress Jehovah heard out of His temple. This links it at once with the earth, and deliverance, and triumph there. But another point of the highest interest points the same way — the psalm lays His obedience to the law as the ground of His being heard in the day of distress (verses 20-26). The righteous obedience of Messiah on earth, and His dependence on Jehovah, calling on Him in distress, brought Him earthly deliverance and earthly triumph.
Held next to Psalm 22, where the cry seems unanswered, this psalm sings the other half of the truth:
"I cry... and You do not answer," are the words of the psalm of atonement; but then again, "when He cried to Him, He heard." (Ps. 22:2, 24.) Both things are true, of course; each fits its place. The psalm here celebrates the hearing, and that out of the sanctuary — the answer of God in His holiness to the Holy One.
This cry does more than rescue the one who makes it. It is the turning point for a whole people:
From the middle of His distress He calls upon God and is heard. This introduces the great theme of the psalm. All deliverance for Israel turns on Christ having entered into their sorrows, and in this place calling upon the Lord. Deliverance for others depends on a perfect One having taken up their cause and calling upon God.
The verse is more than one man's story. It teaches anyone in trouble what to do:
The Lord hears when we call in distress. In the greatest depths we can have confidence. The very thing that looks as if it should shut us out is exactly what makes the occasion for it. The psalm teaches us to call upon the Lord in distress, whatever its cause. So not only do we know the deliverance, we know the Lord Himself — His sympathy, His kindness, His interest in us... Our deliverances may not be of the same kind, yet difficulties and distress often surround us, and there is deliverance in crying to the Lord.
- Distress — trouble is the setting, not the message. The same pressure that drove David to call on God drove Ahaz further away.
- Cry — he calls, and he cries for help. God meets both: He hears the voice, and the plea reaches His ears.
- Temple — He answers from His dwelling place. That ties the rescue to earth, where the deliverance and the triumph come.
- Christ — commentators hear a greater voice than David's: the righteous Sufferer, heard because of His godly fear. Here God acts as deliverer, not as judge.
- Others — the rescue spreads. All that follows hangs on a perfect One entering the sorrows of His people and calling on God.