Salmos 18

XVIII.

This magnificent ode is David’s, if anything at all of David’s has come down to us. Its recurrence in 2 Samuel 22, the mention of the monarch by name in the last verse (see, however, Note), and the general contents, in the eyes of all but one or two critics[14], bear out the tradition of the title.

[14] Grätz, the latest commentator, allows part of this psalm to be David’s.

If no other literary legacy had been left by the Hebrew race, we should have from this psalm a clear conception of the character of its poetic genius. Its wealth of metaphor, its power of vivid word-painting, its accurate observation of nature, its grandeur and force of imagination, all meet us here; but above all, the fact that the bard of Israel wrote under the mighty conviction of the power and presence of Jehovah. The phenomena of the natural world appealed to his imagination as to that of poets generally, but with this addition, that they were all manifestations of a supreme glory and goodness behind them.
In rhythm the poem is as fine as in matter.

Title. — See 2 Samuel 22:1. The differences are such as might be expected between a piece in a collection of hymns and the same introduced into an historical book.