The Rescued King Gives the Praise a Larger Horizon

“Spake... the words of this song” is the formula that introduces Moses’ song in Deuteronomy 31:30, sung near the end of his life. The heading matches the title of Psalm 18 almost word for word; the Psalter kept the same poem with small differences throughout.

“Rock” here is sela’, a crag or cliff, and “fortress” is metsudah, the word for the strongholds David hid in while Saul hunted him (1 Samuel 22:4–5) and for the stronghold of Zion he took (5:7). The hiding places of his youth become names for God.

The “horn” is a bull’s horn, an image of strength; Hannah sang “mine horn is exalted” (1 Samuel 2:1), and Zacharias calls Jesus “an horn of salvation... in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69). The last clause, “thou savest me from violence”, is not in Psalm 18.

“Worthy to be praised” is one Hebrew word, mehullal, “the praised one”. The verse states the principle before the history: call, and be saved. Everything from verse 5 onward is the account that proves it.

“Waves” are breakers, water crashing over. “Ungodly men” translates beliya’al, Belial, the same word Shimei hurled at David (16:7) and the book used of Sheba (20:1). Where Psalm 18:4 has “the sorrows of death”, this text has the waves.

“Hell” is Sheol, the grave and the realm of the dead, not the later place of punishment. “Sorrows” is better “cords”: the picture is a hunter’s ropes and nets closing around an animal before it can run.

Two verbs, “called” and “cried”, the second a shout for help. The last clause is shorter than in Psalm 18:6, which reads “my cry came before him, even into his ears”; here the cry goes straight in.

Psalm 18:7 reads “the foundations also of the hills”; this text has “the foundations of heaven”, the pillars on which the sky was pictured as resting (Job 26:11). The quake runs from the ground to the roof of the world.

The Hebrew word for nostrils, ’aph, is also the ordinary word for anger, which was felt as heat in the nose. The poem takes the idiom literally: smoke from the nostrils, fire from the mouth, coals catching.

“Bowed” is to stretch or bend down. “Darkness” is ’araphel, the thick darkness of Sinai into which Moses drew near “where God was” (Exodus 20:21). The storm cloud is imagined as the floor under God’s feet.

“He was seen” here is wayyera; Psalm 18:10 reads wayyede, “he flew swiftly”. In the old Hebrew script the letters for r and d were nearly identical, and this is one of the textbook cases of the two being confused in copying.

“Pavilions” is sukkot, booths or shelters, the word of the Feast of Tabernacles. “Dark waters” here is literally “a gathering of waters”, where Psalm 18:11 has “darkness of waters”: rain clouds heaped up as a tent around God.

Psalm 18:12 has hailstones in this line and the next; this version keeps only the coals. Brightness and darkness sit side by side in the storm, the glare before God kindling coals inside the black cloud.

“Most High” is Elyon, the title under which Melchizedek blessed Abram (Genesis 14:18–20). Thunder as God’s voice appears in the song of Hannah, where the LORD “thunder[s] upon them” from heaven against his enemies (1 Samuel 2:10).

“Discomfited” is hamam, to throw into panic, the verb for the LORD troubling Egypt’s army at the sea (Exodus 14:24) and routing Sisera (Judges 4:15). The arrows and the lightning are the same thing said twice.

“The blast of the breath of his nostrils” comes from the song at the sea: “with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together” (Exodus 15:8). The sea floor laid bare is the Red Sea crossing, pressed into David’s own deliverance.

“Drew me out” is mashah, a verb found only here, in Psalm 18:16 and in Exodus 2:10, where Pharaoh’s daughter names Moses because “I drew him out of the water”. David describes his rescue with the verb that named Moses.

“Strong enemy” is singular, and verse 1 has just named Saul; then the line widens to the plural, “them that hated me”. The confession “too strong for me” is from the man who killed Goliath.

“Prevented” again means “came against me first”. “Stay” is mish’an, a support one leans on, from the same root as the “staff” that comforts in Psalm 23:4.

“Delighted” is chaphets, the verb David used when he left Jerusalem: “if he thus say, I have no delight in thee, behold, here am I” (15:26). The fear he voiced on the road is answered in the song.

“Cleanness” is bor, the word for lye or soap, a washing agent. Clean hands were the sign of innocence of blood; the elders in Deuteronomy 21:6 wash their hands over the body to declare it. The claim is made in the vocabulary of that ritual.

The Hebrew is compressed: “I have not been wicked away from my God”, as though wickedness were a road leading off from him. “The ways of the LORD” are the paths of his commands, the language of Deuteronomy.

“Depart” is sur, to turn aside, the verb of Deuteronomy 17:20, where a king must read the law daily so “that he turn not aside from the commandment”. The line describes the king of the law of kingship.

“Upright” is tamim, whole or blameless, the word used of Noah (Genesis 6:9) and asked of Abram (Genesis 17:1). “Kept myself from mine iniquity” means guarded myself against it, admitting there is an iniquity close enough to be guarded against.

“Recompensed” is from shuv, to return, the same verb Shimei used: “the LORD hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul” (16:8). Shimei said the LORD was returning blood; David sings that the LORD returns according to righteousness.

