David spake unto the Lord the word of this song. 2 Samuel 22 The song of thanksgiving W. G. Blaikie, D. D. Some of David's actions are very characteristic of himself; there are other actions quite out of harmony with his character. This psalm of thanksgiving belongs to the former order. It is quite like David, at the conclusion of his military enterprises, to cast his eye gratefully over the whole, and acknowledge the goodness and mercy that had followed him all along. The date of this song is not to be determined by the place which it occupies in the history. It is likely that this psalm was written considerably before the end of David's reign. Two considerations make it all but certain that its date is earlier than Absalom's rebellion. In the first place, the mention of the name of Saul in the first verse would seem to imply that the deliverance from Saul was somewhat recent, certainly not so remote as it would have been at the end of David's reign. And secondly, while the affirmation of David's sincerity and honesty in serving God might doubtless have been made at any period of his life, yet some of his expressions would not have been likely to be used after his deplorable fall. I. The leading thought of the song, AN ADORING ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF WHAT GOD HAD BEEN AND WAS TO DAVID (vers. 2-4.) 1. The feeling that recognised God as the Author of all his deliverances was intensely strong, for every expression that can denote it is heaped together: "My rock, my portion, my deliverer; the God of my rock, my shield; the horn of my salvation, my high tower, my refuge, my Saviour." He takes no credit to himself; he gives no glory to his captains; the glory is all the Lord's. He sees God so supremely the Author of his deliverance that the human instruments that helped him are for the moment quite out of view. He who, in the depths of his penitence, sees but one supremely injured Being,. and says, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned," at the height of his prosperity sees but one gracious Being, and adores Him, who only is his rock and his salvation. In an ago when all the stress is apt to be laid on the human instruments, and God left out of view, this habit of mind is instructive and refreshing. It was a touching incident in English history when, after the battle of Agincourt, Henry V. of England directed the hundred and fifteenth Psalm to be sung; prostrating himself on the ground, and causing his whole army to do the same, when the words were sounded out, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give glory." 2. The emphatic use of the pronoun "my" by the Psalmist is very instructive. It is so easy to speak in general terms of what God is, and what God does; but it is quite another thing to be able to appropriate Him as ours, and rejoice in that relation. The use of the "my" indicates a personal transaction, a covenant relation into which the parties have solemnly entered. 3. One other point has to be noticed in this introduction — when David comes to express his dependence on God, he very specially sets Him before his mind as "worthy to be praised." II. TRIALS AND GOD'S DELIVERANCE IN HIS TIMES OF DANGER (vers. 5-20.) That description is eminently poetical. First, there is a vivid picture of his troubles. "The waves of death compassed me, and the floods vi ungodly men made me afraid; the sorrows of hell compassed me; the snares of death prevented me." ("The cords of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid; the cords of sheol were round about me; the snares of death came upon me," R.V.) It is no overcharged picture. With Saul's javelins flying at his head in the palace, or his best troops scouring the wilderness in search of him; with Syrian hosts bearing down on him like the waves of the sea, and a confederacy of nations conspiring to swallow him up, he might well speak of the waves Of death and the cords of Hades. Then, after a brief account of his calling upon God, comes a most animated description of God coming to his help. The description is ideal, but it gives a vivid view how the Divine energy is roused when any of God's children are in distress. Faith saw God bestirring Himself for his deliverance, as if every agency of nature had been set in motion on his behalf. And this being done, his deliverance was conspicuous and corn-plebe. He saw God's hand stretched out with remarkable distinctness. And what a blessed thing to have accumulated through life a store of such providences — to have Ebenezers reared along the whole line of one's history! III. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THE DIVINE PROTECTION WAS THUS ENJOYED BY DAVID. Substantially these grounds were the uprightness and faithfulness with which he had served God. The expressions are strong, and at first sight they have a flavour of self-righteousness. "The Lord rewarded me according to my self-righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God." But it is impossible to read this Psalm without feeling that it is not pervaded by the spirit of the self-righteous man. It is pervaded by a profound sense of dependence on God, and of obligation to His mercy and love. Now that is the very opposite of the self-righteous spirit. What he here celebrates is not any personal righteousness that might enable him as an individual to claim the favour and reward of God, but the ground on which he, as the public champion of God's cause before the world, enjoyed God's countenance and obtained His protection. There would be no self-righteousness in an inferior officer of the navy or the army who had been sent on some expedition, saying, "I obeyed your instructions in every particular; I never deviated from the course you prescribed." IV. HIS PROVIDENTIAL MERCIES, FOR WHICH HE SPECIALLY PRAISES GOD. One of the earliest appears to be recalled in the words, "By my God have I leaped over a wall" — the wall, it may be supposed, of Gibeah, down which Michal let him when Saul sent to take him in his house. Still further back: perhaps, in his life is the allusion in another expression — "Thy gentleness hath made me great." He seems to go back to his shepherd life, and in the gentleness with which he dealt with the feeble lamb that might have perished in rougher hands, to find an emblem of God's method with himself. If God had not, dealt gently with him, he never would have become what he was. But what? Can David praise God's gentleness and in the next words utter such terrible words against his foes? How can he extol God's gentleness to him and immediately dwell on his tremendous severity to them? We cannot but regard it as the spirit of one who was imperfectly enlightened. We rejoice in the Christian spirit that teaches us to regard even public enemies as our brothers, for whom individually kindly and brotherly feelings are to be cherished. In the closing verses of the Psalm, the views of the Psalmist seem to sweep beyond the limits of an earthly kingdom. His eye seems to embrace the wide-spreading dominion of Messiah; at all events, he dwells on those features of his own kingdom that were typical of the all-embracing kingdom of the Gospel. "It