2 Samuel 22:29-30

22:29 Indeed, ¹  you are my lamp, ²  Lord.

The Lord illumines ³  the darkness around me. ⁴ 

22:30 Indeed, ⁵ with your help ⁶  I can charge ⁷  against an army; ⁸ 

by my God’s power ⁹  I can jump over a wall. ¹⁰ 

¹ tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.

² tc Many medieval Hebrew mss, some LXX mss, and the Syriac Peshitta support reading תָּאִיר (ta’ir, “you cause to shine”) before the words “my lamp.” See Ps 18:28. The metaphor, which likens the Lord to a lamp or light, pictures him as the psalmist’s source of life. For other examples of “lamp” used in this way, see Job 18:6; 21:17; Prov 13:9; 20:20; 24:20. For other examples of “light” as a symbol for life, see Job 3:20; 33:30; Ps 56:13.

³ tc The Lucianic Greek recension and Vulgate understand this verb to be second person rather than third person as in the MT. But this is probably the result of reading the preceding word “Lord” as a vocative under the influence of the vocative in the first part of the verse.

⁴ tn Heb “my darkness.”

⁵ tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.

⁶ tn Heb “by you.”

⁷ tn Heb “I will run.” The imperfect verbal forms in v. 30 indicate the subject’s potential or capacity to perform an action. Though one might expect a preposition to follow the verb here, this need not be the case with the verb רוּץ (ruts; see 1 Sam 17:22). Some emend the Qal to a Hiphil form of the verb and translate, “I put to flight [literally, “cause to run”] an army.”

⁸ tn More specifically, the noun refers to a raiding party or to a contingent of troops (see HALOT 177 s.v. II גְדוּד). The picture of a divinely empowered warrior charging against an army in almost superhuman fashion appears elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 228.

⁹ tn Heb “by my God.”

¹⁰ tn David uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority.