And the beds of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were uncovered at thy rebuke, Jehovah, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
David sang this psalm after a rescue, but by this verse the song has grown far beyond him. The seabed lies open, the world's foundations lie bare, and a breath has done it — so what power is this, and for whom?
One writer puts Christ at the centre of every rescue God worked for Israel. The psalm has its own occasion: David delivered from Saul and from every enemy. Yet the words outgrow the man who first sang them.
Christ is, in a word, the centre of Israel's deliverances. He is the cause of their rescue from Egypt, and of their complete and final redemption by power in the last days. Then He is their personal Deliverer too... We know from the book of Samuel what the occasion of this psalm was. It celebrated David's rescue from the hand of Saul and from all his enemies. But it is clear that the language of the psalm in no way stops short at any events in the life of David... The Spirit of God takes up the circumstance that has present personal interest for the man He uses simply as a prophet. He makes it the occasion to bring out the larger and wider scene of which Christ alone can be the centre.
Water rolled back to show its channels is not a new picture in Scripture. Commentators hear Israel's crossing of the Red Sea behind it, and see it looking ahead as well.
The earth is laid bare to its foundations, and the channels of waters are seen. These words remind us of Israel's passage of the Sea. They may also find their fulfilment in the future, in the drying up of the Euphrates. (Rev. 16:12.)
Commentators differ on the picture. Others read the sea as a symbol of the nations. Then what God uncovers is not a seabed but the hidden workings of people.
"Then the channels of the sea were seen" (v. 15). The sea is a symbol of the nations. So in the day of God's judgment their workings will be fully exposed. God will lay bare the foundations of the world in the same way, shaking them so that they give no foundation at all. He will rebuke them with only the blast of the breath of His nostrils. A man could not use his breath as a weapon at all. But God can use the most unlikely means to bring the greatest judgment on the wicked.
The verse names the cause of all this upheaval twice: a rebuke, and a breath. Scripture uses that language for God acting Himself, not through go-betweens or hidden means.
It is hard to imagine language more plainly opposed to the idea of judgment worked out by providential means, or of hidden judgments, than the words we have just weighed. "The spirit of his mouth" expresses the inner energy of divine power (whether creative, Ps. 33:6, or judicial, 2 Sam. 22:16, Job 4:9, Ps. 18:15, Isa. 11:4, Isa. 30:33) with which the Lord will dispatch the lawless one. "The appearance of His coming" declares that He will not do away with him from a distance, or by secret action, or by any secondary means. He will do it by the shining out of His presence.
Why does God come down and tear the world open? One writer traces it to Christ's suffering to death, and to His sympathy with Israel in their sorrows.
Psalm 18 shows in a beautiful way how Jesus, in His suffering to death, is bound up with all Israel's sorrows and Israel's hopes. "In all their affliction, He was afflicted." It was His sympathy with Israel... "The sorrows of death surrounded Him, and the floods of ungodly men made Him afraid." That is what made Him come down to deliver them, "when the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were laid bare at His rebuke."
The open display is still ahead. But one writer points to Elijah, who passed through waters that rolled back before him — and to deeper waters still.
Elijah had passed through the waters by a power that rolled them back. The full deliverance will come because that same power has already worked in the depths through which Jesus has passed. (Psalm 18:14-15.)... As to the crisis itself, it is all future. But if our eyes are open, we know now the secret of the power that will bring it all about.
- Occasion. David's rescue from Saul is the starting point, not the ceiling. The words reach on to the wider scene where Christ alone is the centre.
- Cry. The upheaval starts with a sufferer in the depths. Christ enters Israel's sorrows of death, and God comes down in answer.
- Breath. The only weapon named is a rebuke and the breath of His nostrils. That is God's own power at work, with no secondary means.
- Bared. The sea's channels and the world's foundations lie open. Some hear Israel's crossing of the Sea; others see the workings of the nations exposed.
- Certainty. The full display is still future. But the power already met its test in the depths Jesus passed through, so we can know its secret now.
He reached forth from above, he took me, he drew me out of great waters
Verse 16 is God's answer to a cry for help. The answer is not advice from a distance. It is a hand reaching down to where the sufferer is sinking. Two questions shape the verse: who is the "me," and what are the waters?
The last phrase of the verse turns on a rare word, and that word ties this rescue to the name of Moses.
"He sent from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters." In the last clause we have a word used in only one other place — the explanation of the name given to Moses, which came from it. But the reference is only a comparison, for a greater than Moses is here. "He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me." So the deliverance is the display and glory of Jehovah Himself.
One writer gathers three deliverances into one song: Christ's death and resurrection, the rescue from Egypt long before, and the rescue still to come. They hold together in Christ, who felt His people's trouble as His own.
In this Psalm we have the historical glory in which death and resurrection, and their power in Christ, are linked with the deliverance from Egypt at the beginning and the deliverance of the last days at the end. Jehovah is what links them. Yet it also shows that the bond by which He, as a man and a Jew, belonged with them was already true in sympathy then — "in all their affliction he was afflicted," verse 16. "He sent from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters" (compare Moses, Exodus 2:10).
So what are the many waters? One writer locates them where the Lord's deepest suffering lay.
The many waters do not speak of the Lord's suffering from men, but of the dark depths of anguish suffered from God because of our sin. Once the great work of atonement was finished, God stepped in and raised His Son from among the dead. Never again will He suffer the deep waters of judgment.
If the waters are death under judgment, then the drawing out is resurrection. One writer points to a visible sample of that power at the grave itself.
Here is a magnificent celebration of the glory and almighty majesty of the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, as He showed it when He raised Him from the dead in answer to His cry (Eph. 1:17, 19, 20). "He sent from on high," and so on. A first taste and sample of what is described here came when the angel of Jehovah came down. The earth shook, and the guards of the grave, which until then had held the body of the now awakened Christ, trembled and became like dead men with fear (Matt. 28).
The next line admits that the enemy had the upper hand. That admission is not a flaw in the song; it is the point of it.
He had endured the agony of the "many waters" of being judged for our sins. Now God steps in and turns the sorrow into unspeakable joy. The enemy thought he had triumphed over Christ, but his short-lived triumph became a humiliating defeat.
The same words also look ahead to a people who will face waters of their own.
They also sing of their own salvation in the day of this judgment. For we know that they will be drawn out of many waters: like Noah they will be preserved in the very place of judgment — like Lot, drawn out in safety from it. (See Ps. 18:16)
Another writer names those future waters. He ties the psalm's resurrection to Israel and to a day of trouble still ahead of them.
This Psalm views the Lord's resurrection in relation to the earthly people of Messiah — the nation He died for. That ties the subject to the coming day of Jacob's trouble, out of which he is to be delivered (Jer. 30:7), and to the raging of the many nations, like angry waters, who will hem in the burdensome stone of Jehovah's anger, to their own ruin (Zech. 12:3).
Commentators differ in emphasis. Some read the verse mainly of Christ in resurrection. Others read it mainly of Israel's rescue, past and future. Most hold the two together.
- Cry. The verse is God's answer to a cry from the depths, and the answer is not a message but a hand reaching down from above.
- Waters. Not hostile men only, but the depths of judgment endured because of our sin.
- Drawn. The rare word for "drew me out" recalls the naming of Moses — but a greater than Moses is drawn out here.
- Raised. The drawing out is resurrection — God's public verdict on a finished work.
- Shared. What was true for the One becomes the song of the many — those still in the flood are told they will be drawn out of it too.