“Merciful” is chasid, one who practises chesed, loyal love. “Upright man” is literally “upright warrior”, gibbor, where Psalm 18:25 has only “man”. A soldier’s vocabulary runs through the moral lines.

“Froward” is ’iqqesh, twisted or crooked, and “unsavoury” is from patal, to twist, the root of Naphtali’s name, “wrestlings” (Genesis 30:8). God meets the twister by out-twisting him, wrestling on his own ground.

Psalm 18:27 says God “wilt bring down high looks”; here his eyes are fixed on the haughty in order to bring them down, a watch before the blow. Hannah sang the same reversal: “he bringeth low, and lifteth up” (1 Samuel 2:7).

Psalm 18:28 reads “thou wilt light my candle”; this version says the LORD himself is the lamp. The word ner is the one used for the lamp of God that had not yet gone out in the sanctuary when Samuel was called (1 Samuel 3:3).

“Troop” is gedud, a raiding band, the word David used at Ziklag when he asked, “Shall I pursue after this troop?” (1 Samuel 30:8). “Run through” may be “run at”. The wall is a city wall, scaled rather than breached.

“Tried” is tseruphah, refined in the smelter until the dross is gone. Proverbs 30:5 repeats the line almost exactly: “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.”

The double question recalls Hannah again: “neither is there any rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2). The songs of Hannah and David frame the Books of Samuel, one near the start and one near the close, and share their key words.

Psalm 18:32 reads “God that girdeth me with strength”; here God is himself the stronghold. The second half is difficult in Hebrew, and may mean “he sets the blameless free on his way”; the King James follows the psalm’s sense.

The hind is the female deer, sure-footed on rock where an armed man would stumble. Habakkuk 3:19 borrows the line whole. “High places” here means the heights of the hills, the vantage ground in war.

“Broken” is better “bent” or “drawn”: the verb means to press down, and a bow was strung and drawn by pressing. The boast is of strength to draw a stiff bow of bronze. Psalm 144:1 opens with the same thanks for hands taught to war.

“Gentleness” renders ’anotkha, which can mean “thy stooping down” or “thy answering”; the Greek has “thy discipline”. Psalm 18:35 adds a line here, “thy right hand hath holden me up”, which this version lacks.

“Feet” in the second half is literally “ankles”, the joint that turns on loose ground. Room to stride and ankles that hold: the sure footing of verse 34 again, now on the run.

Psalm 18:37 has “overtaken them” where this text has “destroyed them”. The pursuit that does not turn back until the enemy is finished is what David did after the Amalekites at Ziklag, recovering everything (1 Samuel 30:17–19).

Feet on the enemy was a victor’s gesture; Joshua had his captains put their feet on the necks of the five kings (Joshua 10:24). “Could not arise” answers the risers of the next verse.

“Them that rose up against me” is the word Cushi used on the road to Mahanaim: “all that rise against thee to do thee hurt” (18:32). In a song gathered from the whole reign, the rebels of Absalom’s war are among the risers.

To be given an enemy’s neck means seeing his back in flight; Exodus 23:27 promises to make Israel’s enemies “turn their backs”, literally their necks. The idiom is about rout, not execution.

Psalm 18:41 says the enemies “cried”; here they “looked”. The phrase “he answered them not” is the one used of Saul in 1 Samuel 28:6, who enquired of the LORD and received no answer before he went to Endor.

“Spread them abroad” is raqa’, to stamp flat or beat out, the root of the raqia, the firmament of Genesis 1:6, hammered thin. Psalm 18:42 has “cast them out as the dirt”; this version stamps them into the street.

Psalm 18:43 reads “made me the head”; here God has “kept” him as head. “A people which I knew not” means distant nations who had no dealings with Israel before, the kind of approach Hiram made with cedar and craftsmen (5:11).

“Submit themselves” is kachash, which means to lie or cringe; the King James margin gives “yield feigned obedience”. Strangers who obey “as soon as they hear”, literally at the hearing of the ear, bow first and mean it later, if at all.

“Fade away” is the withering of a leaf. “Afraid out of their close places” may mean creeping or limping out of their strongholds; the verb in this version differs from Psalm 18:45, and both are uncertain.

“The LORD liveth” is the oath formula, “as the LORD liveth”, that runs all through the Books of Samuel, here turned from an oath into a shout of praise. “Rock” returns from verse 2, closing the frame.

“Avengeth me” is literally “gives vengeances for me”. David had refused to take his own vengeance on Saul, saying “the LORD avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee” (1 Samuel 24:12). The song credits the vengeance where he had left it.

“The violent man” is singular, a man of chamas, answering “thou savest me from violence” in verse 3. The poem opens and closes on the same word, and the singular may again have Saul in view.

“Sing praises” is zamar, the verb of psalm singing, from which mizmor, a psalm, is made. The next chapter calls David “the sweet psalmist of Israel”, using the same root.

The written Hebrew reads “tower”, migdol, while the scribal reading and Psalm 18:50 have “he magnifies”, making it “great salvation he gives to his king”. “For evermore”, ’ad olam, is the phrase of Nathan’s promise in 7:13 and 7:16.