Psalms 18:14

_YEA, HE SENT OUT HIS ARROWS, AND SCATTERED THEM; AND HE SHOT OUT LIGHTNINGS, AND DISCOMFITED THEM._ And he shot out lightnings - rather, 'and much х_ RAAB_ (H7227)] lightnings.' [Not from _ RAABAB_ (H7232), to shoot arrows, Genesis 49:23]. AND DISCOMFITED THEM. Compare Exodus 14:24; Exodus 23:27, Hebrew....

1-19 The first words, "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength," are the scope and contents of the psalm. Those that truly love God, may triumph in him as their Rock and Refuge, and may with confidence call upon him. It is good for us to observe all the circumstances of a mercy which magnify the power of God and his goodness to us in it. David was a praying man, and God was found a prayer-hearing God. If we pray as he did, we shall speed as he did. God's manifestation of his presence is very fully described, ver. Psalms 18:7. Little appeared of man, but much of God, in these deliverances. It is not possible to apply to the history of the son of Jesse those awful, majestic, and stupendous words which are used through this description of the Divine manifestation. Every part of so solemn a scene of terrors tells us, a greater than David is here. God will not only deliver his people out of th...

Verse Psalms 18:14. _HE SENT OUT HIS ARROWS - HE SHOT OUT LIGHTNINGS_] I believe the latter clause to be an illustration of the former. _He_ _sent out his arrows_-that is, he shot out _lightnings_; for lightnings are the _arrows_ of the Lord, and there is something very like the _arrowhead_ apparent in the _zigzag_ lightning. _Sense_ and _sound_ are wonderfully combined in the Hebrew of this last clause: וברכים רב ויהמם _uberakim rab vaihummem_, "and thunderings he multiplied and confounded them." Who does not hear the _bursting, brattling_, and _pounding_ of thunder in these words? See _Delaney_?...

YEA, HE SENT OUT HIS ARROWS - The word arrows here probably refers to the lightnings mentioned in the other clause of the verse. Those lightnings scattered around, and accomplishing such destruction, seemed to be arrows sent forth from the hand of God. AND SCATTERED THEM - Herder refers this to the lightnings; DeWette, to the enemies of the psalmist. The latter seems to be the more correct interpretation, though the enemies of the psalmist are not here particularly specified. They seem, however, to have been in his eye throughout the psalm, for it was the victory achieved over them by the divine interposition that he was celebrating throughout the poem. AND HE SHOT OUT LIGHTNINGS - As arrows; or, as from a bow. AND DISCOMFITED THEM - literally, to impel, to drive; then, to put in commotion or consternation. The allus

EXPOSITION THIS psalm has many characteristics which distinguish it, not only from all that have preceded it in the collection, but from all those which are assigned to David by their titles. In the first pace, it is the longest of such psalms, extending, as it does, to fifty distinguish it, not only from all that have verses, or a hundred and fourteen lines, but from all Hebrew poetry. Next, it is continuous, not broken into strophes (Hengstenberg). Thirdly, it appears, not only in the Psalter, but also in one of the historical books the Second Book of Samuel, in what seems to be a second edition. Further, it is in itself a very remarkable composition, being distinguished alike by "vigour and grace; full of archaic grandeur, and yet free from abrupt transitions and thoughts labouring for utterance, such as make some of the earlier psalms difficult to understand" ('Speaker's Commentary')...

YEA, HE SENT OUT HIS ARROWS,.... By which thunderbolts, cracks of thunder, and flashes of lightning, seem to be meant; see Psalms 77:17; comparable to arrows shot, and sent out of a bow; and may denote, either the doctrines of the Gospel, which were sharp in the hearts of Christ's enemies, and are either the means of subduing them to him, or of destroying them, being the savour of death unto death; or however, like arrows, give great pain and uneasiness where they stick, and grievously distress and torment; as does the fire which comes out of the mouth of the two witnesses, Revelation 11:5. The Targum is, "he sent his word as arrows;'' or else the judgments of God are meant, as famine, pestilence, and the sword, which God sent unto, and spent upon the Jewish natio

Psalms 18:1. _I will love thee, O Lord, my strength._ «I do love thee, and I will love thee yet more and more. I bind myself to thee for the future as well as the present.» Psalms 18:2. _The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower._ Note how David delights to heap up poetic imagery to describe his God. They who glory in the Lord would fain speak worthily of him; and because there is no one object in nature that can fully set him forth, they mention many, as David does here. Like him, if we would convey even a faint idea of what God is to us, we must think of all things that are strong, and worthy of our confidence, and putting them all together,

Psalms 18 The Story of God's Power in Behalf of Christ _ 1. In the jaws of death (Psalms 18:1)_ 2. God appearing and delivering (Psalms 18:7) 3. God gave Him glory (Psalms 18:19) 4. His enemies subdued (Psalms 18:28) 5. The head of the nations (Psalms 18:43) Psalms 18:1. This is another remarkable Psalm. Though David wrote it not everyt

XVIII. See p. 367 for the reasons which make it impossible to ascribe this Ps. to David. Even scholars who hold traditional views admit that he cannot have written it as it stands, and that additional matter has been interpolated by later scribes. The language, which is Aramaic in its colouring, confirms the view that it is late, and so does the theophany in Psalms 18:3 when compared with Deuteronomy 32. Possibly a later writer composed it and put it by a very permissible license in David's mouth. If so, he paints David not as he was, but as a later age conceived him to be, a warrior on the one hand, a strict observer of the Law upon the other. The portrait would then agree with that given in Chronicles. It is, however, quite as likely that the Ps. is intended to glorify the success of a hero in the Maccabean age, the first time known in which legal piety was united with leadership in ba...

Forthwith David's prayer is answered by the Advent of Jehovah for the discomfiture of his enemies. He manifests Himself in earthquake and storm. The majestic though terrible phenomena of nature are the expression of His presence. Nature in its stern and awful aspect is a revelation of His judicial wrath. We may call this an -ideal" description of a Theophany; for though it is possible that David refers to some occasion when his enemies were scattered by the breaking of a terrible storm (cp. Joshua 10:11; Judges 5:20 f.; 1 Samuel 7:10), we have no record of such an event having actually happened in his life; and in any case the picture is intended to serve as a description of God's providential interposition for his deliverance in gene