2 Samuel 22 — GMV

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22 And David spoke to the Lord the words of this song, in the day in which the Lord rescued him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul. ^{Verse 2} And the song was thus: ^{Verse 3} My God; he shall be to me my guard, I will trust in him: ^{Verse 4} I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, ^{Verse 5} For the troubles of death compassed me, ^{Verse 6} The pangs of death surrounded me, ^{Verse 7} When I am afflicted I will call upon the Lord, ^{Verse 8} And the earth was troubled and quaked, ^{Verse 9} There went up a smoke in his wrath, ^{Verse 10} And he bowed the heavens, and came down, ^{Verse 11} And he rode upon the cherubs and did fly, ^{Verse 12} And he made darkness his hiding place; ^{Verse 13} At the brightness before him ^{Verse 14} The Lord thundered out of heaven, ^{Verse 15} And he sent forth arrows, and scattered them, ^{Verse 16} And the channels of the sea were seen, ^{Verse 17} He sent from above and took me; ^{Verse 18} He delivered me from my strong enemies, ^{Verse 19} The days of my affliction prevented me; ^{Verse 20} And he brought me into a wide place, ^{Verse 21} And the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness; ^{Verse 22} Because I kept the ways of the Lord, ^{Verse 23} For all his judgments and his ordinances were before me: ^{Verse 24} And I shall be blameless before him, ^{Verse 25} And the Lord will recompense me according to my righteousness, ^{Verse 26} With the holy thou wilt be holy, ^{Verse 27} And with the excellent thou wilt be excellent, ^{Verse 28} And thou wilt save the poor people, ^{Verse 29} For thou, Lord, art my lamp, ^{Verse 30} For by thee shall I run as a girded man, ^{Verse 31} As for the Mighty One, his way is blameless: ^{Verse 32} Who is strong, but the Lord? ^{Verse 33} It is the Mighty One who strengthens me with might, ^{Verse 34} He makes my feet like harts’ feet, ^{Verse 35} He teaches my hands to war, ^{Verse 36} And thou hast given me the shield of my salvation, ^{Verse 37} So as to make room under me for my going, ^{Verse 38} I will pursue my enemies, and will utterly destroy them; ^{Verse 39} And I will crush them, and they shall not rise; ^{Verse 40} And thou shalt strengthen me with power for the war; ^{Verse 41} And thou hast caused mine enemies to flee before me, ^{Verse 42} They shall cry, and there shall be no helper; ^{Verse 43} And I ground them as the dust of the earth, ^{Verse 44} And thou shalt deliver me from the striving of the peoples, ^{Verse 45} The strange children feigned obedience to me; ^{Verse 46} The strange children shall be cast away, ^{Verse 47} The Lord lives, and blessed be my guardian, ^{Verse 48} The Lord who avenges me is strong, ^{Verse 49} And bringing me out from my enemies: ^{Verse 50} Therefore will I confess to thee, O Lord, among the Gentiles, ^{Verse 51} He magnifies the salvation of his king,

Commentary

Introduction

David's psalm of thanksgiving for God's powerful deliverance and manifold blessings, including prophetic declarations relative to the humiliation and exaltation of the Messiah, vv. 1-51.

David spake unto the Lord the words of this song - This is the same in substance, and almost in words, with Psalm 18:1-50, and therefore the exposition of it must be reserved till it occurs in its course in that book, with the exception of a very few observations, and Dr. Kennicott's general view of the subject.

When the waves of death compassed me - Though in a primary sense many of these things belong to David, yet generally and fully they belong to the Messiah alone.

