Psalms 18:27

_FOR THOU WILT SAVE THE AFFLICTED PEOPLE; BUT WILT BRING DOWN HIGH LOOKS._ For thou wilt save the afflicted people - those whom he had before called 'merciful (benignant), upright, and pure,' he now calls "the afflicted people," for the ordinary characteristic of the godly in this life is to be afflicted (2 Timothy 3:12). They are described as a "people" - i:e., a class by themselves, as contra-distinguished from unbelievers. As the godly are an afflicted people, so the ungodly are men of high looks....

27._For thou wilt save the afflicted people. _This verse contains the correction of a mistake into which we are very ready to fall. As experience shows that the merciful are often severely afflicted, and the sincere involved in troubles of a very distressing description, to prevent any from regarding the statement as false that God deals mercifully with the merciful, David admonishes us that we must wait for the end; for although God does not immediately run to succor the good, yet, after having exercised their patience for a time, he lifts them up from the dust on which they lay prostrate, and brings effectual relief to them, even when they were in despair. Whence it follows, that we ought only to judge by the issue how God shows himself merciful towards the merciful and pure towards the pure. If he did not keep his people in suspense and waiting long for deliverance from affliction, it...

20-28 Those that forsake the ways of the Lord, depart from their God. But though conscious to ourselves of many a false step, let there not be a wicked departure from our God. David kept his eye upon the rule of God's commands. Constant care to keep from that sin, whatever it be, which most easily besets us, proves that we are upright before God. Those who show mercy to others, even they need mercy. Those who are faithful to God, shall find him all that to them which he has promised to be. The words of the Lord are pure words, very sure to be depended on, and very sweet to be delighted in. Those who resist God, and walk contrary to him, shall find that he will walk contrary to them, Leviticus 26:21-3. The gracious recompence of which David spoke, may generally be expected by those who act from right motives. Hence he speaks comfort to the humble, and terror to the proud; "Thou wilt brin...

Verse Psalms 18:27. _FOR THOU WILT SAVE THE AFFLICTED_] The afflicted are the _humble_; and those thou hast ever befriended....

FOR THOU WILT SAVE THE AFFLICTED PEOPLE - From the particular tokens of divine favor toward himself in affliction and trouble, the psalmist now draws the general inference that this was the character of God, and that others in affliction might hope for his interposition as he had done. BUT WILT BRING DOWN HIGH LOOKS - Another general inference probably derived from the dealings of God with the proud and haughty foes of the psalmist. As God had humbled them, so he infers that he would deal with others in the same way. “High looks” are indicative of pride and haughtiness. Compare Psalms 101:5; Proverbs 6:17; Proverbs 21:4;...

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')...

FOR THOU WILT SAVE THE AFFLICTED PEOPLE,.... As the people of God commonly are; they are afflicted with sin, and the corruption of their own hearts, and with Satan and his temptations, and with the world, its reproaches, and persecutions; but God in his own time saves them out of them, if not here, yet hereafter. This is particularly and eminently true of the Christians who lived between the crucifixion of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem; who were greatly afflicted and persecuted by the Jews, but were in a remarkable manner saved a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, by being directed to go out of it to a place called Pella c; so that not one Christian suffered in it; BUT WILT BRING DOWN HIGH LOOKS; or proud men, whom God humbles; these he abhors, resists, sets himself against, scatters and destroys. The Jews were a very proud people, and behaved in an insolent and insul...

Psalms 18:1. _I will love thee, O LORD, my strength._ What a blessed «I will»: «I will love thee»! He does love the Lord, and he declares that he will continue to do so. He feels that he must do so, for the Lord has been his strength. There are many aspects under which the love of our heart is most justly and fitly given to God, and this is one of them. If the Lord has been the strength of our heart, then let our heart love him. 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._ How David heaps up the epithets! When the believer once begins to praise the Lord, there is no end to it. He can never even satisfy himself; much less can he hope to rise to

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...