is beyond doubt," says Luther , "that the wars and victories of David prefigured the passion and resurrection of Christ." At the same time, he admits that it is very doubtful how far the Psalm applies to Christ, anal how far to David,. and he declines to press the type to particulars. But we may surely apply the concluding words to David's son: "He showeth loving-kindness to his anointed, to David and to his seed for evermore." ( W. G. Blaikie, D. D. ) Psalm singing A. Whyte, D. D. Would you know? asks William Law, in his beautiful chapter on singing psalms — would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? Well, it is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives most alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, and who receives everything as an instance of God's goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for His goodness. And then Law winds up with this, and I wish it would send you all to the golden works of that grace-laden writer: Sometimes, he adds, imagine to yourselves that you saw holy David with his hands upon his harp, and his eyes fixed" upon heaven, calling in transport upon all creation, sun and moon, light and darkness, day and night, men and angels, to join with his rapturous soul in praising the Lord of heaven. Dwell upon this imagination till you think you are singing with this Divine musician; and let such a companion teach you to exalt your heart unto God every new morning in his thanksgiving psalms. Or make a morning psalm suitable to your own circumstance out of David's great thanksgiving psalms. You should take the finest and the selectest parts of David's finest and selectest psalms, and adding them together make them every morning more and more fit to express your own thankful hearts. ( A. Whyte, D. D. ) Abundant cause for thanksgiving Christian Endeavour Times. Max O'Rell has well and wittily said that people are divided into two classes — those who complain that roses have thorns and those who rejoice that thorns have roses. We know to which class we ought to belong. Let us make most of our mercies. God is a great God, and His gifts are like Himself, and more than can be numbered. The Rev. Mark Guy Pearse tells us that, when going home from a meeting once on a starlit night, and wishing to have a little quiet to think, he gave his little girl, who was with him, the task of counting the stars, knowing this would be a task long enough until they reached home, and longer. He heard her count into the third hundred, then she stopped, and he heard her say, "Dear me! I never thought they were so many!" "And so," he said — and we can say it with him — "when I begin to count" my mercies and the kindnesses of my God, I am surprised, and have to say I never thought they were so many until I began to count them." ( Christian Endeavour Times. ) The Lord is my Rock and my Fortress. 2 Samuel 22:2, 3 God our Rock H. W. Beecher. A great mountain lifts itself up, with perpendicular face, over against some quiet valley; and when summer thunders with great storms, the cliff echoes the thunder, and rolls it forth a second time, with majesty increased; and we think that, to be sublime, storms should awaken mountain echoes, and that then cause and effect are worthy of each other. But so, too, an oriole, or a song-sparrow, singing before it, hears its own little song sung back again. A little child, lost and crying in the valley, hears the great cliff weeping just as it weeps; and, in sooth, the mountains repeats whatever is sounded, from the sublimest notes of the tempest to the sweetest bird-whisper or child-weeping; and it is just as easy to do the little as the great, and more beautiful. Now God is our rock, and from His heart is inflected every experience, every feeling of joy or grief that any human soul utters or knows. ( H. W. Beecher. ) He bowed the heavens also and came down. 2 Samuel 22:10-14 Jesus announced In 1808 there was a meeting of the Emperors of France and Russia at Erfurt. There were distinguished men there from other lands. It was so arranged that when any of the Emperors arrived at the door of the reception-room the drum should beat three times; but when a lesser dignitary should come, then the drum would sound but twice. After a while the people in the audience-chamber heard two taps of the drum. They said, "A prince is coming." But after a while there were three taps, and they cried, "The Emperor!" Oh, there is a more glorious arrival at your soul to-night. The drum beats twice at the coming of the lesser joys and congratulations of your soul; but it beats once, twice, thrice, at the coming in of a glorious King — Jesus the Saviour, Jesus the God. I congratulate you. All are yours — things present and things to come. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) God comes, to our succour J. Robertson. "God lives," that is the armour that David had. You cannot see it; it does not glisten in the sun; but he has it; God is with him. There are two sovereigns who never move from their capitals. The Pope sticks to the Vatican — it is papal etiquette; and the Sultan, he has remained for fifteen years within the bounds of his capital — it is Mahommedan etiquette. But God is not like that. God, as it were, leaves high heaven, and He has betaken" Himself to this young David's side. Oh, warrior for Christ, why should you be downhearted? Why should you be sad? Why should not your vision be glorified so that you can behold the horses and the chariots of the living God? In the battle against sin: the armour you have is the consciousness of the living God. David knows God. ( J. Robertson. ) He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. 2 Samuel 22:17 Progress from above A. T. Pierson, D. D. All real progress is from God. There is no little truth in the observation of Mephistopheles "that the human mind merely advances spirally, and reverts to a spot close to its origin." Dr. R. D. Hitch-cock says: "In all human advancement, the motive power has not been a force in man, lifting him upward, or on the earthward side, driving him onward, but the movement has been along an inclined plane, due to an engine drawing from the top. ( A. T. Pierson, D. D. ) Christ a deliverer Newton Jones. I have heard of the following story of a Chinaman who had become a disciple of the Lord Jesus. In explaining to others what Christ had done for him, he put it thus: "It seemed as if I was at the bottom of a pit in great distress crying for help. Buddha passed and said, 'If you crawl up, never get clown again.' Confucius then came to the pit's mouth, and said, 'I have a rope at home that will go two-thirds down the pit, if you can crawl up one-third,' but he left me; then the Lord Jesus, hearing my cry, came quickly to my rescue, put His hand down and helped me out of the pit; put my feet upon a rock, and established my goings; that is what Christ has done for me." ( Newton Jones. ) With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful. 2 Samuel 22:26, 27 God does not forgive the unforgiving You say that the desert is a desert, because no rain falls upon it; but this is only half the truth. No rain falls upon it because it is a desert. The heated air rushing up from its arid surface disperses the vapours that would descend in rain. Some moisture there must be on the earth, else there cannot be rain from heaven. So in your heart this forgiving disposition must be, else you cannot rejoice in the fulness of God's forgiving grace. The pardon may wait in the sky for you, but it cannot descend to you until that spirit is in you which was also in Christ Jesus. For Thou art my lamp, O Lord; and the Lord will lighten my darkness. 