Daily Verse 2 Samuel 22:33-35
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I'll drop a few commentary quotes:
22:31–33 God’s way, his word, and his protection are perfect (Robert Bergen). David answered his two rhetorical questions in v. 32; only Yahweh was God. The Lord is our rock.
22:34 The deer David described are sure-footed. They are a powerful picture of the firm footing on which believers stand.
22:35 See Ps 144:1.
Bryan E. Beyer, “2 Samuel,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 494.
22:31–33 God’s way, his word, and his protection are perfect (Robert Bergen). David answered his two rhetorical questions in v. 32; only Yahweh was God. The Lord is our rock.
22:34 The deer David described are sure-footed. They are a powerful picture of the firm footing on which believers stand.
22:35 See Ps 144:1.
Bryan E. Beyer, “2 Samuel,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 494.
2 Sa 22:1–51. David’s Psalm of Thanksgiving for God’s Powerful Deliverance and Manifold Blessings.
The song contained in this chapter is the same as the eighteenth Psalm, where the full commentary will be given [see on Ps 18:1, &c.]. It may be sufficient simply to remark that Jewish writers have noticed a great number of very minute variations in the language of the song as recorded here, from that embodied in the Book of Psalms—which may be accounted for by the fact that this, the first copy of the poem, was carefully revised and altered by David afterwards, when it was set to the music of the tabernacle. This inspired ode was manifestly the effusion of a mind glowing with the highest fervor of piety and gratitude, and it is full of the noblest imagery that is to be found within the range even of sacred poetry. It is David’s grand tribute of thanksgiving for deliverance from his numerous and powerful enemies, and establishing him in the power and glory of the kingdom.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 209.
The song contained in this chapter is the same as the eighteenth Psalm, where the full commentary will be given [see on Ps 18:1, &c.]. It may be sufficient simply to remark that Jewish writers have noticed a great number of very minute variations in the language of the song as recorded here, from that embodied in the Book of Psalms—which may be accounted for by the fact that this, the first copy of the poem, was carefully revised and altered by David afterwards, when it was set to the music of the tabernacle. This inspired ode was manifestly the effusion of a mind glowing with the highest fervor of piety and gratitude, and it is full of the noblest imagery that is to be found within the range even of sacred poetry. It is David’s grand tribute of thanksgiving for deliverance from his numerous and powerful enemies, and establishing him in the power and glory of the kingdom.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 209.
4. excellence of the lord (22:31–51)
22:31–51. In the final section of the psalm David turned once more to the attributes of the Lord, but he connected them now to specific ways in which God had worked and would work on his behalf. God was described first as a Strengthener (vv. 31–35), One who is a Shield, a Rock, a Strength (lit., “strong Refuge” or “Fortress”), One who gives speed and power to His own servants. He is also a Shield (v. 36), and He protects against slipping and falling (vv. 36–37). Again, He is a Subduer of enemies (vv. 38–41). Through the Lord, David was able to pursue and destroy his enemies so that they could not rise again.
The Lord also is a Support (vv. 42–46). David’s enemies called out to God but He would not answer them (v. 42). Instead He let David crush them (v. 43), and rule over them as well as over his own people (vv. 44–46).
Finally, David said that the Lord was his Savior (vv. 47–51). Though his enemies surrounded him and were about to destroy him, the Lord brought him through triumphantly. As a result David praised Him (v. 50) and acknowledged that all God’s benefits of the past were tokens of His promised blessings on both David and his descendants, blessings which will endure forever.
Eugene H. Merrill, “2 Samuel,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 479.
22:31–51. In the final section of the psalm David turned once more to the attributes of the Lord, but he connected them now to specific ways in which God had worked and would work on his behalf. God was described first as a Strengthener (vv. 31–35), One who is a Shield, a Rock, a Strength (lit., “strong Refuge” or “Fortress”), One who gives speed and power to His own servants. He is also a Shield (v. 36), and He protects against slipping and falling (vv. 36–37). Again, He is a Subduer of enemies (vv. 38–41). Through the Lord, David was able to pursue and destroy his enemies so that they could not rise again.
The Lord also is a Support (vv. 42–46). David’s enemies called out to God but He would not answer them (v. 42). Instead He let David crush them (v. 43), and rule over them as well as over his own people (vv. 44–46).
