Psalms
Chapter 18
Lord, You Gave Your King a Great Victory
I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer and my God.He is the rock in whom I take refuge. He is my shield, my powerful savior, my stronghold.
I call on the Lord, who is worthy of praise: he saves me from my enemies!
A deadly flood surrounded me, devilish torrents rushed at me;
caught by the cords of the grave,I was brought to the snares of death.
But I called upon the Lord in my distress, I cried to my God for help, and from his temple, he heard my voice, my cry of grief reached his ears.
Then the earth reeled and rocked;the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled at his fury.
Smoke rose from his nostrils,from his mouth, a devouring fire throwing off live embers.
He bent the heavens and came down with dark clouds under his feet.
He rode on a cherub and flew, borne on the swift wings of the wind.
Veiled, with darkness surrounding him, he made misty rain clouds his tent.
Then, from the brightness of his presence, hail and fiery embers broke forth.
From heaven the Lord thundered; the voice of the Most High resounded.
Sending out a hail of arrows, he scattered them;flashing forth bolts of lightning, he routed them.
The beds of the seas appeared, the foundations of the world were laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord,at the blast of his breath.
Reaching down from above,he drew me out of the deep waters.
Too strong for me were my enemies, but he rescued me from my adversaries.
They launched their attack on an opportune day, but the Lord was my support.
He has set me out in the open, he saved me, because he cares for me!
The Lord rewarded me for my justice,according to my righteousness.
For I have been faithful to the Lord’s way and have not departed from my God.
All his ordinances are before me, I have always followed his statutes.
Before him, I have done uprightly and kept myself from iniquity.
The Lord treats me according to my merits, according to the cleanness of my hands.
With the faithful, you are faithful; with the blameless, you are blameless;
with the pure, you are pure; but with the crooked you are astute.
For you raise up the humble and bring down the arrogant.
Lord, you give light to my lamp. O my God, you brighten my darkness.
Yes, with you, I charge the armed bands, and by my God, I leap over the wall.
This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord can stand fire. He is a shield for those who seek refuge in him.
There is no other God but the Lord.There is no other rock but our God.
He is the God who girds me with strength and prepares my ways.
He makes my feet as swift as the deer’s; he sets me securely on the heights.
He trains my hands for war and my arms to bend the bronze-bow.
You give me your shield for protection,your right hand upholds me; and your help makes me great.
You enlarge the space before me, my step will not falter.
I pursue my enemies and overtake them,I do not turn back, till I have destroyed them.
Thrusting them through,I do not give them time to rise;they fall under my feet.
You give me strength for the battle; you subdue my adversaries beneath me;
you put my enemies to flight and destroy those who hate me.
They cry for help, but no one comes.They cry to the Lord; he does not answer them.
I pulverize them, as dust before the wind; like mud in the streets, I trample them.
You delivered me from my people’s quarrels and made me head over the nations. They came to serve me —people I have not known.
At the sound of my voice, they rose to obey, foreigners fawned before me.
Staggering out of their fortresses, they came to me, cringing and trembling.
The Lord lives! Praised be my rock!Exalted be my savior God—
the God who grants me vengeance and subdues the peoples for me.
He delivers me from my foes; he exalts me above my adversaries; he rescues me from violent people.
For this I extol you, O Lord, among the nations;I will sing praise to your name, saying:
“He has given victories to his king; he has shown his love to his anointed ones, to David, and to his descendants forever.”
Commentaries
18
Here, a depiction of God as the great master of creation stands alongside that of God as the jealous guardian of his servant David, who was brave enough to serve the King of kings. For once, we have no trouble recognizing the ‘enemies.’ David’s tumultuous history is well known to us. However, the historical context will not help us. Once again, we must internalize the words, and the ‘enemies’ we pray against carry intangible arrows. We need God’s shield and all the spiritual yet warrior-like tools that St. Paul urges us to use: ‘the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit, that is, the Word of God’ (Eph 6:16-17).
The opening words, “I love you,” capture the psalmist’s internal feelings. Jesus, whom the psalmist divinely refers to in verse 10, “He bent the heavens and came down,” has told us that what comes out of a person’s heart determines whether they are clean or unclean; therefore, pure inner feelings originate from the heart. Once again, reference is made to Jesus in verse 29, “Lord, you give light to my lamp,” because Jesus had said, “I am the light of the world.”
The added verse (51) enables us to interpret this psalm as referring to the Anointed One, Christ, the conqueror of death and the abyss. Romans 15:9 quotes verse 50 of the psalm. Those who love passionately keep inventing new adjectives to express their love. The God thus loved “comes down” to be with us as the firm foundation of our lives.