2 Samuel 22:29 Rejoicing in the light of God The Rev. Dr. Horton, who, after a period of seclusion through trouble with his eyesight, recently returned to his church at Hampstead, related in one of his Sabbath sermons how one day he was in the oculist's consulting-room at Wiesbaden, and as he waited he put his hand into his pocket and drew out his little Bible — not to read it, but to see if he could — and as he opened it his eyes tell on the text in 2 Samuel., "For Thou art my lamp, O Lord: and the Lord will lighten my darkness." "I had not been aware of the very existence of this text, and do not know who but an angel could have led me to it; but I felt that whether I received my sight or not, those words were enough for me, and from that time I seemed to know that I should not die, but live to proclaim the words of this life." Christians' love of the light It is worth noting how plants and trees turn to the light; how bleached vegetation becomes if it be shut up in darkness. The utter dark is dreadful to men, it may even be felt, so does it press upon the mind. The dimness of a foggy day depresses many spirits more than trouble or pain. The cry of the sick man, "Would God it were morning!" is the groan of all healthy life when gloom surrounds it. What, then, can be said, if there be light, and we refuse it? He must have ill work on hand who loves the darkness. Only bats, and owls, and unclean and ravenous things are fond of the night. Children of light walk in the light, and reflect the light. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Light essential for vigorous life What a wonderful effect the light of God's countenance has upon men who have the Divine life in them, but who have been living in the dark! Travellers tell us that, in the vast forests of the Amazon and the Orinoco, you may sometimes see, on a grand scale, the influence Of light in the colouring of the plants when the leaf-buds are developing One says: — "Clouds and rain sometimes obscure the atmosphere for several days together, and during this time the buds expand themselves into leaves. But these leaves have a pallid hue till the sun appears, when in a few hours of dear sky and splendid sunshine, their colour is changed to a vivid green. It has been related that, during twenty days of dark, dull weather, the sun not once making his appearance, the leaves were expanded to their full size, but were almost white. One forenoon the sun began to shine in full brightness, when the colour of the forest changed so rapidly that its progress might be marked. By the middle of the afternoon, the whole, for many miles, presented the usual summer dress." ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Turn your face to the light It had been one of those days on which everything goes contrary, and I had come home tired and discouraged. As I sank into a chair, I groaned, "Everything looks dark, dark." "Why don't you turn your face to the light, auntie, dear?" said my little niece, who was standing unperceived beside me. "Turn your face to the light!" The word sot me thinking. That was just what I had not been doing. I had persistently kept nay face in the opposite direction, refusing to see the faintest glimmer of brightness. Artless little comforter I She did not know what healing she had brought. Years had gone by since then, but the simple words have never been forgotten, "Turn your face to the light." Light and health H. L. Hastings. Sir James Wylie, late physician to the Emperor of Russia, attentively studied the effects of light as a curative agent in the hospital of St. Petersburg, and he discovered that the number of patients who were cured in rosins properly lighted was four times that of those confined in dark room. These different results are due to the agency of light, without a full supply of which plants and animals maintain but a sickly and feeble existence. Light is the cheapest and best of all medicines. Nervous ailments yield to the power of sunshine. Pallid faces grow fresh and ruddy beneath its glow. The sun's rays have wonderful purifying power. ( H. L. Hastings. ) As for God, His way is perfect; the Word of the Lord is tried; He is a Buckler to all them that trust in Him. 2 Samuel 22:31 God's way perfect T. Dale, M. A. We have, in the words of our text — first, the perfection of God's way — next, the purity of God's Word — and, lastly, the privilege of God's people. I. THE ESSENTIAL PERFECTION OF A "WAY" IS THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF ITS END; the contingent or relative perfection is the accomplishment of the end, with the utmost attainable extent of benefit, and with the least practicable amount of difficulty. Of the first, so far as both God and man are concerned, we are competent to judge; on the second, we can only form a judgment of beings endued and encumbered with like passions as ourselves. It is of the first that David speaks. He found himself, after the lapse of many years, after the endurance of many privations and persecutions, in full possession of all that the Lord had promised, delivered out of the hand of all His enemies, and exalted, from following the sheep, to be governor over God's people Israel. He remembers and records, indeed, that "the waves of death compassed him, the floods of ungodly men made him afraid." But this is a grateful commemoration, not an insinuated complaint. Hence, then, we infer, that we are in danger of falling into error, when we look upon the dispensations of God as an insulated or individual case. With the destinies of David, we cannot doubt, were interwoven those of many others, with whose instruction, deliverance, or confirmation in the faith, his trials and persecutions might be intimately and indissolubly connected. Whatever portion may be allotted to those who serve God, of that chastening, which "for the present seemeth not to be joyous, but grievous," they possess, if not a clue to all God's dealings, that which will be at least a balm, and a solace, and a support, under all trials, in the single emphatic assurance — "As for God, His way is perfect." He proportions the endurance to the issue, and adapts the way to the end — to many ends, for "we are members one of another." II. THE PURITY OF GOD'S WORD. We do not here speak, however, of moral purity in its application to man's righteousness, but of the abiding excellence, the inviolable faithfulness of the Word, in reference to God Himself. None of God's people will, on reflection, ever find cause to question the purity of His Word, the integrity of His promise. And the principle on which I ground the assertion, is simply this — "The end of faith "is" "the salvation