Finally, David said that the Lord was his Savior (vv. 47–51). Though his enemies surrounded him and were about to destroy him, the Lord brought him through triumphantly. As a result David praised Him (v. 50) and acknowledged that all God’s benefits of the past were tokens of His promised blessings on both David and his descendants, blessings which will endure forever.
Eugene H. Merrill, “2 Samuel,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 479.
2 SAMUEL 22:21–51
I Have Kept Yahweh’s Ways?
21 “He repaid me in accordance with my faithfulness; in accordance with the purity of my hands he recompensed me.
22 For I have kept Yahweh’s ways and not been faithless to my God.
23 For all his rules are before me; his laws—I have not departed from them.
24 I was a person of integrity with him, and I have kept myself from waywardness that I might have done.
25 So Yahweh has recompensed me in accordance with my faithfulness, in accordance with my purity before his eyes.
26 With the committed person you show yourself committed, with the warrior of integrity you show integrity.
27 With the pure you show purity, but with the crooked you show yourself refractory.
28 A lowly people you deliver, but you avert your eyes from important people.
29 Because you, Yahweh, are my lamp; it is Yahweh who illumines my darkness.
30 Because with you I can rush a barricade, with my God I can scale a wall.
31 God: his way has integrity, Yahweh’s word is proven; he is a shield to all who take refuge in him.
32 Because who is God apart from Yahweh, who is a crag apart from our God?
33 God is my stronghold, [my] strength; he released one who was upright in his way.
34 He is one who makes my legs like a deer, enables me to stand on the heights.
35 He is one who trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bronze bow.
36 You have given me your shield that delivered; your response made me great.
37 You gave room to my steps beneath me; my ankles did not give way.
38 I pursued my enemies and annihilated them; I did not turn back until I had finished them off.
39 I consumed them, shattered them, they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet.
40 You girded me with strength for battle; you put down my adversaries beneath me.
41 My enemies you made turn tail for me, my opponents—and I wiped them out.
42 They looked, but there was no deliverer, [looked] to Yahweh, but he did not answer.
43 I pounded them like the dust of the earth; like the dirt in the streets I crushed them, beat them out.
44 You rescued me from the conflicts of my people; you kept me as head of the nations, a people I did not acknowledge serve me.
45 Foreigners cowered before me; on hearing with their ear, they heeded me.
46 Foreigners wilted; they came trembling out of their strongholds.
47 Yahweh lives! May my crag be praised! God, the crag, my deliverance, is to be exalted,
48 God who gives me redress, subjects peoples under me,
49 Who rescues me from my enemies, exalts me above my adversaries, saves me from violent men.
50 Therefore I will confess you, Yahweh, among the nations, and make music to your name.
51 A tower bringing deliverance to his king, showing commitment to his anointed, to David and his seed forever.”
Last night I was talking to one of our students who served in the U.S. forces in Iraq as an antiterrorism operative. Like many soldiers, he came home with trauma that he has subsequently had to try to talk through over a period of years. There is a grittiness about him that is a strength, yet it also manifests itself as a clumsiness in relationships and some incoherence in the way he tries to articulate things. Although I can’t compare him with the way he was before he went on these missions, I can’t help but assume that he has come back wounded in spirit though not in body. I am particularly struck by the fact that he is not the only such student who has turned from being a soldier to being a pacifist. Sometimes it seems that the Christian world is divided into people who are gung ho about war and people who are pacifists; perhaps the nature of modern warfare has made it harder to maintain a position in between these two extremes.
Our awareness of the trauma that war brings to the military makes one wonder how David was affected by his life of warfare. Reading between the lines of his story as a whole makes one reflect on whether this experience relates in some way to the enigma of who he is. Yet the strange thing about this psalm is that it implies no reflection on that question. That people can move from being committed fighters to being pacifists reflects the ambiguity (at best) about being involved in war. The song recognizes no such ambiguity.
Its previous section (vv. 1–20) closed with a declaration that God gave David victory because God “delighted” in him. Why did God delight in David? You can’t explain why God chooses someone, and you may not be able to explain why God delights in someone. Delight can’t always be explained. In this context, however, the song believes it is quite possible to see the basis for God’s delight. It lies in the person’s faithfulness, commitment, integrity, purity of hands, walking in God’s ways, living by God’s rules, and avoiding faithlessness and waywardness.
