Psalm 18:45

Psalm 18 is David’s song of thanksgiving, sung, as its heading says, “in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” The same song stands almost word for word in 2 Samuel 22. The whole of Psalm 18 moves in order. David begins with his love for the LORD, his rock, his fortress and his deliverer (Psalm 18:1–3). He tells of his distress and his cry, and of the LORD coming down amid earthquake, smoke, fire and thunder to pull him out (Psalm 18:4–19). He speaks next of his integrity and of God’s just dealing with him (Psalm 18:20–30). Our verses follow, and they turn from the great rescue to the daily strength God gave David for war and for ruling. After them the psalm closes in praise.

David sang about things he had lived. He fought lions and bears as a shepherd and Goliath as a youth (1 Samuel 17). He hid from Saul in the strongholds of the wilderness of Ziph and in the cave at En-gedi (1 Samuel 23:14, 1 Samuel 24:1–3). As king he fought the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Arameans and Amalekites (2 Samuel 8). The kings of that day credited their victories to their gods. David credits his to the LORD, the God of Israel, and in this passage he does it line by line.

The passage opens with two questions that answer themselves. The LORD alone is God, and our God alone is a rock. The word for God here, ʼĕlôwahh, is a singular word for a god or for God, related to the more common plural form ʾĕlōhîym. Beside it David sets the name Yᵉhôvâh, the personal, covenant name of the God of Israel, which speaks of him as the one who exists of himself and is present and active among his people. The two words behind “save”, bilʻădêy and zûwlâh, both mean “except” or “besides”. So David is asking who is God apart from the LORD, and every god of the nations around Israel, whether tied to the forces of nature or to a nation’s power, falls away before the question.

This is Israel’s oldest confession. It stands in the “Hear, O Israel” of Deuteronomy 6:4, and Moses told the people that the LORD is God and there is none else (Deuteronomy 4:35). Isaiah heard the LORD say that he is the first and the last (Isaiah 44:6) and that beside him there is none else (Isaiah 45:5–6). David’s second question moves from “the LORD” to “our God”. The God who stands alone has bound himself to a people, and they may call him theirs.

“It is God that girdeth me with strength.” To gird, ʼâzar, is to belt or bind about. People in Israel wore long, loose garments, and before running, working or fighting a man tucked them up and tightened his belt, so a girded man was a ready man. David says that God himself did this for him, as a warrior is fitted with his gear before combat, and that what God fastened on him was strength. The same verb returns in verse 39, “thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle”, where the word for strength is chayil, a broad word that covers strength, ability, wealth and an army. There it means the might and valour David needed for the fight. His power was a gift. Isaiah says of God that he gives power to the faint (Isaiah 40:29), and Paul says of Christ, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).

The second half of the verse speaks of David’s way. Derek is a road, and so a person’s conduct and the course of his life. God makes that course tâmîym, complete and sound. This mattered greatly for a king, whose upright walk before God and the people brought blessing on his reign. God gave David the strength and also directed the road, which is what Proverbs promises to those who trust the LORD with all their heart (Proverbs 3:5–6).

God still girds his people. He strengthens us by his Spirit within us, by his Word, which fits us for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17), by prayer, and by the fellowship of other believers.

A hind, ʼayâlâh, is a doe, a female deer. She is swift and sure-footed on steep, rocky ground, and she crosses it with ease where a man would stumble. The verb for “maketh”, shâvâh, means to level or make equal, and so to make one thing like another. God made David’s feet like hers. David had run for his life over the hills of Judah, where speed and sure footing on high ground decided whether a man lived, and he says the footing was God’s doing.

“My high places” are the heights, bâmâh, a word for any elevation. Elsewhere it can name the hilltop shrines of the pagans, and here it means the mountain strongholds where a man is above his enemies and out of their reach. God gave David the feet to climb and then set him at the top, safe and with the land spread beneath him. Moses had sung that God made Israel ride on the high places of the earth (Deuteronomy 32:13). Habakkuk took up David’s very picture when he said that the LORD would make his feet like hinds’ feet and make him walk on his high places (Habakkuk 3:19), and Isaiah promises that those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31).

