Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; thou hast made me the head of the nations a people I knew not doth serve me.
David's song of deliverance ends with a scene far larger than his own battles. Strife at home is over, foreign peoples fall into line, and a people he never knew comes into his service. Commentators read it on two levels: what happened to David, and what will happen to David's greater Son.
The wording tracks real events in David's reign. First the revolt at home ended. Then victory came abroad.
In the third part of the Psalm (verses 31-51) David celebrates what God had done for him. God answered him. He delivered him "from strife with the people" (which corresponds to 2 Samuel 20 in David's history), and He made him "head of the nations", whom he had conquered (v. 43). The Ammonites, the Philistines, the Syrians and Edom all had to bow beneath his yoke. But how all this speaks to us of One greater than David! He comes out of the trial to be acknowledged as King of Israel and Head of the nations.
The middle line of the verse pushes readers past the history. That place was never David's.
He becomes the head of the nations. The words "you made me the head of the nations" cannot apply to David and his experience. It is David's Son and David's Lord who will head the nations of the earth.
One writer takes the verse clause by clause. He finds three steps: rejection undone by resurrection, then Lordship over all, then Israel brought back.
The forty-third verse applies exclusively to Messiah Himself. It recites, first, His deliverance from the opposition of sinners. That was the striving of the people who were called by His name, yet had sold themselves to do the evil of rejecting Him. They struck the Judge of Israel on the cheek. His resurrection was the accomplishment of this. Secondly, it declares His exaltation as Head of the nations and Lord of all. The present testimony of the gospel announces Him in this way (Rom. 10:12). The message of His grace now addresses the creatures of His power (Col. 1:16, 23). But thirdly, the last clause of this verse seems to point to the returning obedience of Israel. He has long disowned them, and He still hides His face from the house of Jacob (Isa. 8:17). But they will then find salvation by calling on His name.
Commentators differ here. The reading above hears Israel coming back. Others hear the nations coming in. They point to this line as an early promise that God would bless the Gentiles while He disowned Israel.
The same living oracles are no less explicit that divine mercy would visit and bless the Gentiles during His disowning of Israel. (See Deut. 32:21; Ps. 18:43, 49; Isa. 8:16-17; Isa. 9:1; Isa. 49:6; Isa. 65:1; Hosea 1:10.)
On the second reading, the order matters. The nations do not serve first and then God acts; God acts for His people, and the nations follow.
It prefigures the conversion of the Gentiles. That conversion follows Jehovah's intervention to rescue His people and to judge their enemies… So we learn, as from all the prophetic writings, that the Lord will deliver His people through unsparing judgments. After He has poured out His wrath on their oppressors, He will set up His throne. Then all kings will fall down before Him, and all nations will serve Him.
Paul quotes this psalm of Christ. Yet the psalm wins the nations by judgment, and that is not how the gospel works now.
The Psalmist wrote this as a hymn of praise for the deliverances God granted him. Yet the triumphs and glories it records belong, in their full extent, to David's Seed, the promised Messiah. Paul quotes verse 49 — "Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name" — and applies it directly to Christ (Rom. 15:9). How, then, does it describe the opening of His glorious reign? "You have given me the necks of my enemies, that I might destroy those who hate me." Is Christ now seeking the necks of His enemies, or their hearts? Is His present aim to save them, or to destroy them? … The word now is, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
- Rescue first. The verse begins where David's story did. God ended the strife among his own people — a picture of the rejected Messiah raised out of death.
- Then rule. "Head of the nations" was never David's place. Commentators read it of David's Son, exalted as Lord of all.
- Then reach. A people never known comes into His service. Some read this as Israel restored after long disowning. Others read it as the nations blessed while God sets Israel aside.
- Order matters. God first delivers His people and judges their oppressors. Then He sets up His throne, and the nations bow.
- Not yet this way. Paul applies the psalm to Christ. But today He seeks hearts, not necks: everyone who calls on the Lord's name will be saved.
At the hearing of the ear, they obey me strangers come cringing unto me.
Psalm 18 is a long war-song, and it ends in surrender. Nations who have never met the king bow the moment his name reaches them — so who is this king, and how real is that obedience?
Commentators read the psalm as David's own thanksgiving that outgrows David. One writer points to the New Testament's own use of the closing verses as the proof.
