
Text -- Psalms 18:4 (NET)




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collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)
Dangerous and deadly troubles.

Wesley: Psa 18:4 - -- Their multitude, and strength, and violent assaults, breaking in upon me like a flood.
Their multitude, and strength, and violent assaults, breaking in upon me like a flood.
Literally, "bands as of a net" (Psa 116:3).
Clarke: Psa 18:4 - -- The sorrows of death compassed me - חבלי מות chebley maveth , the cables or cords of death. He was almost taken in those nets or stratagems ...
The sorrows of death compassed me -

Clarke: Psa 18:4 - -- The floods of ungodly men - Troops of wicked men were rushing upon him like an irresistible torrent; or like the waves of the sea, one impelling ano...
The floods of ungodly men - Troops of wicked men were rushing upon him like an irresistible torrent; or like the waves of the sea, one impelling another forward in successive ranks; so that, thinking he must be overwhelmed by them, he was for the moment affrighted; but God turned the torrent aside, and he escaped.
Calvin -> Psa 18:4
Calvin: Psa 18:4 - -- 4.The cords 394 of death had compassed me about. David now begins to recount the undoubted and illustrious proofs by which he had experienced that ...
4.The cords 394 of death had compassed me about. David now begins to recount the undoubted and illustrious proofs by which he had experienced that the hand of God is sufficiently strong and powerful to repel all the dangers and calamities with which he may be assailed. And we need not wonder that those things which might have been described more simply, and in an unadorned style, are clothed in poetical forms of expression, and set forth with all the elegancies and ornaments of language. The Holy Spirit, to contend against and make an impression upon the wicked and perverse dispositions of men, has here furnished David with eloquence full of majesty, energy, and wonderful power, to awaken mankind to consider the benefits of God. There is scarcely any assistance God bestows, however evident and palpable it may be to our senses, which our indifference or proud disdain does not obscure. David, therefore, the more effectually to move and penetrate our minds, says that the deliverance and succor which God had granted him had been conspicuous in the whole frame-work of the world. This his intention it is needful for us to take into view, lest we should think that he exceeds due bounds in expressing himself in a style so remarkable for sublimity. The sum is, that, when in his distresses he had been reduced to extremity, he had betaken himself to God for help, and had been wonderfully preserved.
TSK -> Psa 18:4
TSK: Psa 18:4 - -- sorrows : Psa 116:3; 2Sa 22:5, 2Sa 22:6; Isa 13:8, Isa 53:3, Isa 53:4; Mat 26:38, Mat 26:39; Mar 14:33, Mar 14:34; 2Co 1:9
floods : Psa 22:12, Psa 22:...

collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)
Barnes -> Psa 18:4
Barnes: Psa 18:4 - -- The sorrows of death compassed me - Surrounded me. That is, he was in imminent danger of death, or in the midst of such pangs and sorrows as ar...
The sorrows of death compassed me - Surrounded me. That is, he was in imminent danger of death, or in the midst of such pangs and sorrows as are supposed commonly to attend on death. He refers probably to some period in his past life - perhaps in the persecutions of Saul - when he was so beset with troubles and difficulties that it seemed to him that he must die. The word rendered "sorrows"-
And the floods of ungodly men - Margin, as in Hebrew, "Belial."The word "Belial"means properly "without use or profit;"and then worthless, abandoned, wicked. It is applied to wicked men as being "worthless"to society, and to all the proper ends of life. Though the term here undoubtedly refers to "wicked"men, yet it refers to them as being worthless or abandoned - low, common, useless to mankind. The word rendered floods -
Poole -> Psa 18:4
Poole: Psa 18:4 - -- The sorrows of death i.e. dangerous and deadly troubles. Or, the bands or cords of death , which had almost seized me, and was putting its bands upo...
The sorrows of death i.e. dangerous and deadly troubles. Or, the bands or cords of death , which had almost seized me, and was putting its bands upon me. Compare Psa 73:4 .
The floods of ungodly men their great multitudes, and strength, and violent assaults, breaking in upon me like a flood.
Haydock -> Psa 18:4
Haydock: Psa 18:4 - -- There. Symmachus joins this with the preceding. "Will announce knowledge. Not by words or speeches, the sounds of which are not heard," so as to b...
There. Symmachus joins this with the preceding. "Will announce knowledge. Not by words or speeches, the sounds of which are not heard," so as to be understood. (Haydock) ---
"They are not languages or words, the signification of which is unknown;" or Hebrew, "never has their voice been heard." Beli, "not," may also signify absque, "without;" and thus we may render, "no speeches, (or country) where their voice has not been heard." (Berthier) ---
The sight of the heavens is sufficient to convince any one of the existence of God. (Haydock) ---
No nation, however barbarous, can plead ignorance. The Fathers have explained this of the gift of tongues, by means of which the apostles spoke languages which they had not studied, Acts ii. 4. (St. Augustine, &c.) ---
Some of every nation have heard, (Worthington) or will embrace, (Haydock) the Christian religion. (Worthington)
Gill -> Psa 18:4
Gill: Psa 18:4 - -- The sorrows of death compassed me,.... These words and the following, in this verse and Psa 18:5, as they respect David, show the snares that were lai...
The sorrows of death compassed me,.... These words and the following, in this verse and Psa 18:5, as they respect David, show the snares that were laid for his life, the danger of death he was in, and the anxiety of mind he was possessed of on account of it; and as they refer to Christ, include all the sorrows of his life to the time of his death, who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief personally, and bore and carried the sorrows and griefs of all his people; and may chiefly intend his sorrows in the garden, arising from a view of the sins of his people, which he was about to bear upon the cross; and from an apprehension of the wrath of God, and curse of the law, which he was going to sustain for them, when his soul was
"distress has encompassed me, as a woman that sits upon the stool, and has no strength to bring forth, and is in danger of dying.''
In 2Sa 22:5, it is "the waves" or "breakers of death compassed me"; and the word there used is rendered in Hos 13:13; "the breaking forth of children"; moreover the same word signifies "cords" r, as well as pains and sorrows; and the allusion may be to malefactors being bound with cords when led to execution, and put to death; and may here signify the power of death, under which the Messiah was held for a while, but was loosed from it at his resurrection; to which sense of the word, and to the words here, the Apostle Peter manifestly refers, Act 2:24;
and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; meaning either the multitude of them, as Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and people of the Jews, who all gathered together against him; so the Targum renders it, "a company of wicked men"; or the variety of sufferings he endured by them; as spitting upon, buffering, scourging, &c. The word rendered "ungodly men is Belial"; and signifies vain, worthless, and unprofitable men; men of no figure or account; or lawless ones, such as have cast off the yoke of the law, are not subject to it; persons very wicked and profligate. The word in the New Testament seems to be used for Satan, 2Co 6:15; where it is so rendered in the Syriac version, and he may be designed here; and by the floods of Belial may be meant, not so much the temptations of Satan in the wilderness, as his violent and impetuous attacks upon Christ in the garden, when being in an agony or conflict with him, his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood, Luk 22:44. The Septuagint render the word, "the torrents of iniquity troubled me"; which was true of Christ, when all the sins of his people came flowing in upon him, like mighty torrents, from all quarters; when God laid on him the iniquity of them all, and he was made sin for them; and in a view of all this "he began to be sore amazed", Mar 14:33; compare with this Psa 69:1. Arama interprets Belial of the evil imagination in David, who had a war in himself.

expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes
NET Notes: Psa 18:4 In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. (Note the perfect...
Geneva Bible -> Psa 18:4
Geneva Bible: Psa 18:4 ( c ) The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
( c ) He speaks of the dangers and malice of his enemies from ...

expand allCommentary -- Verse Range Notes
TSK Synopsis -> Psa 18:1-50
MHCC -> Psa 18:1-19
MHCC: Psa 18:1-19 - --The first words, " I will love thee, O Lord, my strength," are the scope and contents of the psalm. Those that truly love God, may triumph in him as ...
Matthew Henry -> Psa 18:1-19
Matthew Henry: Psa 18:1-19 - -- The title gives us the occasion of penning this psalm; we had it before (2Sa 22:1), only here we are told that the psalm was delivered to the chief...
Keil-Delitzsch -> Psa 18:4-6
Keil-Delitzsch: Psa 18:4-6 - --
(Heb.: 18:5-7) In these verses David gathers into one collective figure all the fearful dangers to which he had been exposed during his persecution...
Constable -> Psa 18:1-50; Psa 18:3-28
Constable: Psa 18:1-50 - --Psalm 18
As the title indicates, David wrote this psalm after he had subdued his political enemies and h...