For us the hinds’ feet are the steadiness God gives to walk through doubt, fear, hardship and temptation and stay standing. The high places are the security he gives above our troubles, often while the troubles remain. Jesus walked the hardest road of all with a sure step, enduring the cross for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2). God then set him at his own right hand, far above every rule, authority and name, and gave him to be head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:20–22). Those who belong to Christ are seated with him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

“He teacheth my hands to war.” The verb lâmad in the form used here means to teach, instruct or train, to cause someone to learn. David was a skilled soldier, and he says his skill was taught him by God. War, milchâmâh, is battle and warfare as a whole, so the training covered everything his calling as king required of him in the field. God gave David the strength of verse 32, and he also gave the practised hands that knew what to do with it.

Israel had always known the LORD as the one who goes with his people to fight for them (Deuteronomy 20:4). Moses sang, after the sea closed over Pharaoh’s army, that the LORD is a man of war (Exodus 15:3), and the book of Joshua says that Joshua took the kings and their land because the LORD fought for Israel (Joshua 10:42). David’s trained hands belong to the same story. God works through his servant, and the servant really fights.

Verse 35 names three things God did, and each is a different side of his care.

“The shield of thy salvation.” A mâgên is a shield, the soldier’s defence in battle, and the word is also used of God as protector. David’s shield is God’s salvation itself. God’s act of saving him is what stood between him and every blow.

“Thy right hand hath holden me up.” The right hand, yâmîyn, is the stronger and more skilful hand, and in Scripture it stands for power and decisive action. David stayed on his feet through his trials because that hand was under him. God says the same to his people through Isaiah, that he will uphold them with the right hand of his righteousness (Isaiah 41:10).

“Thy gentleness hath made me great.” This is the surprise of the passage. In a song full of thunder and battle, David traces his greatness, his throne and his victories, to God’s ʻanvâh, his gentleness or meekness. The word speaks of mildness and humility, and here it means that the high God stooped down to a shepherd, cared for him and lifted him up. The world of David’s day prized displays of power, and David says that what raised him was God’s lowliness toward him. James gives the same pattern for us: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:10).

All three find their fullness in Christ. He is the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him (Hebrews 5:9). He has been exalted to the right hand of God (Acts 2:33), where he intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). And the gentleness that made David great is seen most clearly in the Son, who emptied himself, took the form of a servant and humbled himself to death on a cross, and whom God therefore highly exalted (Philippians 2:7–11). Those who are joined to him are being changed into his likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18).

“Thou hast enlarged my steps under me.” The verb rāḥaḇ means to broaden or make wide. The hill paths of Judah were narrow and rocky, with ravines beside them, and a narrow pass was a place for an ambush. To have one’s steps enlarged is to come out of the tight place onto open ground, where a man can move freely. A step, tsaʻad, is a pace, and so a person’s progress along his way. “Under me” puts the wide ground right beneath David’s feet, at each stride.

The result is “that my feet did not slip.” To slip, māʻaḏ, is to waver, slide or shake. A fall on such ground could be a physical one, and for a king it also pictured a moral lapse or a failure that would shake his rule. God kept David steady in all of these. Scripture says the same of every godly person: the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and though he fall, the LORD upholds him with his hand (Psalm 37:23–24). A man plans his way and the LORD directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9). Jude praises God as the one who is able to keep us from falling (Jude 1:24), and Isaiah promises perfect peace to the mind that is stayed on him (Isaiah 26:3).

Christ has opened the widest place of all. By his blood we have a new and living way into God’s presence (Hebrews 10:19–20), we walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4), and in him we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3).

From verse 37 David speaks in the first person: “I have pursued”, “I have wounded”. He really fought. Yet verse 39 opens with “For”, and the reason for every victory follows: “thou hast girded me”, “thou hast subdued”. God’s rule and David’s effort work together here, with God’s as the cause.

To pursue, râdaph, is to run after or chase, usually with hostile intent. To overtake, nâsag, is to reach and catch what one is chasing. David caught his enemies, and he adds that he kept on “till they were consumed”. Kâlâh means to end, to be finished or to consume. The threat was ended. This is the strong language of a victory song, and its point is that their power was broken for good, so that Israel had lasting peace from them.

Verse 38 says the same from the ground. “Wounded” is mâchats, to dash, crush or smash, a blow that leaves a man unable to go on. They were “not able to rise”, where qûwm is the ordinary verb for getting up or standing. They lie “under my feet”, and the foot, regel, is the foot one walks with. A conqueror in those days set his foot on the neck or back of a beaten enemy to show that the fight was over, and the art of the time shows kings doing so. Joshua had his captains put their feet on the necks of the five kings (Joshua 10:24). David had prayed for such deliverance elsewhere, asking God to arise and save him and confessing that salvation belongs to the LORD (Psalm 3:7–8).

