NOTES for Psa 18:1-27

¹I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.

²The 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.

³I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

⁴The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

⁵The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

⁶In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

⁷Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.

⁸There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.

⁹He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.

¹⁰And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.

¹¹He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

¹²At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.

¹³The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.

¹⁴Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.

¹⁵Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

¹⁶He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.

¹⁷He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.

¹⁸They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.

¹⁹He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

²⁰The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.

²¹For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

²²For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.

²³I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.

²⁴Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.

²⁵With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;

²⁶With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.

²⁷For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks.

David calls the Lord his rock, an impregnable fortress that has repeatedly saved him from his enemies. Not only when armed enemies attack, but even when death and hell draw near and salvation seems impossible, we can turn to the Lord, and He hears and comes to our aid. He comes, shaking heaven and earth; His majesty is incomparable with anything that exists in the created world, and the images of natural forces used by the psalmist can give us only an approximate idea of Him.

Yet although He Himself is above all things, the Lord draws a tiny human creature from the ocean of calamity, and here another greatness is revealed—perhaps less immediately apparent, but no less astonishing—the greatness of His mercy. In the midst of a universe that staggers the imagination, a person's own existence can sometimes seem so insignificant, and the observance of "some" commandments more insignificant still.

But none of this is insignificant in the eyes of the Lord, the bearer of righteousness.

Other notes

For Psa 18:2-15