A Psalm of Thanksgiving for Deliverance and Victory
To the chief musician, for performance in the liturgical service of the Tabernacle and the Temple, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, His prophet and minister in making known the Word of the Lord and in doing His will, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul, in the last part of Saul’s reign, 2 Sam. 7, 1; and he said, compare 2 Sam. 22:
A RECITAL OF GOD’S BLESSINGS. — V. 1. I will love Thee, with the most tender affection, O Lord, my Strength, in protecting and defending him.
V. 2. The Lord is my Rock, his safe place of concealment, and my Fortress, his Stronghold, affording refuge and safety, and my Deliverer; my God, my Strength, his Rock of Ages, firm, immovable, in whom I will trust; my Buckler, the large shield which protected the whole body against injury, and the Horn of my salvation, the horn of the altar being the figure of protective strength and victorious deliverance, and my high Tower, inaccessible to the enemies. Having thus given the reason for his firm trust, the psalmist gives a recital of some of the occasions when his confidence was justified.
V. 3. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, for all the favors shown in the past; so shall I be saved from mine enemies; that had been his constant experience.
V. 4. The sorrows of death, the bands of death, compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid, the brooks of abysmal evil and perdition terrifying him.
V. 5. The sorrows of hell, the bands of the realm of death, compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me, going ahead, anticipating his every move, seizing upon him suddenly.
V. 6. In my distress I called upon the Lord, when the persecution of Saul and other troubles came upon him, and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of His temple, out of the palace of heaven, the throne of His glory, and my cry came before Him, being hindered by nothing on its way, even into His ears,so that God certainly heard it. David now describes, in a highly poetic form, how the Lord worked His deliverance.
V. 7. Then the earth shook and trembled, with violent earthquakes; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because He was wroth. V. 8. There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, from His angry snorting, and fire out of His mouth devoured, with a consuming power; coals were kindled by it, glowing coals blazing out from Him, the description being that of a violent thunderstorm.
V. 9. He bowed the heavens also, as the dark masses of clouds roll and descend, and came down; and darkness was under His feet, the dark storm-clouds being His footstool.