Psalm 18 makes known God's goodness "to His anointed, to David and to his seed for ever more." It was written as a hymn of praise for the rescues God gave to the Psalmist himself. Yet the triumphs and glories it records belong, in their full extent, to David's Seed, the promised Messiah. And Paul quotes verse 49 — the thanks given to Jehovah among the Gentiles, and the praise sung to His name — as directly referring to Christ. (Rom. 15:9.)
The title in the verse before points the same way. David never held such a place.
"You have made me the head of the nations" cannot apply to David and his own experience. It is David's Son and David's Lord who will head the nations of the earth. Verse 44 describes the coming kingdom.
Verse 43 sets the people apart from the nations, and that distinction carries into verse 44. Read in order, the groups move outward from Israel to the world.
Three groups appear here. First the people: He is delivered from their strivings. Then the nations: He is made their head. Then a people not known before, with whom He had never been in relationship as He was with Israel; they will serve Him. Submission will be immediate, because His glory and power are so plain by then. And even where there is no sincerity, or at least no proof of it, they will at once serve, bowing down to Him. This is the beginning of what belongs to the thousand-year reign.
The words "as soon as they heard of me" carry the weight. A report reaches them, and they bow.
Older translations carried a margin note here reading "yield feigned obedience," and much of the commentary turns on it. One writer describes the people it fits.
Those who yield feigned obedience are people who have no heart for Messiah and are afraid to do anything else; and they do this as nations.
If that is right, the verse explains something that happens a thousand years later. Submission that was never inward finally shows what it always was.
The marginal reading is suggestive: "they will yield feigned obedience to Me." That tells us the obedience of many during the kingdom reign of our Lord will not be whole-hearted. Hence the revolt at the end of the thousand years (Rev. 20).
Not every nation is play-acting. Commentators find a range of responses at the end.
All this shows us that the nations will be of quite different kinds at the time of the end. Some will be broken with a rod of iron and forced to submit. Others will put on an appearance of submission, as it is said: "Strangers come cringing to me" [that is, they render forced or feigned obedience]. And others still — a great multitude that no man will be able to number (Rev. 7:9-10) — will submit to Christ's yoke, accepting His victory as their deliverance.
Commentators differ on how much weight the "feigned obedience" reading can bear. One writer argues that readers have pressed it too far and spoiled their picture of Christ's reign.
There is an expression in the Psalms with a margin reading that, I believe, has been badly misread, so as to run down the whole character of the millennial reign of Christ… "They shall submit themselves," and "as soon as they hear of me," would have carried no false sense. The false sense seems to come entirely from the alternative put in the margin. As Delitzsch says, the word is "often used of the enforced submission of the conquered." "Come cringing" is Driver's and J.N.D.'s rendering of it. It describes the effect of the Lord's coming in warrior judgment.
The same writer sets this scene against the present hour.
How perfectly this agrees with what is told elsewhere about the sudden setting up of Christ's worldwide rule by the judgment and desolation of His enemies! But how contrary it is to the grace in which He is now acting, and to the spirit He requires of His people, who are to pray for their persecutors and to love their enemies!
- Victory — The psalm's closing triumphs belong in full to David's Seed. Paul quotes verse 49 of Christ.
- Headship — Head of the nations is a place David never held. Verse 44 describes the coming kingdom.
- Report — They bow the moment they hear, because His glory and power are plain by then. A people He never knew becomes His people.
- Cringing — The word means the forced submission of the defeated. Some bow with no heart for Messiah, afraid to do anything else.
- Aftermath — Half-hearted obedience explains the revolt at the end of the thousand years. Yet a countless multitude will accept His victory as their deliverance — and none of this is the grace in which Christ acts today.
Strangers have faded away, and they come trembling forth from their close places.
Psalm 18 ends David's song of deliverance with foreign nations losing heart and coming out of their fortresses in fear. Commentators read this as a picture of a future day. It raises a hard question: when fear makes people submit, has the King really won them?
The psalm belongs to David's own wars. Yet one writer sees its language reach past David to a greater King.
How all this speaks to us of One who is greater than David! He comes forth from the trial to be acknowledged as King of Israel and Head of the nations. "Foreigners came cringing to Him." God avenges Him and brings the peoples under Him. He lifts Him up above those who rose up against Him.
One writer traces the word behind "fortresses" through its other uses.
