CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES
2 Samuel 22:47. “The Lord liveth.” In contrast to imaginary gods or dead idols. Some modern expositors understand this to be equivalent to the acclamation uttered at the coronation of an earthly monarch, but Keil, Alexander, Erdrnann, and others, point out that this would be inappropriate to any but a mortal being. They take it simply as a declaration which “itself is to be taken as praise of God” (Keil), for “praising God is simply ascribing to Him the glorious perfections which belong to Him; we have only to give Him what is His own.” (Hengstenberg.) “Blessed,” i.e., praised, or worthy to be praised. “Rock.” (See on 2 Samuel 22:2; 2 Samuel 22:32.)
2 Samuel 22:49. “The violent man.” Most writers take this to refer in the first instance to Saul, but to him as typical of a class.
2 Samuel 22:50. “Among the heathen.” Or, the nations. “This indicates that David’s experienced mercies were so great, that the praise of them should not be confined within the narrow bounds of Palestine, He can only have a proper auditory in the nations of the whole earth.” (Hengstenberg.) “Paul was therefore perfectly justified in quoting the verse in Romans 16:9, along with Deuteronomy 32:43 and Psalms 117:1, as a proof that the salvation of God was intended for Gentiles also.” (Keil.)
2 Samuel 22:51. “His king … His anointed.” “The king whose salvation the Lord had magnified was not David as an individual, but David and his seed for ever—that is to say, the royal family of David which culminated in Christ. David could thus sing praises on the ground of the promise which he had received (2 Samuel 7:12-16), and which is repeated almost verbatim in the last clause of this verse.” (Keil)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Samuel 22:47-51
DAVID’S SOGS.—PART IV
I. That Jehovah lives ought to be enough to satisfy every human soul. All that David has said or can say is wrapped up in the words, “The Lord liveth.” That God lives is a sufficient guarantee, not only that His children will live, but that the best that is possible will be done for them and with them. Man feels conscious that he does not exist of himself and that he needs a stronger, a better, a higher life than his own upon which he can rest and whence he can draw supplies. In God, those who seek, find this need supplied—they testify, “With Thee is the fountain of life, in thy light shall we see light” (Psalms 36:9). They feel that the bodily and the spiritual life they now possess is from this living Jehovah, that He who gave them existence has given them what alone makes it worth having, a participation in His own Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and they rejoice in the confidence that while He lives they shall also live in the highest and best sense of the word. The life of God is a life separated from all injustice and unkindness, and it is a life not merely without any shadow of unrighteousness but a life of active justice and mercy. This being so, His existence ought to be for all men what it was to the Psalmist, a ground for hope and exultation. We cannot explain all the mysteries of His dealings with the children of men, some of David’s own words here do but remind us that clouds and darkness are often round about Him, but the simple fact of the existence of such a God is a rock upon which we may rest.