of the soul;" this is the one great object, which must be pursued through all difficulties and accomplished at all sacrifices; a true believer, therefore, can only then begin to doubt — on reflection, at least — when he is placed in circumstances, of which he can positively say, "These cannot minister either to my salvation, or to the salvation of any other living soul." Now, this cannot be affirmed even of entanglement in sin; for, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another," exhorted the apostle James, "that ye may be healed" — the inference from which is that the acknowledgment of a fault may instrumentally confer a great benefit upon another than the commission of it has inflicted injury upon the believer himself. III. WHAT IS THE NECESSARY CONCLUSION FROM SUCH PREMISES — the privilege of God's people. "He is a buckler to all them that trust in Him." Nothing, it would appear, could be more simple, nothing could be more reasonable. than the essential condition, imposed on all such as would be saved, of an entire and implicit trust in God; nothing more simple, from the very nature of the case — nothing more reasonable, from the impossibility of the opposite. "Hath God said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" Who can even conceive of a God all power, unable — or of a God all love, unwilling — to redeem His pledge, and to accomplish His purpose? We are called, however, on the present occasion to consider the gain, the incalculable gain of those who trust God. Trust is active. The proof of it lies in action. Action is the element which is essential to its existence. He who trusts God must try at least to serve Him; otherwise trust were nothing better than presumption. And there are some who do not trust because they do not try. Religion is with them no effort, no struggle, no conflict, no sacrifice. They recite articles of faith, they respond to the utterance of prayer, they listen to the preaching of the Gospel; and then they return into the world with undiminished relish of its vanities — not, as they ought, with a livelier perception of its emptiness, and an increased repugnance to its pollutions, and a more settled abhorrence of its sins. Such men do not trust God — men whose religion is but a Sabbath parade. They cannot trust Him. They have no right to trust Him; there are no portions of His Word on which to ground their trust; for the tenour of the Scripture promises supposes consistency of life. Let me, then, exhort you to settle at once the unspeakably momentous point whether you trust God; and not only so, but whether you are warranted in trusting Him — whether it is your endeavour to walk in His "perfect way," and your desire to repose full confidence in His pure and inviolable Word. It is no time to commence all this when we are involved in calamity. Then is the time to profit by what we have already learnt — not to enter upon that lesson for the acquirement of which a whole life might be far too brief. It rests with every individual hearer to "examine himself whether he be in the faith," to "prove his own self," ( T. Dale, M. A. ) The Lord the Christian's Buckler J. H. Jowett, M. A. It suggests a perfect equipment. A soldier may be endowed with strength and robustness, and yet may have most ineffective armour. During the recent war our soldiers in South Africa were possessed by a spirit of splendid courage; their strength and nerve were irreproachable; but many of their weapons were comparatively useless. What is the use of a strong arm with a flimsy sword? Or what is the use of a keen eye with an imperfect gun? On the other hand, a soldier may have a perfect weapon, and yet be possessed of most inadequate strength. A besieged garrison may have splendid military equipment, and yet in the process of a long siege they may be so impoverished in body as to be reduced to absolute impotence, And so I say a soldier needs the two-fold gift; he requires health and armour, the strength and the shield. And so the Psalmist magnifies his God, because He endows the soul with a full sufficiency both of strength and armour. There is nothing which I require which I cannot find in God. In Him my defence and security are complete. ( J. H. Jowett, M. A. ) God's way Homilist. I. THE "WAY" HE PRESCRIBES IS "PERFECT." He prescribes a way, a course of action, for all the creatures He has made, animate and inanimate, rational and irrational. The stars, the oceans, insects, brutes, and souls of every kind, from the least to the greatest, have each their "way" marked out, and the highest science attests that the way is "perfect." But the course or the way which is prescribed for man is what the writer refers to. 1. The way which is prescribed for our moral conduct is "perfect." 2. The way that is prescribed for our spiritual restoration is "perfect." What is the way? Here it is: "What the law could not do," etc.; "God so loved the world," etc. Faith in Christ is the prescribed way. This way is "perfect" in its wisdom; it is in every way adapted ."Perfect" in its justice; it honours the righteousness of God. "Perfect" in its sufficiency; it is adequate to the needs of each man, and all. II. THE WAY HE PURSUES IS "PERFECT." God has a method of action. He acts not by caprice or impulse, but by a settled eternal plan. 1. His method of procedure is "perfect" in conception. We have not the full draft of this plan — an infinitesimal section only comes under our eye. The architect of the great building presents you with a whole plan, and you may understand it and see the superstructure on the paper. Thus God has not acted; and if He had given us the whole plan we could not have scanned the millionth part. What we see, however, we feel to be "perfect." 2. His method of procedure is "perfect in execution." What His infinite benevolence promoted and His infinite wisdom conceived, His almightiness carries out with almost perfection. A conviction of the perfection of God's way(1) Is essential to our well-being. Without this we cannot supremely love and trust Him.(2) Is the most attainable of beliefs. Our reason,, conscience, Bible, observation, and experience all concur in urging on the soul this the grandest of all conclusions.