II Samuel 22:8

8 Then the earth swayed and trembled, The foundations of the heavens shook And swayed to and fro, because He was wroth. 9 Smoke ascended in His nose, And fire out of His mouth devoured, Red-hot coals burned out of Him. 10 And He bowed the heavens and came down, And cloudy darkness under His feet. Jehovah came down from heaven to save His servant, as He had formerly come down upon Sinai to conclude His covenant with Israel in the midst of terrible natural phenomena, which proclaimed the wrath of the Almighty. The theophany under which David depicts the deliverance he had experienced, had its type in the miraculous phenomenon which accompanied the descent of God upon Sinai, and which suggested, as in the song of Deborah (Jdg 5:4-5), the idea of a terrible storm. It is true that the deliverance of David was not actually attended by any such extraordinary natural phenomena; but the saving hand of God from heaven was so obviously manifested, that the deliverance experienced by him could be poetically described as a miraculous interposition on the part of God. When the Lord rises up from His heavenly temple to come down upon the earth to judgment, the whole world trembles at the fierceness of His wrath. Not only does the earth tremble, but the foundations of the heavens shake: the whole universe is moved. In the psalm we have "the foundations of the hills" instead of "the foundations of the heavens," - a weaker expression, signifying the earth to its deepest foundations. The Hithpael יתגּעשׁ, lit., to sway itself, expresses the idea of continuous swaying to and fro. לו חרה כּי, "for it (sc., wrath) burned to him," it flamed up like a fire; cf. Deu 32:22; Deu 29:19. "Smoke," the forerunner of fire, "ascended in His nose." The figurative idea is that of snorting or violent brea…

This chapter is a psalm, a psalm of praise; we find it afterwards inserted among David's psalms (Ps. 18) with some little variation. We have it here as it was first composed for his own closed and his own harp; but there we have it as it was afterwards delivered to the chief musician for the service of the church, a second edition with some amendments; for, though it was calculated primarily for David's case, yet it might indifferently serve the devotion of others, in giving thanks for their deliverances; or it was intended that his people should thus join with him in his thanksgivings, because, being a public person, his deliverances were to be accounted public blessings and called for public acknowledgments. The inspired historian, having largely related David's deliverances in this and the foregoing book, and one particularly in the close of the foregoing chapter, thought fit to record this sacred poem as a memorial of all that had been before related. Some think that David penned this psalm when he was old, upon a general review of the mercies of his life and the many wonderful preservations God had blessed him with, from first to last. We should in our praises, look as far back as we can, and not suffer time to wear out the sense of God's favours. Others think that he penned it when he was young, upon occasion of some of his first deliverances, and kept it by him for his use afterwards, and that, upon every new deliverance, his practice was to sing this song. But the book of Psalms shows that he varied as there was occasion, and confined not himself to one form. Here is, I. The title of the psalm (Sa2 22:1). II. The psalm itself, in which, with a very warm devotion and very great fluency and copiousness of expression, 1. He gives glory to God. 2. He takes comfort i…

22:8-20 David vividly expands on how God heard him (22:7). David describes God’s rescue as a theophany (manifestation of God’s presence; see study notes on Exod 19:16-25; Deut 1:33) that recalls God’s manifestation at Sinai (Exod 19:16-20; cp. Judg 5:4-5).