Psalms 18:13

(Heb.: 18:14-16) Amidst thunder, Jahve hurled lightnings as arrows upon David's enemies, and the breath of His anger laid bare the beds of the flood to the very centre of the earth, in order to rescue the sunken one. Thunder is the rumble of God, and as it were the hollow murmur of His mouth, Job 37:2. עליון, the Most High, is the name of God as the inapproachable Judge, who governs all things. The third line of Psa 18:14 is erroneously repeated from the preceding strophe. It cannot be supported on grammatical grounds by Exo 9:23, since קול נתן, edere vocem, has a different meaning from the נתן קלת, dare tonitrua, of that passage. The symmetry of the strophe structure is also against it; and it is wanting both in 2 Sam. and in the lxx. רב, which, as the opposite of מעט Neh 2:12; Isa 10:7, means adverbially "in abundance," is the parallel to ויּשׁלח. It is generally taken, after the analogy of Gen 49:23, in the sense of בּרק, Psa 144:6 : רב in pause = רב (the ō passing over into the broader like עז instead of עז in Gen 49:3) = רבב, cognate with רבה, רמה; but the forms סב, סבּוּ, here, and in every other instance, have but a very questionable existence, as e.g., רב, Isa 54:13, is more probably an adjective than the third person praet. (cf. Bttcher, Neue Aehrenlese No. 635, 1066). The suffixes ēm do not refer to the arrows, i.e., lightnings, but to David's foes. המם means both to put in commotion and to destroy by confounding, Exo 14:24; Exo 23:27. In addition to the thunder, the voice of Jahve, comes the stormwind, which is the snorting of the breath of His nostrils. This makes the channels of the waters visible and lays bare the foundations of the earth. אפיק (collateral form to אפק) is the bed of the river and then the river or brook itself, a continendo aquas (Ges.),…

This psalm we met with before, in the history of David's life, 2 Sa. 22. That was the first edition of it; here we have it revived, altered a little, and fitted for the service of the church. It is David's thanksgiving for the many deliverances God had wrought for him; these he desired always to preserve fresh in his own memory and to diffuse and entail the knowledge of them. It is an admirable composition. The poetry is very fine, the images are bold, the expressions lofty, and every word is proper and significant; but the piety far exceeds the poetry. Holy faith, and love, and joy, and praise, and hope, are here lively, active, and upon the wing. I. He triumphs in God (Psa 18:1-3). II. He magnifies the deliverances God had wrought for him (v. 4-19). III. He takes the comfort of his integrity, which God had thereby cleared up (Psa 18:20-28). IV. He gives to God the glory of all his achievements (Psa 18:29-42). V. He encourages himself with the expectation of what God would further do for him and his (Psa 18:43-50). To the chief musician, A psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, 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.