(3) Must flash on every sinner's nature sooner or later. If not here in the day of grace, yonder in the period of retribution. This conviction flashing on the corrupt soul in eternity, is the hell of the lost. The soul burns with anguish as it rolls and rolls in the great thought, "As for God, His ways are perfect." ( Homilist. ) God's way perfect Canon Miller This chapter is almost identical word for word with the eighteenth psalm. We may regard this chapter, and the eighteenth Psalm, as a vocal Ebenezer; and in this way it is very touching to give heed to the testimonies of an aged saint of God as he thus erects his Ebenezer, and in the second and third verse pours forth the rapturous utterances of a grateful heart. Among the conclusions to which David had been drawn, is that which is presented to us in the simple but pregnant words of the text. I. THE WORKS OF GOD REGARDED AS THE CREATOR. In this respect we hesitate not to affirm that the words of the Psalmist are fully applicable, and that "His way is perfect." Now, of course, in affirming that God's way as Creator is perfect, we must bear in mind that we are not in a position to see into the whole of this matter. Unquestionably, before we can utter this sentiment with our hearts we must have learned the lesson of faith. Our knowledge of creation is very limited. Our philosophers are still arguing as to the plurality or the non-plurality of worlds; they are still discussing such fundamental subjects as the antiquity of man and the origin of species; and with regard to our own world, it is a common proverb among us that nothing on earth is perfect. And yet the searches and the conclusions of modern science are only revealing, we hesitate not to affirm, greater wonders, and those wonders are increasingly exhibiting the perfection of God s laws. And thus, whether we take the eye or whether we take the hand, we have the meat striking evidences of design and of adaptation — evidences enough to lead us, if we are modest and candid and reverent, to this conclusion — that if we knew more, and if other organs of the body and if other elements of man's nature were as clearly opened up to us as have been the organ of the eye, and the member of the hand, we should be still more strikingly and irresistibly brought to the conclusion with regard even to the creation, "As for God, His way is perfect." II. BUT THE DECLARATION OF OUR TEXT IS NOT LESS TRUE IN REFERENCE TO GOD AS THE GOD OF PROVIDENCE. In reference to His providential dealings, most unquestionably David's testimony was that God's way is perfect; and indeed this is the point in the psalm. Now consider this for a few moments in connection with the world. The aspect in which a man of faith and a man of this world regard all that is passing around them is as different as light can be from darkness. But "as for God, His way is perfect" in the Church. We do not see the bearing of the means upon the end. We do not, for instance, understand how it is that the tares and the wheat are permitted to grow together. We do not understand how it is that from the very beginning, from the very earliest years down to the days in which we live, whenever there has been the slightest activity or energy put forth on the part of God's people, when the Church has not been fast asleep, there have arisen grave and deadly heresies, and the Church of Christ is constantly witnessing it. In our own land, even in the lifetime of most of the persons to whom I am preaching, at the very time when everything seemed ready for the Church to advance on her great aggressive work against the heathenism that was around her, to rise to her position as the evangelist of distant nations, and to delve into the courts and alleys, and to go down into the cellars and to climb the garrets in our own heathen England; when the Church seemed ready to gird herself to this work, and faithful ministers were raised up, there has come some blight, of deadly heresy upon us, and we have been constrained to enter into controversy even with our own brethren, with men bearing the ministry of our own Church. All this is most mysterious; we do not understand it; we cannot justify the ways of God to man fully. All we can say is this, that the anticipation of faith which enables us to bear a testimony even now in the words of David, is, that when all is wound up we shall assuredly discern that in dealing with His Church, as the God of Providence, the way of God has been perfect. III. LASTLY, HIS WAY IS PERFECT AS A WAY OF SALVATION. Here again faith must come in. We are surrounded by depths on every side. What is the mystery at the bottom of it all? Archbishop Whately has said, and said truly, that the entrance of moral evil into the world is very nearly the only difficulty in theology. If you and I could understand how it is that there

Benson Commentary 2 Samuel 22:1 And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: 2 Samuel 22:2 And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; 2 Samuel 22:3 The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence. 2 Samuel 22:4 I will call on the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. 2 Samuel 22:5 When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; 2 Samuel 22:6 The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me; 2 Samuel 22:7 In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears. 2 Samuel 22:8 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth. 2 Samuel 22:9 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. 2 Samuel 22:10 He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet. 2 Samuel 22:11 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind. 2 Samuel 22:12 And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies. 2 Samuel 22:13 Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled. 2 Samuel 22:14 The LORD thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice. 2 Samuel 22:15 And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them. 2 Samuel 22:16 And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. 2 Samuel 22:17 He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters; 2 Samuel 22:18 He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me. 2 Samuel 22:19 They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay. 2 Samuel 22:20 He brought me forth also into a large place: he delivered me, because he delighted in me. 2 Samuel 22:21 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. 2 Samuel 22:22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 2 Samuel 22:23 For all his judgments were before me: and as for his statutes, I did not depart from them. 2 Samuel 22:24 I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity. 2 Samuel 22:25 Therefore the LORD hath recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight. 2 Samuel 22:26 With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful, and with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright. 2 Samuel 22:27 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury. 2 Samuel 22:28 And the afflicted people thou wilt save: but thine eyes are upon the haughty, that thou mayest bring them down. 2 Samuel 22:29 For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness. 2 Samuel 22:30 For by thee I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall. 2 Samuel 22:31 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him. 2 Samuel 22:32 For who is God, save the LORD? and who is a rock, save our God? 2 Samuel 22:33 God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect. 2 Samuel 22:34 He maketh my feet like hinds' feet : and setteth me upon my high places. 2 Samuel 22:35 He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. 2 Samuel 22:36 Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy gentleness hath made me great. 2 Samuel 22:37 Thou hast enlarged my steps under me; so that my feet did not slip. 2 Samuel 22:38 I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them; and turned not again until I had consumed them. 2 Samuel 22:39 And I have consumed them, and wounded them, that they could not arise: yea, they are fallen under my feet. 2 Samuel 22:40 For thou hast girded me with strength to battle: them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me. 2 Samuel 22:41 Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. 