Troubles and Death Had Pressed In On Him (Psalms 18:4-6).
‘The cords of death encompassed me,
And the floods of ungodliness (literally ‘worthlessness' - belial) made me afraid.
The cords of Sheol were round about me,
The snares of death came on me,
In my distress I called on YHWH,
And cried to my God.
He heard my voice out of his temple,
And my cry before him came to his ears.'
David now describes the sore situation in which he had found himself time and again, especially when he had been hunted by Saul. The general nature of the description enables us to apply it to all difficult situations in which the people of God find themselves. All but the most fortunate at some time find themselves in this kind of situation, when life seems to be pressing in on them and there seems to be no solution.
‘The cords of death encompassed me, and the floods of ungodliness (literally ‘worthlessness') made me afraid.' David had felt the cords of death closing around him. It happened again and again in his attempts to avoid the vengeful Saul, and then also with the Philistines. He had regularly been at the point of death, only to escape with his life, and he had been continually aware that the cords of death could entangle him at any moment. He had lived in the constant shadow of death.
‘The ‘cords of death' (see also Psalms 116:3) may have reference to the ropes that bound a man who was destined for execution (compare Judges 15:13-14), the ropes which Saul planned for David, a prospect that entered David's mind whenever Saul's searchers came into sight, or they may signify the ropes used to hem in wild animals in preparation for the kill, ropes by which David constantly felt himself hemmed in. In both cases they were arbiters of doom.
And the floods of destruction or of moral wickedness too had almost overwhelmed him and had made him afraid. The word belial (worthlessness) may indicate physical destruction or moral wickedness. That Saul's behaviour had been particularly evil supports the second interpretation. It was not only his actions but the sense of the evil behind them that had shaken David to the core. In 2 Samuel 22 it is ‘the waves/breakers of death' rather than ‘the cords of death', which better parallels the next phrase. However the alteration to ‘cords' connects more closely with the next verse and the whole thought.
‘The cords of Sheol were round about me, the snares of death came on me.' He had felt continually trapped and ensnared. The cords of the grave had reached out to him, the snares of death had seemed about to close on him. The whole description is vivid, the picture of a man fighting for his very existence, with death a hairsbreadth away.
‘In my distress I called on YHWH, and cried to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry before him came to his ears.' In his distress David cried to God. The significance of the tense is of repeated prayer. He was to succeed by steady, confident praying. And from His heavenly Temple God heard his cry (compare Psalms 11:4; Isaiah 6:1; Isaiah 29:6; Isaiah 63:15; Micah 1:2; Habakkuk 2:20). God's ears were not deaf to his need. Though the answer was not instantaneous, David was confident that it would come. He knew that God had heard him and so it would have to come. We are always so impatient, thinking that God should act at once, but God's purposes must move through to fruition in their own way. We are not the best arbiters of what is right for the world. It was during this period that he formed and trained the band of men, ‘his men', who would prove his mainstay into the future. What we learn and achieve in these periods is regularly the mainstay of our futures. David could never have become what he did had he not gone through these experiences.
And all who sang the psalm knew something of these experiences. For all face the vicissitudes of life. And each could testify to his own personal experiences and rejoice in the certainty of God's continual deliverance.