The word means, first of all, an enclosure. So it can mean a fortress or "close place," as in Psalm 18:45. It is also used in Micah 7:17, where it is translated "hole." An enclosure is there to keep out intruders, by a wall or some other barricade.
The psalm has just said foreigners came cringing to the King. An older margin note reads those words differently.
The marginal rendering is more accurate: "shall yield to me feigned obedience." They are afraid before the display of Messiah's power. They also worry about what rebellion would cost them. So they offer their allegiance while still hating Him in their hearts.
One writer places this bowing of nations next to the judgment of the nations in Matthew 25. He keeps the two apart.
Those who yield feigned obedience have no heart for Messiah. They are afraid to do anything else. And this is national. The sheep in Matthew are the individual results of the preaching of the kingdom. Their judgment turns only on the way they received the messengers. There is a war judgment (Revelation 19:11), and a judgment from the throne. In Psalm 18 they bow under power to the throne. Matthew 25 is individual moral judgment when He has the throne.
The same writer sorts the nations at the end into more than one kind.
All this shows us that the nations will have quite varied characters at the time of the end. Some will be broken with a rod of iron and forced to submit. Others will put on an appearance of submission, as it is said: "Foreigners came cringing to me." And still others will submit themselves to Christ's yoke, accepting His victory as their deliverance. These last are not one isolated case like Toi, but a great multitude which no one will be able to number.
Forced bowing does not hold. One writer follows it to its end.
It would appear that some will bow falsely, only because they stand in the presence of a power they cannot withstand. It was so with some in the early days of Solomon's kingdom (1 Kings 1). Such people will be only too ready to listen to Satan's suggestions when he goes free for a little while at the end (Revelation 20:7-9). So will others, perhaps born during the Lord's reign. What is man! Grace does not attract him; and even glory will not permanently convince him!
One writer quotes an older wording of verse 40, where the King is given the necks of His enemies. (The ESV reads, "You made my enemies turn their backs to me.") He then asks what Christ seeks today.
"You have given Me the necks of My enemies, that I might destroy those who hate Me." Is it the necks, or the hearts, of His enemies that Christ is now seeking? Is it to save them, or to destroy them, that is His present object? … The word now is, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
- Power. Foreigners lose heart and come trembling out of their fortresses. A greater Son of David is Head of the nations, and no fortress holds against Him.
- Pretence. An older margin reads their submission as "feigned obedience." They offer allegiance while they still hate Him.
- Place. A "close place" is an enclosure or fortress, the same word translated "hole" in Micah 7:17. The wall they built to keep others out cannot keep them in.
- Mixture. Commentators name three groups at the end. Some nations are forced to submit. Some only pretend. A countless multitude takes His victory as their own deliverance.
- Invitation. Pretended loyalty breaks down when Satan goes free at the end. Christ is not seeking necks today, but hearts: "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Jehovah liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of my salvation,
Psalm 18 ends the way it began — with praise — and this verse is the hinge of that closing burst. Three short cries stand side by side: God lives, God is a rock, God is to be exalted. Commentators read them as David's own praise after rescue, and as words that reach far beyond him.
The first cry is not a piece of theory. It is a shout against a world that has written God off. One writer sets it in an age still to come, when that noise stops.
How fitting that the psalm closes with praise to God! Such praise will continue all through the millennial age. What a contrast to the foolish nonsense that comes now from men's lips — that God is dead! "The Lord lives" will be the vibrant, triumphant cry of the people (v. 46). "Blessed be my Rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted." So Christ brings back to God the honour men have tried to strip from Him. Christ is the living witness to the greatness and authority of the living God.
How can anyone know that God lives? One writer answers with an event. He comments on this song as it stands in 2 Samuel 22, where this verse is numbered 47.
Verses 47 to 51 give a final summary of the victory of God for the Man of His counsels. "The Lord lives!" How magnificently this is proven in the resurrection of Christ! "Blessed be my Rock," the solid, unchanging, dependable foundation of all blessing. "Let God be exalted." The resurrection of the Lord Jesus has magnified God as "the rock of my salvation." God has avenged Him of His enemies. He will also subdue all the peoples under Him. His resurrection is the promise of this.
The word "rock" carries more than the English shows. One writer goes back to the Hebrew and finds a hollow in the rock — a place to hide inside.
