PSALM 18
1For the lead player, for the LORD’s servant, for David, who spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day the LORD saved him from the grasp of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.
2And he said:
I am impassioned of You, LORD, my strength!
3The LORD is my crag and my bastion,
and my deliverer, my God, my rock where I shelter,
my shield and the horn of my rescue, my fortress.
4Praised I called the LORD
and from my enemies I was rescued.
5The cords of death wrapped round me,
and the torrents of perdition dismayed me.
6The cords of Sheol encircled me,
the traps of death sprung upon me.
7In my strait I called to the LORD,
to my God I cried out.
8He heard from His palace my voice,
and my outcry before Him came to His ears.
9The earth heaved and shuddered,
the mountains’ foundations were shaken.
They heaved, for smoke rose from His nostrils,
and fire from His mouth consumed,
coals blazed up around Him.
10He tilted the heavens, came down, dense mist beneath His feet.
11He mounted a cherub and flew,
and He soared on the wings of the wind.
12He set darkness His hiding place round Him,
His abode water-massing, the clouds of the skies.
13From the brilliance before Him His clouds moved ahead—
14The LORD thundered from on high.
hail and fiery coals.
15He let loose His arrows, and scattered them,
lightning bolts shot, and He panicked them.
16The channels of water were exposed,
and the world’s foundations laid bare
from the LORD’s roaring,
from the blast of Your nostrils’ breath.
17He reached from on high and took me,
pulled me out of the many waters.
18He saved me from my daunting enemy
and from my foes who were stronger than I.
19They came at me on my day of disaster,
but the LORD became my support
20and brought me out to a wide-open space,
set me free, for His pleasure I was.
21The LORD dealt with me by my merit,
for my cleanness of hands He requited me.
22For I kept the ways of the LORD
and did no evil before my God.
23For all His laws were before me.
From His statutes I did not swerve.
24And I was blameless before Him,
and I kept myself from crime.
25And the LORD requited me for my merit,
by my cleanness of hands in His eyes.
26With the faithful You deal faithfully,
with a blameless man, act without blame.
27With the pure one, You deal purely,
with the perverse man, deal in twists.
28For it is You Who rescues the lowly folk
and haughty eyes You bring low.
29For You light up my lamp, O LORD,
my God illumines my darkness.
30For through You I rush at a barrier,
through my God I can vault a wall.
31The God, His way is blameless,
the LORD’s utterance unalloyed.
32For who is god except the LORD,
and who the Rock except our God?
33The God who girds me with might
and keeps my way blameless,
34makes my legs like a gazelle’s,
and stands me on the heights,
35trains my hands for combat,
makes my arms bend a bow of bronze.
36You gave me Your shield of rescue, Your right hand did sustain me,
and Your battle cry made me many.
37You lengthened my strides beneath me,
and my feet did not trip.
38I pursued my enemies, caught them,
turned not back till I wiped them out.
39I smashed them, they could not rise,
they fell beneath my feet.
40You girt me with might for combat.
You laid low my foes beneath me,
41and You made my enemies turn back before me,
my foes, I demolished them.
42They cried out—there was none to rescue,
to the LORD—He answered them not.
43I crushed them like dust in the wind,
like mud in the streets I ground them.
44You saved me from the strife of peoples,
You set me at nations’ head,
a people I knew not served me.
45At the mere ear’s report they obeyed me,
46Aliens did wither,
47The LORD lives and blessed is my Rock,
exalted the God of my rescue.
48The God who grants vengeance to me
and crushes peoples beneath me,
49frees me from my enemies,
yes, from those against me You raise me,
from a man of violence You save me.
50Therefore I acclaim You among nations, O LORD,
and to Your name I would hymn,
51making great the rescues of His king,
keeping faith with His anointed,
for David and his seed forever.
PSALM 18 NOTES
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1. For the lead player, for the LORD’s servant, for David. The superscription of this psalm is extraordinarily long. Perhaps this reflects an editorial desire to fit this into the biography of David, from which in fact the entire psalm was borrowed. It is essentially the same poem as the one that appears as 2 Samuel 22. Still, there are many small differences between the two versions. Those that throw some light on the reading of our psalm are noted in the comments below. The textual evidence suggests that the version in 2 Samuel 22 is the older one: Certain unusual forms have been regularized or glossed here, and there are also signs of some errors in scribal copying. Because David is represented in his narrative as a poet, it is even conceivable, though in no way demonstrable and perhaps unlikely, that this particular psalm might have been composed by him.
2. I am impassioned of You, LORD, my strength! This clause lacks a parallel verset to make it a line of poetry, and it is absent from the text in 2 Samuel. The verb for “impassioned” (raḥam in the qal conjugation) is an Aramaic usage that appears only here in the Bible.
