God Had Intervened On His Behalf (Psalms 18:7-19).
David's description of God's intervention portrays the situation from Heaven's point of view. Little was necessarily seen on earth, but David was aware of the mightiness of God active on his behalf in powerful ways. He looked back to the experiences of his forebears, and remembered how God had revealed Himself then, and is confident that He will do so again (Exodus 19:16-18; Judges 5:4-5. Compare also Psalms 68:7-8; Psalms 77:16-18; Isaiah 29:6; Isaiah 30:27-30; Isaiah 64:1-3; Habakkuk 3:3-6). He thinks of it in terms of a great and vivid storm and possibly a thundering earthquake, as YHWH's power unfolds, but YHWH Himself is also seen as essentially there and active. He was thinking of the most powerful forces he knew with which to depict the powerful activity of God.
And through his times of tribulation he was confident that God was acting, and that unseen heavenly forces were intervening in his behalf. That was why he knew he could not fail. In the quietness of our lives we too can be sure that God is active in the same way. Thus we must trust Him and not be afraid.
‘Then the earth shook and trembled,
The foundations also of the mountains quaked,
And were shaken, because he was angry.
There went up a smoke from his nostrils,
And fire from his mouth devoured,
Coals were kindled by it.'
The fierceness of God's anger over the treatment of His anointed is expressed in terms of the quaking earth and the mountains shaking to their very bases, in the thick, swirling clouds that sometimes come down to cover the earth and the fire and smoke resulting from bolts of lightning which start fierce fires on it, and the lightning that strikes the very ground. It is intended to be an awe-inspiring scene. As Saul sought to track down David and kill him he was oblivious to this. He was unaware of the vengeance he was bringing down on himself. To him the heavens seemed silent. God was pushed from his mind. What he overlooked was that the mills of God were grinding, and that though they ground slowly, they ground exceeding small, and with great power.
And the people of God knew that when they went through deep trials they too could know that, that while often nothing may seem to be happening, God had not forgotten them. Around them, though they cannot see it, are His thunders and His lightning as He reveals His anger against sin in the world. And God is ever building up to the final showdown when His people will finally triumph.
For the smoke compare Psalms 18:15; Psalms 74:1; Psalms 80:4. The smoke from the nostrils may be intended to indicate the smoking breath of a wild animal, angry, steaming and intent on its adversary. Fire regularly indicates God's anger (Psalms 97:3; Exodus 15:7; Deuteronomy 32:22; Hebrews 12:29).
‘He bowed the heavens also, and came down,
And thick darkness was under his feet,
And he rode on a cherub, and flew (‘swooped'),
Yes, he soared on the wings of the wind.'
God was in the midst of the invisible storm. The heavens bowed under His presence, as He descended to earth. Thick darkness was under His feet (Exodus 19:16; Exodus 20:21; 1 Kings 8:12; Psalms 97:2). All was power and awe and mystery, for the world was not to be allowed to see Him. God works in His own mysterious ways. He is not to be fathomed by man. When God ‘comes down' that is the indication that He is about to act (Genesis 11:7; Genesis 18:21; Exodus 3:8; Isaiah 64:1).
‘And he rode on a cherub, and flew. Yes, he soared on the wings of the wind.' When God came it was on His transportable throne, borne by ‘a cherub', probably a composite singular indicating all the heavenly escorts, the guardian cherubim that bear His throne (see Ezekiel 10 and compare Ezekiel 1). These heavenly beings were symbolised by a powerful wind, bearing YHWH along in majesty.
‘And flew.' The word suggests the swooping of a bird of prey (Deuteronomy 28:49; Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22). The picture is vivid. It is as though God swooped down like the great eagle and then soared up again on the wings of the wind (Psalms 104:3-4) having taken the prey. Victory was certain and would be His.
‘He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion round about him,
Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
At the brightness before him his thick clouds produced,
Hailstones and coals of fire.'
Again the emphasis is on darkness, the darkness of hiddenness, of mysterious working. Darkness and thick clouds were His hiding place and His enveloping tent, His protection and His cover. Man cannot see God and live. But before Him within the cloud and darkness was the brightness of His majesty, which pierced the cloud cover and produced hailstones and thunderbolts, the missiles of God. God's glory could not be fully hidden. His glory shone through and He smote as He would.
‘YHWH also thundered in the heavens,
And the Most High uttered his voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them,
Yes, manifold lightnings, and discomfited them.
But having completed His first sally His activity went on. He thundered in the heavens, and ‘spoke' as the Most High, accompanied again by hailstones and thunderbolts. And He sent out His lightnings like arrows, scattering His enemies, indeed so many were His lightnings that they were discomfited. For it was the time for deliverance.
‘Then the channels of waters appeared,
And the foundations of the world were laid bare,
At your rebuke, O YHWH,
At the blast of the breath of your nostrils.'
The scene is now pictured as like a great all prevailing flood of adversaries in which David is almost overwhelmed, a flood portraying the men of Saul, the armies of the Philistines, the other enemies round about, but when YHWH rebuked them and blew on them in His anger, channels appeared in the waters, and dry land appeared to ensure David's safety. No flood could stand before the Almighty.
Here David had perhaps in memory the deliverance of Israel at the Sea of Reeds, in poetic form, when the mighty flood had swept back and made a way through for God's people, only for it then to swamp the enemy (Psalms 78:13-14; Psalms 106:9; Exodus 15:8; Nahum 1:4, compare Psalms 104:5-7).
‘He sent from on high, he took me,
He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
And from those who hated me,
For they were too mighty for me.
They came upon me in the day of my calamity,
But YHWH was my stay.
He brought me forth also into a large place,
He delivered me, because he delighted in me.'
He may well have had in mind here some particular incident when the rains had come suddenly, turning a quiet valley into a raging torrent before his eyes, catching men up in its irresistible stream and from which they had struggled to escape (compare Judges 5:5; Judges 5:20-21). He may himself have had an amazing escape from such. And he sees it as having been repeated in his deliverance from his foes.
So David had been delivered from enemies who at the time had seemed all-powerful. God had sent from on high and had drawn him from the midst of the many waters that would have overwhelmed him, delivering him from his strong enemy, and from all who hated him. All his foes had in the end been swept aside by YHWH.
He admits that at the time they had appeared too mighty for him, for they had come on him when he was weak and ill-prepared as a result of his flight. But he had found that YHWH was there. He had been his stay. And He brought him out into a large place, and delivered him, because He delighted in him. Things always look worse at the time than when we look back on them, having been delivered.
He was brought into ‘a large place'. No longer hemmed in and crowded, caught within narrow bounds, but free and triumphant, with the world at his feet, and space to move. So through YHWH's power victory would eventually come out of seeming defeat, and triumph out of seeming disaster. Leaving those craggy mountains that had been his home for so long, and the dry dustbowl of the wildernesses where he had taken refuge, he would ascend the throne in glory and expand his kingdom from the River Euphrates in the north down to the Wadi of Egypt in the south. Everything would be transformed.
So all who sang the psalm were declaring that for all who trust in God there is a large place waiting for them if only they will persevere, as it had waited for David. Darkness may come first, they were declaring, but the morning will always follow.