2 Samuel 22:1-11

David Sings to the Lord

22:1 ¹ David sang ²  to the Lord the words of this song when ³  the Lord rescued him from the power ⁴  of all his enemies, including Saul. ⁵  22:2 He said:

“The Lord is my high ridge, ⁶  my stronghold, ⁷  my deliverer.

22:3 My God ⁸  is my rocky summit where I take shelter, ⁹ 

my shield, the horn that saves me, ¹⁰  my stronghold,

my refuge, my savior. You save me from violence! ¹¹ 

22:4 I called ¹²  to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, ¹³ 

and I was delivered from my enemies.

22:5 The waves of death engulfed me;

the currents ¹⁴  of chaos ¹⁵  overwhelmed me. ¹⁶ 

22:6 The ropes of Sheol ¹⁷  tightened around me; ¹⁸ 

the snares of death trapped me. ¹⁹ 

22:7 In my distress I called to the Lord;

I called to my God. ²⁰ 

From his heavenly temple ²¹  he heard my voice;

he listened to my cry for help. ²² 

22:8 The earth heaved and shook; ²³ 

the foundations of the sky ²⁴  trembled. ²⁵ 

They heaved because he was angry.

22:9 Smoke ascended from ²⁶  his nose; ²⁷ 

fire devoured as it came from his mouth; ²⁸ 

he hurled down fiery coals. ²⁹ 

22:10 He made the sky sink ³⁰  as he descended;

a thick cloud was under his feet.

22:11 He mounted ³¹  a winged angel ³²  and flew;

he glided ³³  on the wings of the wind. ³⁴ 

[22:1]  ¹ sn In this long song of thanks, David affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. His experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the song appears in Ps 18.

[22:1]  ² tn Heb “spoke.”

[22:1]  ³ tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”

[22:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “hand.”

[22:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”

[22:2]  ⁶ tn Traditionally “is my rock”; CEV “mighty rock”; TEV “is my protector.” This metaphor pictures God as a rocky, relatively inaccessible summit, where one would be able to find protection from enemies. See 1 Sam 23:25, 28.

[22:2]  ⁷ tn Traditionally “my fortress”; TEV “my strong fortress”; NCV “my protection.”

[22:3]  ⁸ tc The translation (along with many English versions, e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) follows the LXX in reading אֱלֹהִי (’elohi, “my God”) rather than MT’s אֱלֹהֵי (’elohe, “the God of”). See Ps 18:2.

[22:3]  ⁹ tn Or “in whom.”

[22:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the horn of my salvation,” or “my saving horn.”

[22:3]  ¹¹ tn The parallel version of the song in Ps 18 does not include this last line.

[22:4]  ¹² tn In this song of thanksgiving, where David recalls how the Lord delivered him, the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense (cf. CEV “I prayed”), not an imperfect (as in many English versions).

[22:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “worthy of praise, I cried out [to] the Lord.” Some take מְהֻלָּל (mÿhullal, “worthy of praise”) with what precedes and translate, “the praiseworthy one,” or “praiseworthy.” However, the various epithets in vv. 1-2 have the first person pronominal suffix, unlike מְהֻלָּל. If one follows the traditional verse division and takes מְהֻלָּל with what follows, it is best understood as substantival and as appositional to יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “Yahweh”), resulting in “[to the] praiseworthy one I cried out, [to the] Lord.”

[22:5]  ¹⁴ tn The noun נַחַל (nakhal) usually refers to a river or stream, but in this context the plural form likely refers to the currents of the sea (see vv. 15-16).

[22:5]  ¹⁵ tn The noun בְלִיַּעַל (bÿliyya’al) is used here as an epithet for death. Elsewhere it is a common noun meaning “wickedness, uselessness” (see HALOT 133-34 s.v. בְּלִיַּעַל). It is often associated with rebellion against authority and other crimes that result in societal disorder and anarchy. The phrase “man/son of wickedness” refers to one who opposes God and the order he has established. The term becomes an appropriate title for death, which, through human forces, launches an attack against God’s chosen servant.

[22:5]  ¹⁶ tn In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. (Note the perfect verbal form in the parallel/preceding line.) The verb בָּעַת (ba’at) sometimes by metonymy carries the nuance “frighten,” but the parallelism (note “engulfed” in the preceding line) favors the meaning “overwhelm” here.

[22:6]  ¹⁷ tn “Sheol,” personified here as David’s enemy, is the underworld, place of the dead in primitive Hebrew cosmology.

[22:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “surrounded me.”

[22:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “confronted me.”

[22:7]  ²⁰ tn In this poetic narrative the two prefixed verbal forms in v. 7a are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects. Note the use of the vav consecutive with the prefixed verbal form that follows in v. 7b.

[22:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly, not earthly, temple is in view.

[22:7]  ²² tn Heb “and my cry for help [entered] his ears.”

[22:8]  ²³ tn The earth heaved and shook. The imagery pictures an earthquake, in which the earth’s surface rises and falls. The earthquake motif is common in Old Testament theophanies of God as warrior and in ancient Near eastern literary descriptions of warring gods and kings. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 160-62.

[22:8]  ²⁴ tn Ps 18:7 reads “the roots of the mountains.”

[22:8]  ²⁵ tn In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the three prefixed verbal forms with vav consecutive in the verse.

[22:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “within” or “[from] within.” For a discussion of the use of the preposition בְּ (bet) here, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 163-64.

[22:9]  ²⁷ tn Or “in his anger.” The noun אַף (’af) can carry the abstract meaning “anger,” but the parallelism (note “from his mouth”) suggests the more concrete meaning “nose” here (most English versions, “nostrils”). See also v. 16, “the powerful breath of your nose.”

[22:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “fire from his mouth devoured.” In this poetic narrative the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the two perfect verbal forms in the verse.

[22:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “coals burned from him.” Perhaps the psalmist pictures God’s fiery breath igniting coals (see Job 41:21), which he then hurls as weapons (see Ps 120:4).

[22:10]  ³⁰ tn The verb נָטָה (natah) can carry the sense “[to cause to] bend; [to cause to] bow down” (see HALOT 693 s.v. נָטָה). For example, Gen 49:15 pictures Issachar as a donkey that “bends” its shoulder or back under a burden (cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “He bowed the heavens”; NAB “He inclined the heavens”). Here the Lord causes the sky, pictured as a dome or vault, to bend or sink down as he descends in the storm.

[22:11]  ³¹ tn Or “rode upon.”

[22:11]  ³² tn Heb “a cherub” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NIV “the cherubim” (plural); TEV “his winged creature”; CEV “flying creatures.”

[22:11]  ³³ tc The translation follows very many medieval Hebrew mss in reading וַיֵּדֶא (vayyÿde’, “and he glided”; cf. NIV “soared”; NCV “raced”) rather than MT וַיֵּרָא (vayyera’, “and he appeared,” so NASB, CEV). See as well the Syriac Peshitta, Targum, Vulgate, and the parallel version in Ps 18:10, which preserves the original reading (see the note there).

[22:11]  ³⁴ sn The wings of the wind. Verse 10 may depict the Lord mounting a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option is that two different vehicles (a cherub and the wind) are envisioned. A third option is that the wind is personified as a cherub. For a discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in v. 10, see M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.