2 Samuel22chapter 22

2 Samuel 22:1

The song is set here at the deliverance from Saul and from all David's enemies, and Psalm 18 preserves almost the same words entire, one song kept twice in Scripture rather than two separate compositions. The commentators read the small differences between the two texts as the marks of use, a court song later gathered with minor changes into the temple hymnal, not two authors or two events. Albert Barnes places the song's composition early in David's reign, close to his final triumph over the house of Saul and over the surrounding nations.

2 Samuel 22:2-3

The horn of my salvation closes a chain of that word begun at Hannah's song, mine horn is exalted in the Lord and exalt the horn of his anointed, spoken before Israel had a king. Luke's Gospel takes up the same word once more, an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, so the phrase runs from a barren woman's prayer to the birth of Christ. David's titles stack four deep in these two verses, rock, fortress, deliverer, shield, and the older writers read the density as a man reaching for enough words to cover so many prior mercies.

2 Samuel 22:4-6

David names the danger three times in three verses, the waves of death, the floods of ungodly men, and the sorrows of hell, piling up the imagery of drowning and the grave together. Adam Clarke notes that while these words fit David's own history, in their fullest sense they belong to the Messiah alone, who met death and hell in earnest. The word prevented in verse six carries its old sense of came before or overtook rather than hindered, so the snares of death had already closed on him before he cried out.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:7

No temple stood in Jerusalem when David sang this; temple of the Lord is the same phrase that named the tabernacle at Shiloh back at the book's opening, so David's prayer reaches a dwelling place of God rather than a building of stone. Matthew Henry reads the verse as the pattern of every answered prayer, a cry that enters heaven's ears before deliverance is seen on earth.

2 Samuel 22:8-10

The earth shook and trembled answers Sinai, where the ground trembled under God's descent at the giving of the law, and the song borrows that theophany's language to describe the rescue of a single man. Smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth are storm imagery for a king riding to battle for his servant, not a description meant to be read as literal anatomy. He bowed the heavens also, and came down repeats the verb of Sinai's own descent, and Matthew Henry reads the whole section as built from Israel's founding memory of God appearing in the storm.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:11-12

He rode upon a cherub, and did fly gives God a chariot out of the same imagery later prophets develop at length, and Adam Clarke notes the Hebrew sound of the line matches its sense, wind rushing under the words themselves. The pavilion of dark waters and thick clouds pictures the Lord advancing hidden inside the storm he commands, known only by his effects until he acts.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:13-16

The brightness before him kindles coals of fire, and thunder and lightning follow as his weapons, arrows and lightning to discomfit them, language that turns the storm itself into an army. The channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered echoes the exodus, ground laid bare that no eye should have seen, at the rebuking of the Lord. Matthew Henry calls it God appearing in a singular and extraordinary manner for David and against his enemies, built from the vocabulary Israel already kept for God in the storm and at the sea.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:17-20

He drew me out of many waters uses the same picture carried in Moses' own name, drawn out, and Keil and Delitzsch hear an echo of Israel's own deliverance at the sea even though David's rescue was never a literal drowning. A large place stands opposite the strait, hemmed-in danger pictured in the verses before it, and because he delighted in me gives the reason for the rescue, favor granted rather than merit earned. Matthew Henry reads the deliverance as covenant love rather than common providence and reads David here as a figure of Christ, whom the Father upheld because he delighted in him.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:21-23

rewarded me according to my righteousness: The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness stands beside chapters eleven and twelve of this same book, where David took another man's wife and had her husband killed, and the honest reader feels the tension before any commentator names it. Two readings hold the verses together: some place the song's composition early, from the years before Bathsheba, when the claim to clean hands still matched David's conduct against Saul, and Albert Barnes reads it so. Others take righteousness here as covenant loyalty, a life given on the whole to God's statutes and judgments rather than a claim of a record without fault, and Matthew Henry reads it that way, righteousness he was well pleased with rather than righteousness that earned anything.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:24-25