3. The LORD is my crag and my bastion. This is of course a victory poem, bristling with martial imagery. At the same time, it exhibits considerable overlap with the thanksgiving psalm: the experience of near death attested to by the speaker, the celebration of God’s saving power, the occurrence of the verbs hodah, “acclaim,” and zamer, “hymn,” at the end.
8. He heard from His palace. The outcry of the beleaguered warrior ascends all the way to the highest heavens, thus launching a downward vertical movement that is followed through the narrative sweep of the next several verses.
9. The earth heaved and shuddered. The seismic imagery of this line begins a powerful anthropomorphic representation of God, drawing freely on pre-Israelite mythological poetry. The heaving of the earth functions as a kind of preliminary artillery barrage before God’s direct assault on the speaker’s enemies.
for smoke rose from His nostrils, / and fire from His mouth consumed, / coals blazed up around Him. God Himself is imagined as a kind of erupting volcano. In an intensifying narrative sequence through this triadic line, first we see the smoke from the nostrils, then consuming flame from the mouth, and God is altogether so incandescent that everything around him ignites.
10. He tilted the heavens. The heavens are imagined as a flat slab. God tilts them to begin His downward course, and our eye is thus led downward here to God’s feet at the end of the line.
11. He mounted a cherub and flew, / and He soared on the wings of the wind. The cherub is a fierce winged beast, the charger ridden by the sky god in Canaanite mythology (not the dimpled darling of Renaissance painting). The verb “soar” here is one point where the text of Psalms seems better than that of 2 Samuel, which has “was seen”—a word that differs by one consonant (resh instead of the similar-looking dalet).
12. water-massing. The translation follows 2 Samuel 22, which has ḥashrat-mayim, as against ḥeshkat-mayim here (“darkness of water”). This appears to be an instance in which the copyist substituted a familiar term for a rare one that he may not have understood. The mistake would have been triggered by the graphic similarity between resh and kaf.
14. Elyon. This is the designation of a Canaanite deity (“the Most High”) that has been co-opted by the monotheistic poet. It is preserved here in its Hebrew form in the translation to suggest the archaic effect of the original.
hail and fiery coals. This recurrence of the phrase used at the end of the previous verse looks suspiciously like an inadvertent scribal repetition. It is entirely absent from 2 Samuel 22.
16. The channels of water were exposed. 2 Samuel 22 has “The channels of the sea” (a difference of only one letter in the Hebrew), which makes stronger sense as an image of the sea dried up or driven back by God’s fiery descent.
17. pulled me out of the many waters. Although it is enemies on the battlefield who threaten the speaker, the image of drowning in the depths of the sea recurs in thanksgiving psalms as a metaphoric representation of near death.
20. brought me out to a wide-open space. The “wide-open space,” merḥav, is the antithesis to the “strait” (tsar, as in verse 7) in which the speaker felt trapped.
21. The LORD dealt with me by my merit. These words initiate a confession of virtue that continues for six verses. The explanation for God’s spectacular intervention to rescue the speaker from his implacable and powerful enemies is that he has been careful to follow God’s precepts.
35. trains my hands for combat. This follows the quickening and steadying of the legs in the previous line. The second verset here, in a nice focusing development, then shows the warrior’s arms bending a bow of bronze.
36. Your battle cry made me many. The version here has ʿanwatkha (“Your humility”?), which does not make evident sense. The text in 2 Samuel has ʿanotkha; one of the meanings of ʿanot is a crying out. (The consonantal text is the same in both readings.) The likely sense is that the warrior’s use of a battle cry, probably incorporating the name YHWH, terrified the enemy and made his own force seem many even if it may have been outnumbered. In sequence, then, God gives his protected warrior three formidable implements of war—a bow, a shield, and a battle cry incorporating the divine name.
41. turn back before me. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “gave to me [their] nape.”
43. I crushed them like dust in the wind. The wind image is a little odd, and some manuscripts of this psalm read, as does 2 Samuel 22, “like dust of the earth.”
44. the strife of peoples, / . . . nations’ head, / a people I knew not served me. All this might conceivably fit David’s creation of a mini-empire, but perhaps it is no more than formulaic language for military victory.
45. aliens cringed before me. The meaning of the Hebrew verb is somewhat conjectural.
46. filed out from their forts. Both the verb and the noun are in doubt, so the translation is an educated guess. The verb ḥ-g-r could mean “to come out” or “slip out,” and the noun suggests something like “enclosure.”
50. Therefore I acclaim You . . . / and to Your name I would hymn. Having completed the account of the glorious victory that God has granted him, the speaker now moves to a formal conclusion, in keeping with the convention of the thanksgiving psalm, announcing that he has here celebrated God’s greatness.
51. making great the rescues of His king. The version in 2 Samuel has “tower of rescue” (migdol yeshuʿot) instead of magdil yeshuʿot here. The image of a tower is more striking, and it picks up the fortress metaphors of the beginning of the poem.