Such claims are inclined to worry Christian readers as a matter of principle because they sound like self-righteousness. Yet both Testaments imply the conviction that there is something strange if people who are supposed to be committed to God cannot make claims of this kind (in the New Testament, see, for instance, 2 Timothy 3:10–4:9). Such claims do not imply sinlessness; they do imply that one’s life is oriented in one direction and not another.
So in principle a song that makes such claims isn’t odd. What is odd is seeing such claims on David’s lips. There are several considerations that have surfaced earlier in David’s story that might lie behind them. We have noted that the Old Testament’s recurrent declarations about David’s faithfulness do make sense if we relate them to his commitment to Yahweh rather than to other gods and to forms of worship that Yahweh approves rather than to forms Yahweh forbids, such as worship by means of images or human sacrifice (though chapter 21 may have compromised that claim). On David’s lips, this song constitutes a great recognition by a fabulously successful warrior and king of his dependence on God and of God’s being the one who lies behind his success, even though he himself is the one who does the rushing and the scaling and the pursuing and the shattering.
Another consideration is suggested by ambiguity about the preamble to the song, which speaks of his deliverance from Saul. It would be surprising for David at the end of his life to be still rejoicing in that particular deliverance rather than in other ones that have followed. Yet we have noted that the last chapters of 2 Samuel are a series of footnotes to the main story, and that chapter 21 related to events in the time of Saul. So maybe this song has in mind the earlier part of David’s story. The beginning of his reign, when his deliverance from Saul was quite recent, would have been a more plausible time for David to have claimed to have been faithful to God on a broader front than he could claim at the end of his reign. Placing the song here thus reminds us once more of the ambiguity of David’s life. He was once a person of integrity, but he did not remain such.
There is a related, third consideration. Was David himself ever capable of reflecting on his life? Did he ever think about its ambiguity? Did he ever think about the tension between his loyalty to God and trust in God and his failure as a husband and father and the way this affected other people and even affected his exercise of power? We can’t answer that question with regard to David; it is between him and God. We have to answer it in regard to ourselves.
David’s enemies, he says, looked for a deliverer and did not find one. They looked to God, but God did not answer. David himself knows that experience; God did not answer him when he prayed for his sick baby. Perhaps there is a way of looking to God to which God responds and a way of looking that God ignores. Yet we have to be wary of thinking that we have our minds round the basis on which God sometimes answers and sometimes does not. When Job looked to God, there was nothing in Job that made God decline to respond (unless, paradoxically, it was the fact that he was such a committed person and God was allowing that commitment to be tested). Once again, God’s choice of someone and the grace God shows to someone and God’s nonresponsiveness to someone else may reflect something about God’s bigger purpose and not something about the individuals or communities involved.
John Goldingay, 1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, Old Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2011), 169–173.
I Have Kept Yahweh’s Ways?
21 “He repaid me in accordance with my faithfulness; in accordance with the purity of my hands he recompensed me.
22 For I have kept Yahweh’s ways and not been faithless to my God.
23 For all his rules are before me; his laws—I have not departed from them.
24 I was a person of integrity with him, and I have kept myself from waywardness that I might have done.
25 So Yahweh has recompensed me in accordance with my faithfulness, in accordance with my purity before his eyes.
26 With the committed person you show yourself committed, with the warrior of integrity you show integrity.
27 With the pure you show purity, but with the crooked you show yourself refractory.
28 A lowly people you deliver, but you avert your eyes from important people.
29 Because you, Yahweh, are my lamp; it is Yahweh who illumines my darkness.
30 Because with you I can rush a barricade, with my God I can scale a wall.
31 God: his way has integrity, Yahweh’s word is proven; he is a shield to all who take refuge in him.
32 Because who is God apart from Yahweh, who is a crag apart from our God?
33 God is my stronghold, [my] strength; he released one who was upright in his way.
34 He is one who makes my legs like a deer, enables me to stand on the heights.
35 He is one who trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bronze bow.
36 You have given me your shield that delivered; your response made me great.
37 You gave room to my steps beneath me; my ankles did not give way.
38 I pursued my enemies and annihilated them; I did not turn back until I had finished them off.
39 I consumed them, shattered them, they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet.
40 You girded me with strength for battle; you put down my adversaries beneath me.
41 My enemies you made turn tail for me, my opponents—and I wiped them out.
42 They looked, but there was no deliverer, [looked] to Yahweh, but he did not answer.
43 I pounded them like the dust of the earth; like the dirt in the streets I crushed them, beat them out.
44 You rescued me from the conflicts of my people; you kept me as head of the nations, a people I did not acknowledge serve me.