I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity repeats the claim in the first person, and Matthew Henry ties it to one particular restraint named earlier in the book, David's refusal to kill Saul when the power was twice in his hand. The cleanness language returns from verse twenty-one, and John Gill reads the repetition as David underlining a settled pattern of life rather than restating a single act.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:26-28

With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful states a principle of reciprocity that runs through the wisdom books, God meeting a man according to the character the man brings to him, and John Gill ties the wording directly to its parallel in Psalm eighteen. The froward, crooked or perverse, meets a God who shows himself unsavoury to match, and Matthew Henry reads the four pairings, merciful, upright, pure, froward, as one statement of how God's own character answers back whatever a man brings before him. The afflicted people thou wilt save closes the section on the side of grace, the humble set against the haughty that God brings down.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:29-31

Thou art my lamp turns from David's own conduct to God's, the light that keeps him from stumbling in darkness he did not choose. His way is perfect and the word of the Lord is tried move from the man's claim to God's own character, tried in the sense of refined like metal, proved true by use rather than assumed true on his word alone. Matthew Henry reads the shift from David's uprightness to the Lord's own perfection as the section's real center.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:32-34

Who is God, save the Lord, and who is a rock, save our God turns the song briefly from thanksgiving to confession, a question that answers itself against every god the surrounding nations named. Feet like hinds' feet set upon high places is battlefield imagery, sure footing on rock rather than speed alone, and Keil and Delitzsch read it beside the earlier waves and floods, the same man now standing secure on ground that once seemed to be sinking under him.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:35-37

He teacheth my hands to war credits training in combat itself to God, and the bow of steel broken by mine arms is a soldier crediting skill rather than raw force, Matthew Henry notes it was dexterity as much as strength. Thy gentleness hath made me great sits deliberately beside the war language around it, so the song credits the same God for the battles won and for the patient dealing that shaped the man who could win them. Enlarged steps under me answers the strait place of the earlier verses, room to walk without stumbling where before there was only flood and snare.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:38-40

The verbs stack without relief, pursued, destroyed, consumed, turned not again, a complete defeat of every enemy without mercy shown or asked. Girded me with strength to battle credits the whole campaign to God rather than to David's own generalship, the same claim the song has made of every earlier victory.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:41-43

Given me the necks of mine enemies pictures a beaten army bared at the neck, the ancient posture of surrender, and even unto the Lord, but he answered them not turns their own cry for help back on them. Beat them as small as the dust of the earth completes the picture in the harshest terms the song uses anywhere, and Matthew Henry reads the violence as the war language proper to its own age, describing a king's enemies rather than offering a pattern for private grievance.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:44-46

Kept me to be head of the heathen turns the song from Israel's own wars to David's rule over nations beyond Israel, the Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Ammonites and Edomites named in the setting of this chapter's own history. A people which I knew not shall serve me reaches beyond David's own conquests for the commentators, who take up the line as a picture of nations that never knew the God of Israel coming to serve him further on. Strangers shall submit themselves unto me widens the same claim, obedience given by nations with no prior claim on the king now ruling over them.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:47-49

The Lord liveth opens the song's closing doxology with a confession set against the pagan world around Israel, where a god's death was assumed as part of his own myth. Blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation stacks rock language one final time, closing the string of titles the song opened with in verses two and three. Delivered from the violent man most plainly names Saul, the same word used elsewhere of Saul's pursuit through the outlaw years, so the whole song returns to the man named in its opening verse.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.

2 Samuel 22:50-51

Give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen widens the song's audience a last time, praise carried past Israel to the nations the earlier verses named as head of the heathen and now serving him. Unto David, and to his seed for evermore closes the song on the covenant of chapter seven, the king named by his own name for the only time in the whole psalm, and sheweth mercy to his anointed answers the horn of my salvation back to Hannah's own words for king and anointed at the book's opening. W. G. Blaikie reads the tower of salvation as the same figure Luke's Gospel gives Christ, the house of David's promise carried to its last heir.

The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.