2 Samuel 22:42 They looked, but there was none to save; even unto the LORD, but he answered them not. 2 Samuel 22:43 Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad. 2 Samuel 22:44 Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people, thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen: a people which I knew not shall serve me. 2 Samuel 22:45 Strangers shall submit themselves unto me: as soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me. 2 Samuel 22:46 Strangers shall fade away, and they shall be afraid out of their close places. 2 Samuel 22:47 The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation. 2 Samuel 22:48 It is God that avengeth me, and that bringeth down the people under me, 2 Samuel 22:49 And that bringeth me forth from mine enemies: thou also hast lifted me up on high above them that rose up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man. 2 Samuel 22:50 Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name. 2 Samuel 22:51 He is the tower of salvation for his king: and sheweth mercy to his anointed, unto David, and to his seed for evermore. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary 2 Samuel 22:1 And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: CHAPTER XXX. THE SONG OF THANKSGIVING. 2 Samuel 22:1-51 . SOME of David's actions are very characteristic of himself; there are other actions quite out of harmony with his character. This psalm of thanksgiving belongs to the former order. It is quite like David; at the conclusion of his military enterprises, to cast his eye gratefully over the whole, and acknowledge the goodness and mercy that had followed him all along. Unlike many, he was as careful to thank God for mercies past and present as to entreat Him for mercies to come. The whole Book of Psalms resounds with halleluiahs, especially the closing part. In the song before us we have something like a grand halleluiah, in which thanks are given for all the deliverances and mercies of the past, and unbounded confidence expressed in God's mercy and goodness for the time to come. The date of this song is not to be determined by the place which it occupies in the history. We have already seen that the last few chapters of Samuel consist of supplementary narratives, not introduced at their regular places, but needful to give completeness to the history. It is likely that this psalm was written considerably before the end of David's reign. Two considerations make it all but certain that its date is earlier than Absalom's rebellion. In the first place, the mention of the name of Saul in the first verse - "in the day when God delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul" - would seem to imply that the deliverance from Saul was somewhat recent, certainly not so remote as it would have been at the end of David's reign. And secondly, while the affirmation of David's sincerity and honesty in serving God might doubtless have been made at any period of his life, yet some of his expressions would not have been likely to be used after his deplorable fall. It is not likely that after that, he would have spoken, for example, of the cleanness of his hands, stained as they had been by wickedness that could hardly have been surpassed. On the whole, it seems most likely that the psalm was written about the time referred to in 2 Samuel 7:1 - "when the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies round about." This was the time when it was in his heart to build the temple, and we know from that and other circumstances that he was then in a state of overflowing thankfulness. Besides the introduction, the song consists of three leading parts not very definitely separated from each other, but sufficiently marked to form a convenient division, as follows: I. Introduction: the leading thought of the song, an adoring acknowledgment of what God had been and was to David ( 2 Samuel 22:2-4 ). II. A narrative of the Divine interpositions on his behalf, embracing his dangers, his prayers, and the Divine deliverances in reply ( 2 Samuel 22:5-19 ). III. The grounds of his protection and success ( 2 Samuel 22:20-30 ). IV. References to particular acts of God's goodness in various parts of his life, interspersed with reflections on the Divine character, from all which the assurance is drawn that that goodness would be continued to him and his successors, and would secure through coming ages the welfare and extension of the kingdom. And here we observe what is so common in the Psalms: a gradual rising above the idea of a mere earthly kingdom; the type passes into the antitype; the kingdom of David melts, as in a dissolving view, into the kingdom of the Messiah; thus a more elevated tone is given to the song, and the assurance is conveyed to every believer that as God protected David and his kingdom, so shall He protect and glorify the kingdom of His Son forever. I. In the burst of adoring gratitude with which the psalm opens as its leading thought, we mark David's recognition of Jehovah as the source of all the protection, deliverance, and success he had ever enjoyed, along with a special assertion of closest relationship to Him, in the frequent use of the word "my," and a very ardent acknowledgment of the claim to his gratitude thus arising - "God, who is worthy to be praised." The feeling that recognized God as the Author of all his deliverances was intensely strong, for every expression that can denote it is heaped together: "My rock, my portion, my deliverer; the God of my rock, my shield; the horn of my salvation, my high tower, my refuge, my Saviour." He takes no credit to himself; he gives no glory to his captains; the glory is all the Lord's. He sees God so supremely the Author of his deliverance that the human instruments that helped him are for the moment quite out of view. He who, in the depths of his penitence, sees but one supremely injured Being, and says, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned," at the height of his prosperity sees but one gracious Being, and adores Him, who only is his rock and his salvation. In an age when all the stress is apt to be laid on the human instruments, and God left out of view, this habit of mind is instructive and refreshing. It was a touching incident in English history when, after the battle of Agincourt, Henry V. of England directed the hundred and fifteenth Psalm to be sung; prostrating himself on the ground, and causing his whole army to do the same, when the words were sounded out, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give glory." The emphatic use of the pronoun "my" by the Psalmist is very instructive. It is so easy to speak in general terms of what God is, and what God does; but it is quite another thing to be able to appropriate Him as ours, and rejoice in that relation. Luther said of the twenty-third Psalm that the word '"my" in the first verse was the very hinge of the whole. There is a whole world of difference between the two expressions, "The Lord is a Shepherd" and "The Lord is my Shepherd." The use of the "my" indicates a personal transaction, a covenant relation into which the parties have solemnly entered. No man is entitled to use this expression who has merely a reverential feeling towards God, and respect for His will. You must have come to God as a sinner, owning and feeling your unworthiness, and casting yourself on His grace. You must have transacted with God in the spirit of His exhortation, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will be a Father unto you; and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." One other point has to be noticed in this introduction - when David comes to express his dependence on God, he very specially sets Him before his mind as "worthy to be praised." He calls to mind the gracious character of God, - not an austere God, reaping where He has not sown, and gathering where He has not strawed, but "the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." "This doctrine," says Luther, "is in tribulation the most ennobling and truly golden. One cannot imagine what assistance such praise of God is in pressing danger. For as soon as you begin to praise God the sense of the evil will also begin to abate, the comfort of your heart will grow; and then God will be called on with confidence. There are some who cry to the Lord and are not heard. Why is this? Because they do not praise the Lord when they cry to Him, but go to Him with reluctance; they have not represented to themselves how sweet the Lord is, but have looked only to their own bitterness. But no one gets deliverance from evil by looking simply upon his evil and becoming alarmed at it; he can get deliverance only by rising above his evil, hanging it on God, and having respect to His goodness. Oh, hard counsel, doubtless, and a rare thing truly, in the midst of trouble to conceive of God as sweet, and worthy to be praised; and when He has removed Himself from us and is incomprehensible, even then to regard Him more intensely than we regard our misfortune that keeps us from Him I Only let one try it, and make the endeavour to praise God, though in little heart for it he will soon experience an enlightenment." II. We pass on to the part of the song where the Psalmist describes his trials and God's deliverances in his times of danger ( 2 Samuel 22:5-20 ). The description is eminently poetical. First, there is a vivid picture of his troubles. "The waves of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; the sorrows of hell compassed me; the snares of death prevented me" ("The cords of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid; the cords of sheol were round about me; the snares of death came upon me," R.V.). It is no overcharged picture. With Saul's javelins flying at his head in the palace, or his best troops scouring the wilderness in search of him; with Syrian hosts bearing down on him like the waves of the sea, and a confederacy of nations conspiring to swallow him up, he might well speak of the waves of death and the cords of Hades. He evidently desires to describe the extremist peril and distress that can be conceived, a situation where the help of man is vain indeed. Then, after a brief account of his calling upon God, comes a most animated description of God coming to his help. The description is ideal, but it gives a vivid view how the Divine energy is roused when any of God's children are in distress. It is in heaven as in an earthly home when an alarm is given that one of the little children is in danger, has wandered away into a thicket where he has lost his way: every servant is summoned, every passer-by is called to the rescue, the whole neighbourhood is roused to the most strenuous efforts; so when the cry reached heaven that David was in trouble, the earthquake and the lightning and all the other messengers of heaven were sent out to his aid; nay, these were not enough; God Himself flew, riding on a cherub, yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind. Faith saw God bestirring Himself for his deliverance, as if every agency of nature had been set in motion on his behalf. And this being done, his deliverance was conspicuous and complete. He saw God's hand stretched out with remarkable distinctness. There could be no more doubt that it was God that rescued him from Saul than that it was He that snatched Israel from Pharaoh when literally " the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils." There could be no more doubt that it was God who protected David when men rose to swallow him up than that it was He who drew Moses from the Nile - "He sent from above, He took me. He drew me out of many waters." No miracles had been wrought on David's behalf; unlike Moses and Joshua before him, and unlike Elijah and Elisha after him, he had not had the laws of nature suspended for his protection; yet he could see the hand of God stretched out for him as clearly as if a miracle had been wrought at every turn. Does this not show that ordinary Christians, if they are but careful to watch, and humble enough to watch in a chastened spirit, may find in their history, however quietly it may have glided by, many a token of the interest and care of their Father in heaven? And what a blessed thing to have accumulated through life a store of such providences - to have Ebenezers reared along the whole line of one's history! What courage after looking over such a past might one feel in looking forward to the future! III. The next section of the song sets forth the grounds on which the Divine protection was thus enjoyed by David. Substantially these grounds were the uprightness and faithfulness with which he had served God. The expressions are strong, and at first sight they have a flavour of self-righteousness. "The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His judgments were before me, and I put not away His statutes from me. I was also perfect with Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity." But it is impossible to read this Psalm without feeling that it is not pervaded by the spirit of the self-righteous man. It is pervaded by a profound sense of dependence on God, and of obligation to His mercy and love. Now that is the very opposite of the self-righteous spirit. We may surely find another way of accounting for such expressions used by David here. We may surely believe that all that was meant by him was to express the unswerving sincerity and earnestness with which he had endeavoured to serve God, with which he had resisted every temptation to conscious unfaithfulness, with which he had resisted every allurement to idolatry on the one hand or to the neglect of the welfare of God's nation on the other. What he here celebrates is, not any personal righteousness that might enable him as an individual to claim the favour and reward of God, but the ground on which he, as the public champion of God's cause before the world, enjoyed God's countenance and obtained His protection. There would be no self-righteousness in an inferior officer of the navy or the army who had been sent on some expedition saying, "I obeyed your instructions in every particular; I never deviated from the course