Psalms 18:34-46

18:34 He trains my hands for battle; ¹ 

my arms can bend even the strongest bow. ² 

18:35 You give me your protective shield; ³ 

your right hand supports me; ⁴ 

your willingness to help ⁵  enables me to prevail. ⁶ 

18:36 You widen my path; ⁷ 

my feet ⁸  do not slip.

18:37 I chase my enemies and catch ⁹  them;

I do not turn back until I wipe them out.

18:38 I beat them ¹⁰  to death; ¹¹ 

they fall at my feet. ¹² 

18:39 You give me strength ¹³  for battle;

you make my foes kneel before me. ¹⁴ 

18:40 You make my enemies retreat; ¹⁵ 

I destroy those who hate me. ¹⁶ 

18:41 They cry out, but there is no one to help them; ¹⁷ 

they cry out to the Lord, ¹⁸  but he does not answer them.

18:42 I grind them as fine windblown dust; ¹⁹ 

I beat them underfoot ²⁰  like clay ²¹  in the streets.

18:43 You rescue me from a hostile army; ²² 

you make me ²³  a leader of nations;

people over whom I had no authority are now my subjects. ²⁴ 

18:44 When they hear of my exploits, they submit to me. ²⁵ 

Foreigners are powerless ²⁶  before me;

18:45 foreigners lose their courage; ²⁷ 

they shake with fear ²⁸  as they leave ²⁹  their strongholds. ³⁰ 

18:46 The Lord is alive! ³¹ 

My protector ³²  is praiseworthy! ³³ 

The God who delivers me ³⁴  is exalted as king! ³⁵ 

[18:34]  ¹ sn He trains my hands. The psalmist attributes his skill with weapons to divine enablement. Egyptian reliefs picture gods teaching the king how to shoot a bow. See O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World, 265.

[18:34]  ² tn Heb “and a bow of bronze is bent by my arms”; or “my arms bend a bow of bronze.” The verb נָחַת (nakhat) apparently means “pull back, bend” here (see HALOT 692 s.v. נחת). The third feminine singular verbal form appears to agree with the feminine singular noun קֶשֶׁת (qeshet, “bow”). In this case the verb must be taken as Niphal (passive). However, it is possible that “my arms” is the subject of the verb and “bow” the object. In this case the verb is Piel (active). For other examples of a feminine singular verb being construed with a plural noun, see GKC 464 §145.k.

[18:35]  ³ tn Heb “and you give to me the shield of your deliverance.”

[18:35]  ⁴ tc 2 Sam 22:36 omits this line, perhaps due to homoioarcton. A scribe’s eye may have jumped from the vav (ו) prefixed to “your right hand” to the vav prefixed to the following “and your answer,” causing the copyist to omit by accident the intervening words (“your right hand supports me and”).

[18:35]  ⁵ tn The MT of Ps 18:35 appears to read, “your condescension,” apparently referring to God’s willingness to intervene (cf. NIV “you stoop down”). However, the noun עֲנָוָה (’anavah) elsewhere means “humility” and is used only here of God. The form עַנְוַתְךָ (’anvatÿkha) may be a fully written form of the suffixed infinitive construct of עָנָה (’anah, “to answer”; a defectively written form of the infinitive appears in 2 Sam 22:36). In this case the psalmist refers to God’s willingness to answer his prayer; one might translate, “your favorable response.”

[18:35]  ⁶ tn Heb “makes me great.”

[18:36]  ⁷ tn Heb “you make wide my step under me.” “Step” probably refers metonymically to the path upon which the psalmist walks. Another option is to translate, “you widen my stride.” This would suggest that God gives the psalmist the capacity to run quickly.

[18:36]  ⁸ tn Heb “lower legs.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun, which occurs only here, see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 112. A cognate Akkadian noun means “lower leg.”

[18:37]  ⁹ tn 2 Sam 22:38 reads “destroy.”

[18:38]  ¹⁰ tn Or “smash them.” 2 Sam 22:39 reads, “and I wiped them out and smashed them.”

[18:38]  ¹¹ tn Heb “until they are unable to rise.” 2 Sam 22:39 reads, “until they do not rise.”

[18:38]  ¹² sn They fall at my feet. For ancient Near Eastern parallels, see O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World, 294-97.

[18:39]  ¹³ tn Heb “clothed me.” See v. 32.