In verse 39 “subdued” is kâraʻ, to bend the knee and so to sink down. God made those who “rose up” against David bow down under him. Verse 40 adds the picture of the neck. An ʻôreph is the back of the neck, and to be given the necks of one’s enemies is to see their backs as they flee, or to have them lying prostrate with the neck exposed. In both senses the enemy has lost the will and the means to resist. God gave this so that David “might destroy”, tsâmath, to cut off or bring to an end, “them that hate me”. To hate, sânêʼ, is a personal and settled enmity that shows itself in active opposition. Those who hated David were set against the king God had anointed, and so against God’s own purpose for Israel, and their end was God’s justice.

Verse 41 is the most sobering in the passage. The enemies “cried”, shâvaʻ, a loud call for help in trouble. There was “none to save”, where yâshaʻ means to make free or safe, to deliver and rescue. Their own men, their allies and their gods all failed them. Then, at the last, they cried “even unto the LORD”, the God of the king they were fighting. His power on David’s side had become so plain that his enemies turned to him in their extremity, out of despair and without repentance. And “he answered them not”. ʻÂnâh is the ordinary word for answering or responding. God heard, and he withheld the saving answer. His silence was his verdict.

The contrast with David is deliberate. Earlier in the psalm David cried in his distress and the LORD heard him from his temple and came down. The same God who answers the one who trusts him refuses those who have fought his purpose to the end. Scripture says this in other places. Wisdom warns those who reject her that a day comes when they will call and get no answer (Proverbs 1:28). The LORD told Judah that he would hide his eyes from hands full of blood, however many prayers they made (Isaiah 1:15), and through Jeremiah that he would refuse to listen to those who had broken his covenant (Jeremiah 11:11).

Verse 42 gives two pictures of how complete the defeat was. “Beat them small” is shâchaq, to grind or wear something down to fine particles. They became like dust, ʻâphâr, the dry, loose earth that the wind lifts and carries off. Scripture often uses dust for what is slight and passing, as when God told Adam, “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19), and the first psalm says the ungodly are like chaff that the wind drives away (Psalm 1:4). The enemies were also “cast out”, rûwq, to pour out or empty, like the “dirt”, ṭîyṭ, the mud or clay of the streets that everyone treads on. The first picture says they were scattered and gone, and the second says they were publicly brought to shame.

Other scriptures stand close to this one. At the Red Sea Moses told the people, “The LORD shall fight for you” (Exodus 14:14). God promised through Isaiah to make Israel a threshing instrument that beats the mountains small (Isaiah 41:15). The song of Moses speaks of God’s vengeance on his enemies (Deuteronomy 32:42), and Malachi of the wicked being trodden down (Malachi 4:3). Behind all of them is the confession that God is our refuge and strength (Psalm 46:1).

Verse 43 looks back over David’s whole rise. God “delivered” him, pâlaṭ, a word for slipping out and escaping, and so for being brought safely out. He was delivered “from the strivings of the people”. A rîyb is a contest or dispute, and these were the quarrels inside Israel itself: the long war between the house of Saul and the house of David (2 Samuel 3:1), and later the revolt of his own son Absalom (2 Samuel 15–18). God brought David through these and kept his kingdom together.

Then God made him “the head of the heathen”. The head, rôʼsh, is the chief, the one in the first place. The heathen are the gôwy, the foreign nations. David’s victories brought the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites and Arameans under his rule or made them pay tribute, and the Moabites became his servants and brought gifts. God had promised it when he took David from following the sheep, cut off his enemies before him and gave him a great name (2 Samuel 7:8–9). “A people whom I have not known shall serve me” carries the gift further still. To serve, ʻâbad, is to work for someone and so to be his servant. Peoples with whom David had had no dealings would come under him.

Verse 44 tells how readily it would happen. “As soon as they hear of me” uses the noun shêmaʻ, a report or what is heard about someone, his fame. “They shall obey” is shâmaʻ, to hear with attention and so to obey. The news of what God had done through David would be enough. “The strangers” are bnei nekâr, sons of the foreigner, written in the next verse as bên nêkâr. Bên is a son, and nêkâr means foreign or a foreigner, a person of another nation. They “shall submit themselves”, and the verb, kâchash, properly means to be untrue in word or deed, and so to cringe or feign obedience. Some of the homage David received came from necessity and fear, with little love in it. It was homage all the same, and it showed how far the LORD’s power reached beyond Israel’s borders.

