18 They came on me in the day of my calamity, But Yahweh was my support.
Vengeance is mine, and recompense, At the time when their foot shall slide: For the day of their calamity is at hand, The things that are to come on them shall make haste.
David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God.
> God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we won't be afraid, though the earth changes, Though the mountains are shaken into the heart of the seas;
Yahweh of Hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever. In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them. But don't look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don't rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don't speak proudly in the day of distress. Don't enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don't look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity. Don't stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don't deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 18
Commentary on Psalms 18 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 18
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.
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.
Psa 18:1-19
The title gives us the occasion of penning this psalm; we had it before (2 Sa. 22:1), only here we are told that the psalm was delivered to the chief musician, or precentor, in the temple-songs. Note, The private compositions of good men, designed by them for their own use, may be serviceable to the public, that others may not only borrow light from their candle, but heat from their fire. Examples sometimes teach better than rules. And David is here called the servant of the Lord, as Moses was, not only as every good man is God's servant, but because, with his sceptre, with his sword, and with his pen, he greatly promoted the interests of God's kingdom in Israel. It was more his honour that he was a servant of the Lord than that he was king of a great kingdom; and so he himself accounted it (Ps. 116:16): O Lord! truly I am thy servant. In these verses,
In singing this we must triumph in God, and trust in him: and we may apply it to Christ the Son of David. The sorrows of death surrounded him; in his distress he prayed (Heb. 5:7); God made the earth to shake and tremble, and the rocks to cleave, and brought him out, in his resurrection, into a large place, because he delighted in him and in his undertaking.
Psa 18:20-28
Here,
Let those that walk in darkness, and labour under many discouragements in singing these verses, encourage themselves that God himself will be a light to them.
Psa 18:29-50
In these verses,
In singing these verses we must give God the glory of the victories of Christ and his church hitherto and of all the deliverances and advancements of the gospel kingdom, and encourage ourselves and one another with an assurance that the church militant will be shortly triumphant, will be eternally so.