[18:39]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “you make those who rise against me kneel beneath me.”

[18:40]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and [as for] my enemies, you give to me [the] back [or “neck”].” The idiom “give [the] back” means “to cause [one] to turn the back and run away.” Cf. Exod 23:27.

[18:40]  ¹⁶ sn Those who hate me. See v. 17, where it is the Lord who delivered the psalmist from those who hated him.

[18:41]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “but there is no deliverer.”

[18:41]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to the Lord.” The words “they cry out” are supplied in the translation because they are understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line).

[18:42]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I pulverize them like dust upon the face of the wind.” The phrase “upon the face of” here means “before.” 2 Sam 22:43 reads, “like dust of the earth.”

[18:42]  ²⁰ tc Ps 18:42 reads, “I empty them out” (Hiphil of ריק), while 2 Sam 22:43 reads, “I crush them, I stomp on them” (juxtaposing the synonyms דקק and רקע). It is likely that the latter is a conflation of variants. One, but not both, of the verbs in 2 Sam 22:43 is probably original; “empty out” does not form as good a parallel with “grind, pulverize” in the parallel line.

[18:42]  ²¹ tn Or “mud.”

[18:43]  ²² tn Heb “from the strivings of a people.” In this context the Hebrew term רִיב (riv, “striving”) probably has a militaristic sense (as in Judg 12:2; Isa 41:11), and עָם (’am, “people”) probably refers more specifically to an army (for other examples, see the verses listed in BDB 766 s.v. I עַם, עָם 2.d). Some understand the phrase as referring to attacks by the psalmist’s own countrymen, the “nation” being Israel. However, foreign enemies appear to be in view; note the reference to “nations” in the following line.

[18:43]  ²³ tn 2 Sam 22:44 reads, “you keep me.”

[18:43]  ²⁴ tn Heb “a people whom I did not know serve me.” In this context “know” (יָדַע, yada’) probably refers to formal recognition by treaty. People who were once not under the psalmist’s authority now willingly submit to his rulership to avoid being conquered militarily (see vv. 44-45). The language may recall the events recorded in 2 Sam 8:9-10 and 10:19.

[18:44]  ²⁵ tn Heb “at a report of an ear they submit to me.” The report of the psalmist’s exploits is so impressive that those who hear it submit to his rulership without putting up a fight.

[18:44]  ²⁶ tn For the meaning “be weak, powerless” for כָּחַשׁ (kakhash), see Ps 109:24. The next line (see v. 45a), in which “foreigners” are also mentioned, favors this interpretation. Another option is to translate “cower in fear” (see Deut 33:29; Pss 66:3; 81:15; cf. NIV “cringe”; NRSV “came cringing”).

[18:45]  ²⁷ tn Heb “wither, wear out.”

[18:45]  ²⁸ tn The meaning of חָרַג (kharag, “shake”) is established on the basis of cognates in Arabic and Aramaic. 2 Sam 22:46 reads חָגַר (khagar), which might mean here, “[they] come limping” (on the basis of a cognate in postbiblical Hebrew). The normal meaning for חָגַר (“gird”) makes little sense here.

[18:45]  ²⁹ tn Heb “from.”

[18:45]  ³⁰ tn Heb “their prisons.” The besieged cities of the foreigners are compared to prisons.

[18:46]  ³¹ tn Elsewhere the construction חַי־יְהוָה (khay-yÿhvah) is used exclusively as an oath formula, “as surely as the Lord lives,” but this is not the case here, for no oath follows. Here the statement is an affirmation of the Lord’s active presence and intervention. In contrast to pagan deities, he demonstrates he is the living God by rescuing and empowering the psalmist.

[18:46]  ³² tn Heb “my rocky cliff,” which is a metaphor for protection. See similar phrases in vv. 2, 31.

[18:46]  ³³ tn Or “blessed [i.e., praised] be.”

[18:46]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the God of my deliverance.” 2 Sam 22:48 reads, “the God of the rocky cliff of my deliverance.”

[18:46]  ³⁵ tn The words “as king” are supplied in the translation for clarification. Elsewhere in the psalms the verb רוּם (rum, “be exalted”), when used of God, refers to his exalted position as king (Pss 99:2; 113:4; 138:6) and/or his self-revelation as king through his mighty deeds of deliverance (Pss 21:13; 46:10; 57:5, 11).