you prescribed." There would have been no self-righteousness in such a man as Luther saying, "I constantly maintained the principles of the Bible; I never once abandoned Protestant ground." Such affirmations would never be held to imply a claim of personal sinlessness during the whole course of their lives. Substantially all that is asserted is, that in their public capacity they proved faithful to the cause entrusted to them; they never consciously betrayed their public charge. Now it is this precisely that David affirms of himself. Unlike Saul, who abandoned the law of the kingdom, David uniformly endeavoured to carry it into effect. The success which followed he does not claim as any credit to himself, but as due to his having followed the instructions of his heavenly Lord. It is the very opposite of a self-righteous spirit. He would have us understand that if ever he had abandoned the guidance of God, if ever he had relied on his own wisdom and followed the counsels of his own heart, everything would have gone wrong with him; the fact that he had been successful was due altogether to the Divine wisdom that guided and the Divine strength that upheld him. Even with this explanation, some of the expressions may seem too strong. How could he speak of the cleanness of his hands, and of his not having wickedly departed from his God? Granting that the song was written before his sin in the case of Uriah, yet remembering how he had lied at Nob and equivocated at Gath, might he not have used less sweeping words? But it is not the way of burning, enthusiastic minds to be forever weighing their words, and guarding against misunderstandings. Enthusiasm sweeps along in a rapid current. And David correctly describes the prevailing features of his public endeavours. His public life was unquestionably marked by a sincere and commonly successful endeavour to follow the will of God. In contrast with Saul and Ishbosheth, side by side with Absalom or Sheba, his career was purity itself, and bore out the rule of the Divine government, "With the merciful Thou wilt show Thyself merciful, and with the upright man Thou wilt show Thyself upright. With the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure, and with the froward Thou wilt show Thyself unsavoury." If God is to prosper us, there must be an inner harmony between us and Him. If the habit of our life be opposed to God, the result can only be collision and rebuke. David was conscious of the inner harmony, and therefore he was able to rely on being supported and blessed. IV. In the wide survey of his life and of his providential mercies, the eye of the Psalmist is particularly fixed on some of his deliverances, in the remembrance of which he specially praises God. One of the earliest appears to be recalled in the words, "By my God have I leaped over a wall," - the wall, it may be supposed, of Gibeah, down which Michal let him when Saul sent to take him in his house. Still further back, perhaps, in his life is the allusion in another expression - "Thy gentleness hath made me great" He seems to go back to his shepherd life, and in the gentleness with which he dealt with the feeble lamb that might have perished in rougher hands to find an emblem of God's method with himself. If God had not dealt gently with him, he never would have become what he was. The Divine gentleness had made paths easy that rougher treatment would have made intolerable. And who of us that looks back but must own our obligations to the gentleness of God, the tender, forbearing, nay loving, treatment He has bestowed on us, even in the midst of provocations that would have justified far harsher treatment? But what? Can David praise God’s gentleness and in the next words utter such terrible words against his foes? How can he extol God's gentleness to him and immediately dwell on his tremendous severity to them? "I have consumed them and wounded them that they could not arise; yea, they are fallen under my feet. . . . Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad." It is the military spirit which we have so often observed, looking on his enemies in one light only, as identified with everything evil and enemies of all that was good. To show mercy to them would be like showing mercy to destructive wild beasts, raging bears, venomous serpents, and rapacious vultures. Mercy to them would be cruelty to all God's servants; it would be ruin to God's cause. No! for them the only fit doom was destruction, and that destruction he had dealt to them with no unsparing hand. But while we perceive his spirit, and harmonize it with his general character, we cannot but regard it as the spirit of one who was imperfectly enlightened. We tremble when we think what fearful wickedness persecutors and inquisitors have committed, under the idea that the same course was to be followed against those whom they deemed enemies of the cause of God. We rejoice in the Christian spirit that teaches us to regard even public enemies as our brothers, for whom individually kindly and brotherly feelings are to be cherished. And we remember the new aspect in which our relations to such have been placed by our Lord: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." In the closing verses of the Psalm, the views of the Psalmist seem to sweep beyond the limits of an earthly kingdom. His eye seems to embrace the wide-spreading dominion of Messiah; at all events, he dwells on those features of his own kingdom that were typical of the all-embracing kingdom of the Gospel: "Thou hast made me the head of the nations; a people whom I have not known shall serve me. As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me; the strangers shall submit themselves unto me." The forty-ninth verse is quoted by St. Paul ( Romans 15:9 ) as a proof that in the purpose of God the salvation of Christ was designed for Gentiles as well as Jews. "It is beyond doubt," says Luther, "that the wars and victories of David prefigured the passion and resurrection of Christ." At the same time, he admits that it is very doubtful how far the Psalm applies to Christ, and how far to David, and he declines to press the type to particulars. But we may surely apply the concluding words to David's Son: "He showeth loving-kindness to his anointed, to David and to his seed for evermore." It is interesting to mark the military aspect of the kingdom gliding into the missionary. Other psalms bring out more clearly this missionary element, exhibit David rejoicing in the widening limits of his kingdom, in the wider diffusion of the knowledge of the true God, and in the greater happiness and prosperity accruing to men. And yet, perhaps, his views on the subject were comparatively dim; he may have been disposed to identify the conquests of the sword and the conquests of the truth instead of regarding the one as but typical of the other. The visions and revelations of his later years seem to have thrown new light on this glorious subject, and though not immediately, yet ultimately, to have convinced him that truth, righteousness, and meekness were to be the conquering weapons of Messiah's reign. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.