II. Every human life lived to purpose is lived in dependence upon the living God. It is David’s constant testimony that so far as he had fulfilled the high destiny to which he had been called, he had done so by remembering that he was nothing and that God was everything. “The Lord is my strength,” was his watchword on the day when he slew the giant, and, with few exceptions, it continued to be so until the hour in which he went “the way of all the earth” (1 Kings 2:2). He has left it upon record that every deed of his life that had been worth doing had been done in dependence upon the Lord who took him from the sheepfold and who had never failed him whenever he had sought His help. Every man who has lived a life worth living has lived it by putting his trust in David’s God, and every life has been worth living that has been so lived. The narrow circle of every man’s experience, and the wider range of history, furnish abundant proofs how poor a record the greatest leave behind them when they try to stand alone, and how blessed and honoured is the memory of many a lowly servant of God, who, when on earth, lived a life of faith, and therefore was enabled to fulfil the end of his being. But it is not only obscure lives that have been thus en-nobled—all the greatest names that adorn the pages of human history belong to those who have said with David, “God is my strength and power” and with Paul, “Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
2 Samuel 22:47. A certain sense of solitariness grows upon a man as he becomes older. Those who were venerable in his youthful days, and to whom he looked for counsel, are one by one carried to the tomb. The companions of his early manhood fall at his side. He comes at length to a time when he does not care to make many new friends; and when he reaches the limit of three-score years and ten, he begins to feel himself almost a stranger, even in the place where he has spent his life. Perhaps a king, more than most other men, will realize this experience. The poet has spoken of “the lonely glory of a throne.” The monarch has no equals, and, from the nature of the case, can have few confidants and counsellors, except such as are venerable for age. But as his reign wears on, one after another of these early friends are taken away; and as each is removed, he is apt to think that a part of himself has been withdrawn from him. Thus loneliness steals over him, and he comes at length to be, like Moses among the tribes, the solitary survivor of a buried generation. Something like this, I doubt not, was felt by David as he advanced into old age. Samuel was gone; Jonathan was no more; Ahithophel had proved a traitor; Joab had become a thorn in his side; but there was One always true, and it was with no ordinary emotion, we may be sure, that out of his earthly solitude he sang of his fidelity and deathlessness: “The Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation.” Let the aged among us fall back on this assurance, and find their solace in the companionship of the Most High. He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”—Dr. Taylor.
Why do you not boast in your God and bear up yourselves big with your expectations from him? Do you not see young heirs to great estates act and spend accordingly? And why shall you, being the King of Heaven’s son, be lean and ragged from day to day, as though you were not worth a groat? Oh, sirs, live upon your portion; chide yourselves for living beside what you have! There are great and precious promises; rich, enriching mercies; you may make use of God’s all-sufficiency; you can blame none but yourselves if you be defective or discouraged.… Ask your fainting spirits under pressing outward sorrows, is not God alive? And why, then, doth not thy soul revive? Why doth thy heart die within thee when comforts die? Cannot a living God support thy dying hopes?—Oliver Heywood.
2 Samuel 22:50. Paul cites this verse (Romans 15:9). This is clear evidence that David’s Lord is here, but David is here too, and is to be viewed as an example of a holy soul making its boast in God, even in the presence of ungodly men. Who are the despisers of God that we should stop our mouths for them? We will sing to our God whether they like it or no, and force upon them the knowledge of His goodness. Too much politeness to traitors may be treason to our King.—Spurgeon.
Whole chapter. This psalm is called by Michaelis more artificial, and less truly terrible, than the Mosaic odes. In structure it may be so, but surely not in spirit. It appears to many besides us, one of the most magnificent lyrical raptures in the Scriptures. As if the poet had dipped his pen in “the brightness of that light which was before his eye;” so he describes the descending God. Perhaps it may be objected that the nodus is hardly worthy of the vindex—to deliver David from his enemies, could Deity ever be imagined to come down? But the objector knows not the character of the ancient Hebrew mind. God in His view had not to descend from heaven; He was nigh—a cloud like a man’s hand might conceal—a cry, a look, might bring him down. And why should not David’s fancy clothe Him, as He came, in a panoply befitting His dignity, in clouds spangled with coals of fire? If he was to descend, why not in state? The proof of the grandeur of this psalm is in the fact that it has borne the test of almost every translation, and made doggerel itself erect itself and become Divine. Even Sternhold and Hopkins its fiery whirlwind lifts up, purifies, touches into true power and then throws down, helpless and panting, upon their ancient common. Perhaps its great charm, apart from the poetry of the descent, is the exquisite and subtle alternation of I and Thou. We have spoken of parallelism, as the key to the mechanism of Hebrew song. We find this existing between David and God—the delivered and the Deliverer—beautifully pursued throughout the whole of this psalm.… It has been ingeniously argued that the existence of the I suggests inevitably as a polar opposite the thought of the Thou, that the personality of man proves thus the personality of God; but, be this as it may, David’s perception of that personality is nowhere so intense as here. He seems not only to see, but to feel and touch, the object of his gratitude and worship.—Gillfilan.