2 Samuel22chapter 22

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.

Matthew Henry observes that no battle of David's records God fighting with thunder, as for Samuel at 1 Samuel 7:10, or with hail, as for Joshua at Joshua 10:11. He takes the smoke and fire as lofty metaphors. They set forth the glory of God shown in David's rescue.

John Gill reads this line with Psalm 18:9. The picture is a king coming down to the field in person, with the storm cloud under His feet. David asks for the same descent at Psalm 144:5, praying for the heavens to part again.

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 Berean Standard Bible reads a gathering of water, where John Gill's King James text reads dark waters, the wording of Psalm 18:11. The two books keep the line in slightly different words. Either way the rain cloud hides God as He comes.

2 Samuel 22:13-16

were coals of fire kindled: 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.

John Gill reads this with Psalm 18:13, where the line closes with hailstones and coals of fire. The Samuel copy ends at the voice. Thunder is the voice of God across the Psalter, as Psalm 29:3 shows.

The two clauses are Hebrew parallelism, so the arrows and the lightning name one weapon. John Gill reads the verse with Psalm 18:14. David turns the line into a prayer at Psalm 144:6, asking the Lord to shoot the same arrows again.

the channels of the sea appeared: John Gill reads this line with Psalm 18:15, where the channels are of water and the sea goes unnamed. The blast of the nostrils is Moses' own phrase at Exodus 15:8 for the wind that piled up the sea. The deep gives way at God's rebuke.

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 powerful enemy is singular, and the next clause widens it to every foe. The heading at verse 1 names Saul beside all David's enemies. John Gill's King James text reads too strong, a plain confession of weakness.

Confronted renders the same verb as verse 6, and John Gill's King James text reads prevented in both places. Living enemies now do what death did there. The same text calls the Lord his stay, a staff to lean on when the ground gives way.

because he delighted in me: Matthew Henry traces the rescue to covenant love over common providence, with David treated as a favourite of God. At 15:26, fleeing Absalom, David left his future to whether the Lord delighted in him. Here the song gives the answer.

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.

kept the ways of the Lord: Wickedly departed pictures a man who turns off the road on purpose, and David denies it of his settled course. The ways of the LORD is Deuteronomy's term for the life the law marks out, as at Deuteronomy 8:6. John Gill reads the line with Psalm 18:21.

Ordinances and statutes are the language of Deuteronomy, the law a king was to copy and read all his days at Deuteronomy 17:18-19. David claims to have kept that law in view. John Gill reads the verse with Psalm 18:22.

2 Samuel 22:24-25

kept myself from mine iniquity: 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.

according to my cleanness: Verse 25 repeats verse 21 almost word for word, so the song closes this claim as it opened. Matthew Henry reads the LORD as having repaid a righteousness and cleanness God was pleased with, which David had not earned. In His sight places the measure with God.

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 King James renders crooked as unsavoury here, as in John Gill's text, and as froward at Psalm 18:26. The Berean text sets the crooked against the pure, and God shows Himself shrewd enough to outmatch the crooked. Matthew Henry makes God's purity the joy of the pure.

God saves an afflicted people and brings down the haughty. John Gill reads the verse with Psalm 18:27, where the haughty eyes belong to the proud; in Samuel the eyes are those of God, set on the haughty. Hannah's song sets the same reversal at 1 Samuel 2:7-8, and Isaiah 2:11 carries it into the prophets.

2 Samuel 22:29-31

thou art my lamp, O Lord: 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.

With God David can charge an army, and John Gill's King James text gives the same Hebrew as running through a troop. The two clauses picture field battle and the siege where a soldier must scale a wall. The taking of Zion at 5:6-8 needed this daring.

Matthew Henry sets the perfect way of God against human faithlessness. Men promise and fail to perform, while the word of the LORD proves flawless. The shield for all who take refuge returns at Proverbs 30:5 almost word for word.

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.

John Gill's King James text renders the line as God being strength and power, who makes the way perfect. Psalm 18:32 phrases it with God arming David with strength. The perfect way God makes for David answers the perfect way of God in verse 31.

Matthew Henry values the gift for charging and retreating alike. Habakkuk 3:19 takes up the same words for a prophet waiting on God in hard times. The heights are the high ground an army holds, which David holds by the Lord's gift.

2 Samuel 22:35-37

teacheth my hands to war: 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 shield of salvation is armour God gives, where verse 3 made God Himself the shield. John Gill reads the verse with Psalm 18:35, which adds a clause about God's right hand holding David up. The word for gentleness comes from a root for lowliness.

Matthew Henry reads a shepherd trained into a soldier, for the boy bred to the crook was taught the arts of war. The LORD broadens the path beneath David after the strait places of the earlier verses. With room beneath him his ankles do not give way.

2 Samuel 22:38-40

pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them: 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.

Under the feet is the posture of a conquered enemy, as when Joshua's captains set their feet on the necks of kings at Joshua 10:24. John Gill reads the verse with Psalm 18:38. The next verse gives the victory back to God.

Armed renders the verb for girding, the belt that gathered a robe for action and carried the sword. John Gill's King James text keeps the picture with girded. The foes brought low beneath David are subdued by God's hand.

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.

No one saves the enemies, and the LORD gives no answer. Proverbs 1:28 states the rule behind the line, that those who scorned counsel will call and receive no answer. Micah 3:4 says the same of rulers who did evil, and John Gill reads the verse with Psalm 18:41.

John Gill's King James text ends the verse with a scattering of the enemy, where Psalm 18:42 reads cast them out. Mud trampled in the streets is the lowest picture of defeat the prophets use, as at Micah 7:10. David has ground the enemy as the dust of the earth.

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.

Foreigners cower before David in feigned submission. Origen of Alexandria hears Christ in it, and the Gentiles as the foreigners who hear Him and obey Him. Matthew Henry reads it of the Son of David, whose gospel goes on conquering.

Foreigners lose heart and come out of their strongholds, the fortified close places of John Gill's King James text. Micah 7:17 pictures nations trembling out of their dens. Matthew Henry reads the line of the Son of David, whose gospel keeps conquering.

2 Samuel 22:47-49

The Lord liveth; and blessed be my rock: 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.

God avenges David and brings down nations beneath him, and vengeance is claimed for God and left with God. David left it with Saul at 1 Samuel 24:12, and Deuteronomy 32:35 sets the same rule. John Gill reads the verse with Psalm 18:47.

John Gill's King James text reads violent man in the singular. Matthew Henry names that man as Saul, malicious in his designs and vigorous in pursuit. Psalm 140:1 and 140:4 ask for rescue from violent men in the same words.

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.

John Gill's King James text reads tower of salvation, where Psalm 18:50 reads great deliverance, and the two Hebrew forms are close. The Berean text follows the Psalm. Matthew Henry reads the loving devotion to David and his descendants forever of Christ, whose throne continues after the line of David has died out.