Hebrew scholars tell us that the proper translation of "The LORD is my Rock" is "Jehovah, my cleft of the rock." Christ is the rock, cleft for us. In Him the believer has found His refuge. And He Himself was saved from His enemies. In Him His people are saved, and will be saved, from their enemies (verse 3).
David's rescues did not make God a rock; they showed He always was one. So the psalm ends where it began.
Like the song of Moses, the song of David begins and ends with God. Every true song must. "From Him and through Him and to Him are all things"; and there can be no true joy that does not recognise the truth of this. In the changing tide of things here, God alone is what His name Jehovah declares — the One who abides. If the permanence of natural laws alone saves us from confusion of mind and uncertainty in all we do, then faith's settled confidence and security is this: God is a rock. The rescues of a lifetime only underline that assurance again. The refuge remains ours while the storm still rages.
The title in this verse is not new. The psalm names salvation again and again, each time from a different angle. Here the Speaker lifts up the God behind them all.
The beautiful psalm in 2 Samuel 22 describes the Messiah entering the dark path of the sorrows of His beloved people, to take them up on His own person. He well knew what those sorrows meant. He is able to save for ever all who come to God by Him. He calls His God "the horn of my salvation" (v. 3), that is, the power of it. Further, He says, "You have given me the shield of Your salvation." Salvation is there thrown round Him, and us in Him (v. 36). In verse 47 He exalts "the rock of my salvation," and in verse 51 "He is the tower of salvation for His king."
The last five verses compress the psalm into a list of titles. They do not stop at rescue.
The last five verses give praise to God, in the same character as at the start of the psalm. They sum up in brief the mercies the psalm has recounted. He is the living and unchanging God, the Rock of faith, the Saviour. He is the avenging Judge, who subdues the peoples. He is the God of resurrection, who lifts up above all enemies. For this reason He is praised among the nations.
- Lives — "The LORD lives" answers a generation that says God is dead. One day it will be the triumphant cry of a whole people.
- Raised — the resurrection of Christ proves it. That resurrection magnified God as the rock of salvation, and pledges that He will subdue every enemy.
- Rock — the word means a cleft in the rock. Not just firmness, but a hollow to hide in, and the unchanging foundation of all blessing.
- Saved — the psalm calls salvation a horn, a shield, a rock and a tower. This verse exalts the God behind all four.
- Exalted — the song begins and ends with God. The rescues of a lifetime prove again that He abides, and His praise spreads among the nations.
The God who hath avenged me, and hath subjected the peoples to me;
David ends his long song of rescue by giving God the credit for two things a king might have claimed for himself: paying back his enemies, and bringing nations under him. Who is really speaking here? What does "peoples" mean? And what does a verse about vengeance leave a reader to do?
The psalm sings of David's own deliverance. But its closing verses reach past anything David lived to see, and one writer reads the triumph as belonging to a greater King.
David's own history and rescue are not all that the Psalm celebrates. It really speaks of One greater than he. It looks ahead to the days of the millennial kingdom (44, 45), and to the full triumph of the King — but only after His resurrection (16:10). David was delivered on earth before death. The Lord will appear triumphant as the risen One.
El, in the lines below, is a name for God. Verse 47 is not a one-off rescue. It shows how God runs His world: the same perfection marks His own way and the way He makes for His King.
The way of El is perfect in holy supremacy over evil. He makes the way of His King just as perfect: avenging Him, putting the peoples under Him, and rescuing Him from the man of violence. This is the way of government.
The word behind "peoples" is worth pinning down, because English translations have often blurred it. Hebrew has different words for Israel, for the nations around Israel, and for the nations set against God's people.
Am in the singular usually means Israel. Ammim in the plural means "peoples." The King James Version very often translates this wrongly as "people," I suppose because "peoples" is not correct English. But the sense is quite different. I believe the ammim are the peoples connected with Israel, brought into relationship with Israel. Goim, by contrast, are the nations set over against God's people… Psalm 18:47 has ammim.
So the verse is not a general boast over humanity. It speaks of the nations drawn into Israel's orbit, bowed under Israel's King.
If the psalm's full sense belongs to Messiah, then God has not yet done the subduing this verse describes. One writer links the waiting of the ascended Christ to this line. He reads its praise as praise for a vindication God carries out Himself.
