The Book of 2 Samuel

Word Study

"rock," Hebrew sela (סֶלַע), "crag, cliff." David piles up name after name for God, "my rock... my fortress... my deliverer... my shield... the horn of my salvation... my high tower... my refuge... my saviour." Chief among them is the rock, the immovable crag where the hunted find safety, a name David surely learned in his wilderness years hiding among the literal rocks from Saul. God is the believer's unshakable refuge, "the rock that is higher than I" (Psalm 61:2).

"rock," Hebrew tsur (צוּר), "rock, unshakable stronghold." The song's second word for rock names the same refuge from the other side: not the crag one hides in, but the massive stronghold that cannot be moved, so that David can say "the God of my rock; in him will I trust." And the New Testament names the Rock: "that Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). The "horn of my salvation" would be taken up by Zacharias to hail the coming of Jesus, "and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David" (Luke 1:69). David's experience is that of every saint in extremity: encompassed by "the waves of death" and "the sorrows of hell," he "called upon the LORD," and God "did hear my voice." The cry of distress to God is never in vain; the Rock hears, and the refuge is real.

Explanation

Near the end of his life, David composes this song of thanksgiving for a lifetime of deliverances, "out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul." It opens with an outpouring of praise that gathers up every image of safety David knew, rock, fortress, shield, tower, refuge, to describe the LORD who had saved him again and again. He recalls the desperation of his darkest hours, when death and hell seemed to close around him, and the one thing that brought deliverance: "In my distress I called upon the LORD... and he did hear my voice." The whole song rests on this bedrock of tested experience, God is a real refuge who really hears and really saves. It is the mature testimony of a man who had proved God faithful over a long and stormy life.

Gospel Focus

David's heaping up of names for God is the language of a heart that has learned by long experience who God is. The LORD is not an idea but a refuge, tested and proven in the waves of death. And the New Testament reveals that this Rock, this horn of salvation, is none other than Jesus Christ, in whom "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). To flee to the LORD as our rock is to flee to Christ. Note the pattern that runs through the whole song: distress, a cry to God, and deliverance. "In my distress I called upon the LORD... and he did hear." This is the unfailing way of salvation for every soul: "whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved" (Romans 10:13). When the floods rise and the snares tighten, there is a Rock who hears the cry of the desperate. Have you called on Him? He is a refuge that has never failed one who fled to Him, and He will not fail you.

Word Study

"he delighted in me," Hebrew chaphets (חָפֵץ), "to delight in, take pleasure in, desire." The magnificent storm-theophany, earthquake, smoke, fire, thunder, lightning, God bowing the heavens and riding on a cherub, portrays the LORD coming down in overwhelming power to rescue one man in trouble. And the reason for such a rescue is breathtaking: "he delivered me, because he delighted (chaphets) in me." Not because David earned it, but because God delighted in him. This is the wonder of grace: the infinite God sets His delight upon His own and moves heaven and earth to save them. "The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy" (Psalm 147:11); "he brought me forth into a large place... because he delighted in me." The believer's deliverance flows ultimately from God's own good pleasure in His people, "the LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty... he will rejoice over thee with joy" (Zephaniah 3:17). "He drew me out of many waters" pictures rescue from overwhelming danger, God reaching down into the flood to pull His child to safety. The God who came down to save David is the God who, in Christ, came down in flesh to draw us out of the deep waters of sin and death.

Explanation

David describes his deliverances in the grand poetic language of a divine storm. Though the LORD is invisible, David depicts His saving intervention as a cosmic upheaval: the earth quakes, smoke and fire pour forth, the heavens bow as God descends riding a cherub on the wings of the wind, thunder and lightning scatter the enemy, and the very foundations of the sea and earth are laid bare at His rebuke. All this awesome power is bent to a single, tender end: "He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters." God rescued David from enemies "too strong" for him, brought him into "a large place" of freedom, and did it all "because he delighted in me." The Almighty who shakes the earth stooped to lift one drowning man to safety, out of love.

Gospel Focus

This section joins the majesty of God to the tenderness of His grace. The same God whose approach shakes the earth and bows the heavens stoops to draw one man "out of many waters", and He does it "because he delighted in me." Here is the astonishing heart of the gospel: our salvation springs not from our worth but from God's own delight in His people. "The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him." And the picture of God "coming down" to rescue reaches its fulfillment when God Himself came down in the flesh, "the Word was made flesh" (John 1:14), to draw us out of the deep waters of sin and death that were far "too strong for" us. As David was too weak to save himself and needed God to reach down and take him, so are we; and the God who delights in His own has reached down in Christ to lift us into "a large place" of salvation and freedom. Rest in this: you are delivered not because you are strong, but because He delights in you and came down to save.

