13 And Jehovah thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice: hail and coals of fire.
At thy rebuke they fled, at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away; --
And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering, the Philistines advanced to battle against Israel. And Jehovah thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were routed before Israel.
And all the people saw the thunderings, and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw [it], they trembled, and stood afar off,
They shall be consumed with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, And with poisonous pestilence; And the teeth of beasts will I send against them, With the poison of what crawleth in the dust.
And he delivered up their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to thunderbolts.
What shall be given unto thee, what shall be added unto thee, thou deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of a mighty one, with burning coals of broom-wood.
And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty ùGod when he speaketh.
Before him went the pestilence, And a burning flame went forth at his feet.
And out of the throne go forth lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and seven lamps of fire, burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God;
And the angel took the censer, and filled it from the fire of the altar, and cast [it] on the earth: and there were voices, and thunders and lightnings, and an earthquake.
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.