The ascended Christ still waits for His enemies to become His footstool. The power of God will have bowed them before Him (47)… So this passage gives praise to God as the avenger of Immanuel's rightful claim (47). He had subdued the nations under Him, according to the decree declared long before (Ps. 2:7-8).
Vengeance is here God's action, and commentators press that it stays God's. Knowing Him as the one who avenges is not permission to hope He will avenge on our behalf.
Knowing God as the avenger of His people's wrongs is not meant to stir the smallest wish in our hearts that His vengeance would fall on our enemies. We must watch against that as a secret desire… The right to clear the innocent and to punish the guilty belongs to the Lord alone.
Others go further. They ask whether a Christian can sing such lines at all, and they list this very verse among their examples.
The Christian is told, by example and by command, to pray for his enemies and to repay them good for evil. How then can he take such words on his lips? And this is by no means a single case. Passages all through the book are completely unsuitable for the lips of a Christian, though they fit the age they have in view. Here are some of them: Ps. 2:9; Ps. 3:7… Ps. 18:47-48.
- Vengeance — the verse gives both the avenging and the subduing to God. That right stays with Him, and never passes to us.
- Government — this is God's settled way of ruling, perfect in His own path and in the path He makes for His King.
- Peoples — the Hebrew ammim means the nations linked to Israel, not people in general.
- King — the psalm starts from David's rescue but reaches to a greater King, triumphant as the risen One.
- Waiting — this subjection is still ahead. The ascended Christ waits, and God will bow His enemies before Him.
Who hath delivered me from mine enemies yea, thou hast lifted me up above them that rose up against me; from the man of violence hast thou delivered me.
David's song ends where it began, with the LORD as rescuer, and this verse names three things at once: rescue from enemies, lifting above them, and deliverance from "the violent man." Commentators ask who that man is, and whether David's escape from Saul is the whole story.
David really was saved from Saul. One writer says the way this psalm tells that rescue points far past Saul himself.
2 Samuel 22 shows us that David sang this psalm at a fitting time. I mentioned this above, but I press it again here: what a proof it gives that certain pieces of history are pictures of something greater. The way this psalm tells of David's rescue from the hand of Saul shows us plainly that another and far more magnificent deliverance was in view through it.
Commentators differ. One writer reads the phrase as the antichrist, defeated on the day God avenges Christ.
It will be clear then that it is God who avenges the Lord Jesus and subdues the nations under Him (v. 47). All who rise against Him will find Him lifted high above them. God will deliver Him from "the violent man," the antichrist, and Christ will completely overthrow him (v. 48).
Another writer disagrees. He points to the next line of the psalm: the praise that follows goes out among the nations, not among the Jews.
I do not see the Antichrist here. The only word that might seem to speak of him is in verse 48 — the man of violence; but I take it he is an enemy from outside. That is why he praises among the nations. The destruction of Antichrist would make him praise among the Jews.
God rescues a sinner from judgment one way. He rescues a sufferer from an oppressor another way. This verse belongs to the second kind.
Deliverance from "the violent man" will not be so much in grace as in righteousness. God delivers the sinner only in grace, through atonement — from the curse of the accuser, the penalty of sin, and the just judgment of the law. The same holds for the Israel of God in the coming day when they repent. But in conflict with the enemy, they will be righteous as David was with Saul. They will suffer as martyrs or as righteous ones, and God will deliver them as such.
The verse says "you delivered me." The one who speaks does not rescue Himself.
Here it should be noted that, though God clothes Him with strength, Christ is seen as the dependent man, on earth, whether suffering or victorious.
This rescue reaches beyond the one rescued. Another writer follows the psalm past the deliverance itself to the nations.
In Psalm 18, after a description of Messiah's victory over His foes, we read that God delivered Him from strife with the people and made Him the head of the nations. A people He had not known will serve Him, and will obey Him as soon as they hear of Him. … We learn, therefore, as from all the prophetic writings, that the Lord will deliver His people through unsparing judgments. After He has poured out His wrath on their oppressors, He will establish His throne. Then all kings will fall down before Him, and all nations will serve Him.
The verse tells of rescue. One commentator points past rescue to what comes next.
And so this psalm tells us what Paul teaches in Romans 8: "those whom he justified he also glorified." The Lord does not, and cannot, stop at mere deliverance. He goes on to complete His goodness in the kingdom.
The psalm asks God to remove an oppressor from the earth. One writer marks the difference between that hope and the Christian's.