Word Study

"tried," Hebrew tsaraph (צָרַף), "to refine, smelt, test as metal in fire." "The word of the LORD is tried (tsaraph)", refined like silver in the furnace, proved pure and reliable by testing. God's word has been put to the test in ten thousand lives and never once failed; "the words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace" (Psalm 12:6). David's claim to "righteousness" and "cleanness of hands" is not a boast of sinless perfection, for he knew his great sin (chapter 11); it is the covenant integrity of one who kept faith with God, especially in the matters this song concerns, refusing to seize the throne by violence or to serve other gods. God, David says, "mirrors" Himself to men: merciful to the merciful, pure to the pure, but "froward" (contrary) to the froward. He saves the afflicted and humbles the haughty. And He is "my lamp," lightening our darkness, so that by Him we "run through a troop" and "leap over a wall." Best of all, "his way is perfect" and His word is tried and true, "a buckler to all them that trust in him." The tested, refined word of God is a shield that has never failed a single soul who trusted it.

Explanation

David reflects on why God delivered him, appealing to his covenant faithfulness: he had "kept the ways of the LORD," walked in His statutes, and kept himself upright. This is not a claim to be without sin, David knew better, but an affirmation that, in the great matters at issue, he had walked with integrity before God, unlike Saul. He then states a principle of God's dealings: God shows Himself to men in kind, merciful to the merciful, pure to the pure, and set against the froward; He saves the afflicted and brings down the proud. David closes this section with radiant confidence: "thou art my lamp, O LORD," lightening his darkness; by God's help he can charge a troop and leap a wall; and, gathering it all up, "his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him." God's way and word have been tested and found flawless.

Gospel Focus

At the heart of this section stand two great assurances: "his way is perfect" and "the word of the LORD is tried." God never makes a misstep; His way, however hard it seems, is flawless, and His word, refined in the furnace of countless trials, has never once failed. This is the ground of all faith: we trust a God whose promises are proven pure, "a buckler to all them that trust in him." And "thou art my lamp, O LORD," points to the true Light, for "the LORD will lighten my darkness"; in Christ, "the light of the world" (John 8:12), our darkness is dispelled. As for David's "righteousness," it foreshadows a greater truth: the deliverance of God rests finally not on our own clean hands, which are never clean enough, but on the perfect righteousness of the Son of David, given to all who trust Him, "the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ" (Romans 3:22). Trust the God whose way is perfect and whose word is tried; He is a shield that will never break in the hand of faith.

Word Study

"who is God, save the LORD?", Hebrew mi-El mibbaladey YHWH (מִי־אֵל מִבַּלְעֲדֵי יְהוָה), "who is God apart from the LORD?" David's rhetorical question is a ringing confession of the one God: "who is God, save the LORD? and who is a rock, save our God?" There is no God but the LORD, no other rock, no rival deity, "I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me" (Isaiah 45:5); "the LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4). All David's strength, victory, and exaltation flow from this one God, who arms him, steadies his feet, subdues his enemies, and even brings the nations into submission. And the song ends on its highest and most far-reaching note: the LORD "sheweth mercy to his anointed, unto David, and to his seed for evermore." That word "for evermore" carries the promise beyond David to his everlasting Seed, the Messiah; the mercy shown to David's line finds its fulfillment in Jesus, the Son of David whose kingdom has no end. Fittingly, the apostle Paul quotes verse 50, "I will sing praises unto thy name," as a prophecy of the Gentiles praising God through Christ (Romans 15:9). The one God, David's rock, shows His mercy through David's greater Seed to all the nations, for evermore.

Explanation

The song rises to its climax with the great confession, "who is God, save the LORD?" David ascribes all his prowess to the one God: God is his strength, makes his way perfect, gives him sure feet, trains his hands for war, and grants the victory. He recounts total triumph over his enemies, subdued and scattered like dust, and God's extending of his rule even over foreign nations. Again and again he refuses to credit himself: "thy gentleness hath made me great"; "it is God that avengeth me." The song ends with a burst of praise and a vow to sing God's praises "among the heathen" (the nations), and with the crowning promise that God is "the tower of salvation for his king" and "sheweth mercy to his anointed, unto David, and to his seed for evermore." David's whole life of deliverance is summed up as the mercy of the one God to His anointed and, through him, to his everlasting Seed.

Gospel Focus

The song closes where all true worship rests, in the one God: "who is God, save the LORD? and who is a rock, save our God?" There is no other. And that one God, David's rock and refuge, is the God who was manifest in flesh in Jesus Christ; to confess the one LORD is to confess Him who came as the Son of David. The final line lifts the whole psalm to its Messianic height: God "sheweth mercy to his anointed... and to his seed for evermore." The mercy shown to David reaches its "for evermore" fulfillment in Christ, the everlasting Seed, through whom mercy flows to all who trust Him, Jew and Gentile alike, so that Paul cites this very song as the promise of the nations praising God through Christ (Romans 15:9). All David's victories, all his deliverances, were the mercy of the one God to His anointed, and they point to the greater Anointed, our tower of salvation, in whom the mercy of God endures for evermore. "Who is God, save the LORD?" Confess Him, trust the Rock, and sing His praise among the nations.