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._ My God, my strength - Hebrew, 'my strong rock' х_ TSUWRIY_ (H6697)], expressing immovable firmness: implying the immutable faithfulness of God. Compare Psalms 31:1, derived from Deuteronomy 32:4. See Genesis 49:24; Isaiah 26:4, margin, in 2 Samuel 22:3;...

2._Jehovah is my rock, etc. _When David thus heaps together many titles by which to honor God, it is no useless or unnecessary accumulation of words. We know how difficult it is for men to keep their minds and hearts stayed in God. They either imagine that it is not enough to have God for them, and, consequently, are always seeking after support and succor elsewhere, or, at the first temptation which assails them, fall from the confidence which they placed in him. David, therefore, by attributing to God various methods of saving his people, protests that, provided he has God for his protector and defender, he is effectually fortified against all peril and assault; as if he had said, Those whom God intends to succor and defend are not only safe against one kind of dangers, but are as it were surrounded by impregnable ramparts on all sides, so that, should a thousand deaths be presented to...

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 18:2. _THE LORD_ IS _MY ROCK_] 2. I stand on him as my _foundation_, and derive every good from him who is the source of good. The word סלע _sela_ signifies those craggy precipices which afford shelter to men and wild animals; where the _bees_ often made their nests, and whence honey was collected in great abundance. "He made him to suck honey out of the rock," Deuteronomy 32:13. 3. He was his _fortress_; a place of _strength_ and _safety_, fortified by _nature_ and _art_, where he could be safe from his enemies. He refers to those inaccessible heights in the rocky, mountainous country of Judea, where he had often found refuge from the pursuit of Saul. What these have been to my body, such has the Lord been t

THE LORD IS MY ROCK - The idea in this expression, and in the subsequent parts of the description, is that he owed his safety entirely to God. He had been unto him as a rock, a tower, a buckler, etc. - that is, he had derived from God the protection which a rock, a tower, a citadel, a buckler furnished to those who depended on them, or which they were designed to secure. The word “rock” here has reference to the fact that in times of danger a lofty rock would be sought as a place of safety, or that men would fly to it to escape from their enemies. Such rocks abound in Palestine; and by the fact that they are elevated and difficult of access, or by the fact that those who fled to them could find shelter behind their projecting crags, or by the fact that they could find security in their deep and dark caverns, they became places of refuge in times of danger; and protection was often found...

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')...

THE LORD [IS] MY ROCK,.... To whom the saints have recourse for shelter and safety, for supply, support, and divine refreshment; and in whom they are secure, and on whom they build their hopes of eternal life and happiness, and so are safe from all enemies, and from all danger. Christ is called a Rock on all these accounts, Psalms 61:2; AND MY FORTRESS; or garrison; so the saints are kept in and by the power of God as in a garrison, 1 Peter 1:5; AND MY DELIVERER: out of all afflictions, and from all temptations, and out of the hands of all enemies; from a body of sin and death at last, and from wrath to come; MY GOD; the strong and mighty One, who is able to save, and who is the covenant God and Father of his people; my strength, in whom I

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...