The Jew has his portion on the earth, for the meek will inherit the earth and delight themselves in abundant peace. So he looks for God to remove the violent and deceitful man, so that he himself may have comfort and rest. Not so the Christian. He leaves the violent man here and goes to heaven. As to his personal walk, he walks in the time of grace, and leaves it for glory.
- Rescue — David's escape from Saul is real history. The psalm tells it in a way that shows a far greater deliverance behind it.
- Righteousness — God delivers from the violent man on the ground of righteousness, not the grace that saves a sinner from judgment.
- Reach — the one lifted above his attackers becomes head of the nations. Peoples who never knew Him come to serve Him.
- Rule — God never stops at rescue. He completes it in the kingdom: "those whom he justified he also glorified."
- Response — commentators differ: is the violent man the antichrist, or an enemy from outside? Either way, the Christian leaves such a man behind and goes to heaven.
Therefore will I give thanks to thee, Jehovah, among the nations, and will sing psalms to thy name.
Psalm 18 ends with David looking past Israel's borders. God had rescued him from every enemy, and now he vows to give thanks among the nations. Commentators see more here than David's own gratitude. Paul takes the verse out of the psalm and puts it in the mouth of Christ.
David sang about his own escapes, yet the psalm describes far more than his own story. One writer follows it from the closing words about "his seed" to Paul's use of the verse:
Psalm 18 makes known God's goodness "to His anointed, to David and his offspring forever." It was written as a hymn of praise for the rescues given to the psalmist himself. Yet the triumphs and glories it records are, in their full extent, plainly those of David's Seed, the promised Messiah. Paul quotes the 49th verse as referring directly to Christ (Rom. 15:9). How, then, does it describe the inauguration of His glorious reign? "You have given Me the necks of My enemies, that I might destroy them that hate Me." Is it the necks, or the hearts, of His enemies that Christ is now seeking? Is it to save them, or to destroy them, that is His present object?
The questions expect an answer. The psalm's Messiah puts down His enemies; the Christ preached now is seeking to save them. The line about "the necks of My enemies" comes from an older translation of verse 40. The ESV reads, "You made my enemies turn their backs to me, and those who hated me I destroyed."
The verse opens with "For this" — a conclusion drawn from what came before. The psalm's closing verses gather it up:
The last five verses give praise to God, in the same character as at the start of the psalm, and sum up in short the mercies just recounted. He is the living and unchanging God, the Rock of faith, the Saviour. He is the avenging Judge who subdues the peoples. He is the God of resurrection, and so lifts up above all enemies. For this cause He is praised among the nations.
In Romans 15 Paul shows that God always meant to bless the nations. He proves it from the law, the prophets and the Psalms, and this verse is the first of his four witnesses:
Jesus became a servant to the circumcised for God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. He came also so that the Gentiles, who had no promises, should glorify God for His mercy. And Paul brings proofs not only from Psalm 18:49 and Psalm 117:1, but from the law (Deut. 32:43) and the prophets (Isa. 11:10).
God's mercy to the nations does not set aside His older promise; it confirms it:
God had promised Abraham that "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed". To confirm this promise, and others like it made to the fathers, the Lord shows mercy and bears witness to God among the Gentiles.
The praise of the nations arrives in a set order, and judgment comes first:
We learn, as from all the prophetic writings, that the Lord will deliver His people through unsparing judgments. After He has poured out His wrath on their oppressors, He will establish His throne. Then all kings will fall down before Him, and all nations will serve Him.
Commentators differ on how far the verse reaches into the present. One takes it as already fulfilled among believers, with a wider fulfilment still ahead:
This is true now "in the midst of the congregation" of the saints (Ps. 22:22), but in the millennium it will be true among the nations.
Another accepts that use for today, but says the psalm's own scene is different. There God's praise reaches the nations through a blessed Israel:
Verse 49 is well known for the way the apostle applies it to the present time of mercy to the Gentiles (Rom. 15:9)... But this passage is not about Jesus being revealed to the faith of the chosen Gentile church. Its subject is the praise of Jehovah spread among the nations, and that comes through Israel's full blessing under the Messiah.
- Deliverance first. The praise rests on what the psalm has just recounted: God as Rock, Saviour, avenging Judge, and the God of resurrection.
