2 Samuel 22:1-20

3. David's Song, 2 Samuel 22:1-51.

The Lord's Deliverance. 2 Samuel 22:1-20

And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song, in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul:

2

And he said,

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

3

the God of my rock; in him will I trust:

he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge,

my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

4

I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised:

so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

5

When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid;

6

the sorrows of hell compassed me about;

the snares of death prevented me.

7

In my distress I called upon the Lord,

and cried to my God:
and he did hear my voice out of his temple,
and my cry did enter into his ears.

8

Then the earth shook and trembled;

the foundations of heaven moved
and shook, because he was wroth.

9

There went up a smoke out of his nostrils,

and fire out of his mouth devoured:
coals were kindled by it.

10

He bowed the heavens also, and came down;

and darkness was under his feet.

11

And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly:

and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.

12

And he made darkness pavilions round about him,

dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies.

13

Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled.

14

The Lord thundered from heaven,

and the Most High uttered his voice.

15

And he sent out arrows, and scattered them;

lightning, and discomfited them.

16

And the channels of the sea appeared,

the foundations of the world were discovered,
at the rebuking of the Lord,
at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

17

He sent from above, he took me;

he drew me out of many waters:

18

He delivered me from my strong enemy,

and from them that hated me:

for they were too strong for me.

19

They prevented me in the day of my calamity:

but the Lord was my stay.

20

He brought me forth also into a large place:

he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

1.

When was this song composed? 2 Samuel 22:1

The song was written, in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all of his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul. This title indicated that it was written when David's triumphs over his enemies at home and abroad were still fresh in his mind. Reference is made to the great covenant made with David in chapter seven (2 Samuel 22:51), and it is usually attributed to sometime after Nathan's visit to David when David proposed building the temple. A. F. Kirkpatrick writing in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges attributed the psalm to the earlier years of David's reign, rather than the latter years on the account of the free and joyous tone and the bold expressions of conscious integrity which pointed to a time prior to the period when David's life was clouded by the fatal consequences of his sin. On the other hand, the psalm is a review of God's many mercies to David; therefore Matthew Henry in his commentary took the position in the introduction to chapter twenty-two that David penned the psalm when he was old, giving a general review of the mercies of his life and the many wonderful preservations God had blessed him with from first to last. He admitted in his comments that it could have been penned when David was young upon the occasion of some of his first deliverances and kept by his side for use afterwards upon every new deliverance, making it his practice to sing the song. The appeal of the song has been so great that it was a part of the Haphtarah, or lessons from the prophets, appointed to be read in the synagogue of the Jews on the sabbath in conjunction with Deuteronomy 32, a passage from the Law. The Spanish Jews also read this song on the sabbath day of the Passover celebration. Since mention is made of David's deliverance out of the hand of Saul, the song must have been written early in David's life; and since his sin was forgiven, he did not mention it in the psalm.

2.

Which psalm resembles this song? 2 Samuel 22:2

This psalm is the same as Psalms 18 with only slight differences. The first line is omitted from Psalms 18, as it is recorded in this chapter of Samuel. Psalms 18 opens with a statement, I will love thee, O Lord my strength (Psalms 18:1). It is admitted by most students of the Scripture that this magnificent hymn is substantially identical with Psalms 18 and that both the eighteenth Psalm and this magnificent hymn came from the same author. The form found here is supposed to be the original form and that is the Psalter must be a revision prepared by David himself, probably towards the close of his life, for public recitation. This fact throws some light on the authorship of the Psalter, inasmuch as this one Psalm is attributed to David very definitely. If Psalms 18 is by the hand of David, many of the other songs which breathe the same spirit could also be attributed to him by comparison of the vocabulary, style, and diction.

3.

What are the main sections of the psalm?

David began with a full statement of his trust in the Lord (2 Samuel 22:2-4). He called God his rock, fortress, and deliverer (2 Samuel 22:2). He also called him his shield, horn, high tower, refuge, and saviour (2 Samuel 22:3). Since God was all these things, to David, he said that he would trust in Him (2 Samuel 22:3), and call on Him (2 Samuel 22:4). He said that God is worthy to be praised (2 Samuel 22:4) because God saved him from violence (2 Samuel 22:3). The reader wonders if David were referring to the time when he was kept back from violently destroying Nabal (1 Samuel 25).

David moved on to recount the experiences of calamity and deliverances (2 Samuel 22:5-20). David had seen dark days. He said that the pangs of death had surrounded him and the sons of Belial had caused him to be afraid. The very horrors of hell had surrounded him and the traps of death had stood before him. Many instances in David's career fit such descriptions. He was trapped in a cave with Saul's men blocking the mouth. Worthless fellows such as the assassins of Ish-bosheth and the rebel Sheba disputed his rule. David had to fight for his life and fled for refuge to Philistia. On a number of occasions he must have been tempted to yield to unlawful means in order to advance his cause, but God had kept him back. At one of the lowest ebbs in David's life, his own men had talked of stoning him to death; and when he had no one else to help him, he encouraged himself in the Lord his God (1 Samuel 30:6 b). David knew that God had heard his prayer, and he pictured him as hearing his voice as he dwelt in His holy temple. Since the temple in Jerusalem had not been built, his reference must have been to the vaulted arches of heaven, God's true dwelling place.

David presented a very complete picture of God's activities as he said that the earth shook and trembled. This is poetic language, and it is not necessary to find a historical reference to the time when an earthquake aided David in his activities. David was simply saying that God had moved heaven and earth in order to bring about His good providences. David viewed God as becoming angry with the sins of men and breathing out smoke and fire, so that fires of vengeance were kindled. His vision of God was one of an omnipotent ruler who could bend the heavens and dwell even in the dark places of earth. He viewed Him as moving on the wings of angels and flying through the skies with the wings of the wind to bear him along (2 Samuel 22:11). David must have had in mind the clouds of the sky as he described darkness as being the tent which enshrouds his majesty. Lightning flashes which burst through the dense clouds were to David the rays of the unapproachable light in which God dwells. Thunder was the voice of God, and David called Him, the most High (2 Samuel 22:14). Lightning was like the arrows of God, and David attributed much of the scattering of his enemies to God's interference (2 Samuel 22:15). Even the depths of the sea were not beyond the reach of the power of God; the very foundations of the world were uncovered by Him as if they were blown bare by the breath of His nostrils (2 Samuel 22:16). David knew that God had answered his prayers and delivered him from the depths of many troublesome times. Without God's strength, he could not have done what he had done because he viewed his enemies as being too strong for him. He certainly must have felt this way as he faced the giant from Gath. His enemies outran him in the times of his calamity, but God had strengthened him. David finally arrived at what he called, a larger place, (2 Samuel 22:20); his prosperous kingdom was the result of God's blessing on his effects. David did not think he had done this all by himself, but he thought it had come to pass because God had delighted in him (2 Samuel 22:20).