Verse 45 ends the picture. The strangers “fade away”, nâbêl, to wilt as a plant wilts when its life goes out of it. They “be afraid”, chârag, to leap or start suddenly in dismay, “out of their close places”. A miçgereth is something that encloses, a stronghold or fortress. A fortress was a people’s last security in war, and to leave it was to give up hope. Their strongest walls gave them no courage to stay behind. David prays elsewhere that the nations may be judged and know themselves to be but men (Psalm 9:19–20), and Isaiah says that God brings princes to nothing, so that they wither when he blows on them (Isaiah 40:23–24). God had acted this way when he brought Israel through the sea (Exodus 14), and the prophets announce it against proud nations, as against Babylon in Isaiah 13 and Tyre in Ezekiel 28.

These verses record what God did through David, his anointed king, in the wars that established and defended Israel’s kingdom, and for those who follow Christ the battle is a spiritual one. Paul tells us to be strong in the Lord, because “we wrestle not against flesh and blood”, and he names our armour, the shield of faith among it (Ephesians 6:10–17). The weapons of this warfare belong to the Spirit and have nothing to do with the flesh (2 Corinthians 10:4). Toward people who oppose us the Lord’s command is plain: “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), and Paul adds that we are to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). So David’s pursuit becomes our steady resistance to sin, temptation and the devil’s schemes, in the strength God supplies. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Justice against evil men we leave with God.

David was God’s anointed, and his victories point ahead to the Anointed One. Jesus met temptation in the wilderness and stood (Matthew 4:1–11), and he fulfilled all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). David’s way was made perfect, and Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He is made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30), and the Spirit who raised him from the dead lives in those who are his (Romans 8:11).

His enemies were greater than David’s. At the cross he “spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). Through death he destroyed the one who had the power of death, the devil (Hebrews 2:14), and the ruler of this world was cast out (John 12:31). His resurrection swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54–57), as Isaiah had foretold (Isaiah 25:8). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

The “feet” and “necks” of this passage belong finally to him. The LORD said to David’s Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1). He must reign until every enemy is under his feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:25–26). All things are put in subjection under him (Hebrews 2:8), and God will bruise Satan under the feet of his people (Romans 16:20). John saw him ride out as King of kings to judge and make war in righteousness (Revelation 19:11–16), saw the kings of the earth who gathered against him fall (Revelation 19:19–21), and saw the devil cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). In all this his people are “more than conquerors” through him who loved them (Romans 8:37).

David’s rule over foreign nations also reaches its fullness in Christ. The Father promised the Son the nations for his inheritance (Psalm 2:8) and made his Servant a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6). The risen Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth”, and sent his disciples to all nations (Matthew 28:18–19). “As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me” comes true wherever the gospel is preached, as when three thousand received Peter’s word at Pentecost (Acts 2:37–41), for the one who confesses the Lord Jesus and believes in his heart is saved (Romans 10:9–10). The strangers have become family. Christ is our peace, who has broken down the wall between Jew and Gentile and made the Gentiles fellow citizens with the saints (Ephesians 2:11–22), so that the Gentiles glorify God for his mercy (Romans 15:9–12). The submission David received was partly feigned. What Christ receives from his people is willing worship, and in the end every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:7–11). John saw a great multitude of all nations, tribes and tongues before the throne (Revelation 7:9–10) and heard that the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15).

David was a brave and able man, and when he looked back over his life he found God at the root of everything he had done. The strength was given, the footing was given, the skill was taught, the victories were handed to him. That way of seeing a life is itself a gift of this passage. It takes away pride in what has gone well, and it takes away fear of what lies ahead, since the God who girds his servants knows what battle he is dressing them for.

The passage also shows who God is. He is the only God and the only rock, and he is gentle. The hand that shook the earth earlier in the psalm is the hand that held David up, and David says it was the gentleness that made him great. If God has stooped to you in Christ, you have been treated the same way.

The silence of verse 41 belongs beside that gentleness. God is a refuge to those who run to him, and he is a judge to those who fight him to the last. The door stands open now, and the cry of faith is heard because Christ was forsaken in our place.

And the passage ends with strangers at the king’s feet. Most of us who read it are among those strangers, people David never knew, brought under the rule of his greater Son and glad to be there.