- Therefore, praise. "For this cause He is praised among the nations": the singing is the answer to the rescue, not a separate thought.
- Christ's own words. Paul quotes this verse as the words of Christ. So David's Seed leads the thanks among the nations, not David alone.
- Mercy, not promise. The nations had no promises of their own. They come in as God keeps His word to Abraham and the fathers, and they glorify God for His mercy.
- Reach still widening. Commentators differ on the timing. One hears this praise now among the saints, and among the nations later. Another sees the psalm's own scene as Israel blessed, with the nations blessed through her.
[It is he] who giveth great deliverances to his king, and sheweth loving-kindness to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.
The psalm ends where David's own story cannot end. He has just sung of rescue from Saul and from death itself. Now he closes with a blessing that runs past his own reign — to his anointed king, to his descendants, and on "forever." So who is this king in the end, and how far does the promise reach?
The words of this psalm refuse to stay inside the events that prompted it. David's rescues are the occasion, not the whole subject.
The book of Samuel tells us that this psalm was sung to celebrate David's rescue from the hand of Saul and of 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 the event that matters personally to the man He uses as a prophet, and uses it only as the occasion to open a larger and wider scene. Christ alone can be the centre of that scene, and He gives meaning to the whole.
Another writer reads the closing verse the same way. Its honours are too large for the man who first sang them.
Psalm 18 makes known God's goodness "to His anointed, to David and his offspring forever." It was written as a hymn of praise for the rescues granted to the Psalmist himself. Yet the triumphs and glories it records are clearly, in their full extent, those of David's Seed, the promised Messiah. And Paul quotes verse 49 of this psalm as words that refer to Christ (Rom. 15:9).
The title in this verse is not decoration. Oil poured on the head marked a man out for God's service, and it set kings apart in the same way.
David and all the kings of Judah were anointed (2 Sam. 2:7; 1 Kings 1:34)... Messiah means "the Anointed." "The Lord's anointed" is a regular way of naming the king, and it was the recognised title of our Lord. "Christ" is simply the Greek word for Messiah.
The Hebrew word behind "steadfast love" in this verse is not the pity offered to a guilty person. It describes favour given and enjoyed, and it rests on a covenant.
At the end He works in the power of Jehovah to deliver His people. He is then the full witness of God's mercy (chesed) to His Anointed David and to his offspring forever. Mercy here is not simply the kind we would speak of to sinners. It is favour and grace shown and enjoyed... So the same word names the blessings given to Israel at the end, and indeed to all who enjoy them: "the sure mercies of David." An everlasting covenant confirms them, and, as the apostle shows us, the resurrection of Christ secures them.
The King does not win this victory on His own. God gives it to Him, and He does not keep the blessing to Himself.
God has also given "great salvation" to the King, so that He wins a complete victory over His enemies. This is mercy to God's Anointed, "to David and his offspring forever" (v. 50), for believers (called offspring) share the same blessing that is His for eternity. All of this puts great stress on the real Manhood of Christ. That takes nothing away from His deity. It only makes us marvel more that One took so lowly a place, and yet in Him all the glory of God dwells.
David's own descendants put that "forever" to the test. When Isaiah told King Hezekiah he was about to die, God's answer to him opened by naming David.
Isaiah was to begin his message with the words, "Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father." The message was a promise of longer life and rescue from his enemies. But why the God of David your father? Perhaps Psalm 18 provides the answer... The God of David was to Hezekiah, David's descendant, what He had been to David.
The last line guarantees a throne that stays occupied. The psalm points at this without spelling it out.
The blessing continues "to David and his offspring forever" — the throne kept in the hands that were trusted with it. We know these are safe and blessed hands, and the heart rests when it recognises them. But we read that into the picture from outside; we must go elsewhere to find it.
- Occasion — David's escape from Saul starts the song. But its language runs past David's life to a wider scene centred on Christ.
- Anointed — the title names a king set apart by oil; "Messiah" means the Anointed, and "Christ" is the same word in Greek.
- Mercy — the word means favour given and enjoyed, not pity toward a sinner. These are the "sure mercies of David," held firm by an everlasting covenant and secured by resurrection.
- Given — the King does not win the great salvation alone. God gives it to Him, and believers share the very blessing that is His.
- Forever — the promise outlives the man. It kept Hezekiah, David's descendant, and it guards a throne in safe hands.