He rode upon a cherub, and did fly - he was seen upon the things of the wind - In the original of this sublime passage, sense and sound are astonishingly well connected. I shall insert the Hebrew, represent it in English letters for the sake of the unlearned reader, and have only to observe, he must read from the right to the left. רוח כנפי על וירא ויעף כרוב על וירכב ruach canphey al vaiyera vaiyaoph kerub al vayirkab wind the of wings the upon seen was he and; fly did and cherub upon rode he The clap of the wing, the agitation and rush through the air are expressed here in a very extraordinary manner. Other beauties of this kind will be noted in the exposition of the Psalm alluded to above. I now subjoin Dr. Kennicott's remarks on this chapter: - "The very sublime poetry contained in this chapter is universally admired, and yet it cannot be perfectly understood, till it is known Who is the speaker, who the person thus triumphant over mighty enemies, whose Sufferings occasioned such a dreadful convulsion of nature, and, who, upon his deliverance, inflicted such vengeance on his own people, and also became thus a king over the heathen. Should we be told that this person was David, it will be very difficult to show how this description can possibly agree with that character: but if it did in fact agree, yet would it contradict St. Paul, who quotes part of it as predicting the conversion of the Gentiles under Christ the Messiah. Rom 15:9; Heb 2:13; and see Peirce's Commentary, p. 50. Now if the person represented as speaking through this Divine ode be David only, the Messiah is excluded. In consequence of the difficulties resulting from each of these suppositions, the general idea has been that it relates both to David and to the Messiah as a prophecy of a double sense; first, as spoken by David of himself, and yet to be understood in a secondary sense, of the Messiah. But it must be remarked here, that if spoken only of David, it is not a prediction of any thing future, but a thanksgiving for favors past, and therefore is no prophecy at all. And farther, it could not be a prophecy descriptive of David unless the particulars agreed to David, which they evidently do not. If then David be here necessarily excluded from the single sense, he must be excluded also from the double sense, because nothing can be intended by any sacred writer, to relate to two persons, unless it be True of both; but it not being the case here as to David, we must conclude that this song relates only to the Messiah; and on this subject an excellent Dissertation, by the late Mr. Peirce, is subjoined to his comment on the Epistle to the Hebrews. It may be necessary to add here two remarks: the twenty-fourth verse now ends with, I have kept myself from mine iniquity, which words, it is objected, are not proper, if applied to the Messiah. But this difficulty is removed, in part, by the context, which represents the speaker as perfectly innocent and righteous; and this exactly agrees with the proof arising from the Syriac and Arabic versions, and also the Chaldee paraphrase, that this word was anciently מעונים ab iniquitatibus; consequently, this is one of the many instances where the ם final mem is improperly omitted by the Jewish transcribers. See my General Dissertation. Lastly, the difficulty arising from the title, which ascribes the Psalm to David, and which seems to make him the speaker in it, may be removed, either by supposing that the title here, like those now prefixed to several Psalms, is of no sufficient authority; or rather, by considering this title as only meant to describe the time when David composed this prophetic hymn, that when delivered from all his other enemies as well as from the hand of Saul, he then consecrated his leisure by composing this sublime prophecy concerning Messiah, his son, whom he represents here as speaking, (just as in Psalm 22, 40, and other places), and as describing, 1. His triumph over death and hell; 2. The manifestations of Omnipotence in his favor, earth and heaven, trembling at God's awful presence; 3. The speaker's innocence thus divinely attested; 4. The vengeance he was to take on his own people the Jews, in the destruction of Jerusalem; and, 5. The adoption of the heathen, over whom he was to be the head and ruler. "Another instance of a title denoting only the time of a prophecy, occurs in the very next chapter; where a prophecy concerning the Messiah is entitled, The Last words of David; i.e., a hymn which he composed a little before his death, after all his other prophecies. And perhaps this ode in2 Samuel 22, which immediately precedes that in2 Samuel 23, was composed but a little while before; namely, when all his wars were over. Let it be added, that Josephus, immediately before he speaks of David's mighty men, which follow in this same chapter of Samuel, considers the two hymns in2 Samuel 22 and 23, as both written after his wars were over - Jam Davides, bellis et periculis perfunctus, pacemque deinceps profundam agitans, odas in Deum hymnosque composuit. Tom. i., page 401."

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