45 Foreigners cowered before me; on hearing with their ear, they heeded me.
46 Foreigners wilted; they came trembling out of their strongholds.
47 Yahweh lives! May my crag be praised! God, the crag, my deliverance, is to be exalted,
48 God who gives me redress, subjects peoples under me,
49 Who rescues me from my enemies, exalts me above my adversaries, saves me from violent men.
50 Therefore I will confess you, Yahweh, among the nations, and make music to your name.
51 A tower bringing deliverance to his king, showing commitment to his anointed, to David and his seed forever.”
Last night I was talking to one of our students who served in the U.S. forces in Iraq as an antiterrorism operative. Like many soldiers, he came home with trauma that he has subsequently had to try to talk through over a period of years. There is a grittiness about him that is a strength, yet it also manifests itself as a clumsiness in relationships and some incoherence in the way he tries to articulate things. Although I can’t compare him with the way he was before he went on these missions, I can’t help but assume that he has come back wounded in spirit though not in body. I am particularly struck by the fact that he is not the only such student who has turned from being a soldier to being a pacifist. Sometimes it seems that the Christian world is divided into people who are gung ho about war and people who are pacifists; perhaps the nature of modern warfare has made it harder to maintain a position in between these two extremes.
Our awareness of the trauma that war brings to the military makes one wonder how David was affected by his life of warfare. Reading between the lines of his story as a whole makes one reflect on whether this experience relates in some way to the enigma of who he is. Yet the strange thing about this psalm is that it implies no reflection on that question. That people can move from being committed fighters to being pacifists reflects the ambiguity (at best) about being involved in war. The song recognizes no such ambiguity.
Its previous section (vv. 1–20) closed with a declaration that God gave David victory because God “delighted” in him. Why did God delight in David? You can’t explain why God chooses someone, and you may not be able to explain why God delights in someone. Delight can’t always be explained. In this context, however, the song believes it is quite possible to see the basis for God’s delight. It lies in the person’s faithfulness, commitment, integrity, purity of hands, walking in God’s ways, living by God’s rules, and avoiding faithlessness and waywardness.
Such claims are inclined to worry Christian readers as a matter of principle because they sound like self-righteousness. Yet both Testaments imply the conviction that there is something strange if people who are supposed to be committed to God cannot make claims of this kind (in the New Testament, see, for instance, 2 Timothy 3:10–4:9). Such claims do not imply sinlessness; they do imply that one’s life is oriented in one direction and not another.
So in principle a song that makes such claims isn’t odd. What is odd is seeing such claims on David’s lips. There are several considerations that have surfaced earlier in David’s story that might lie behind them. We have noted that the Old Testament’s recurrent declarations about David’s faithfulness do make sense if we relate them to his commitment to Yahweh rather than to other gods and to forms of worship that Yahweh approves rather than to forms Yahweh forbids, such as worship by means of images or human sacrifice (though chapter 21 may have compromised that claim). On David’s lips, this song constitutes a great recognition by a fabulously successful warrior and king of his dependence on God and of God’s being the one who lies behind his success, even though he himself is the one who does the rushing and the scaling and the pursuing and the shattering.
Another consideration is suggested by ambiguity about the preamble to the song, which speaks of his deliverance from Saul. It would be surprising for David at the end of his life to be still rejoicing in that particular deliverance rather than in other ones that have followed. Yet we have noted that the last chapters of 2 Samuel are a series of footnotes to the main story, and that chapter 21 related to events in the time of Saul. So maybe this song has in mind the earlier part of David’s story. The beginning of his reign, when his deliverance from Saul was quite recent, would have been a more plausible time for David to have claimed to have been faithful to God on a broader front than he could claim at the end of his reign. Placing the song here thus reminds us once more of the ambiguity of David’s life. He was once a person of integrity, but he did not remain such.
There is a related, third consideration. Was David himself ever capable of reflecting on his life? Did he ever think about its ambiguity? Did he ever think about the tension between his loyalty to God and trust in God and his failure as a husband and father and the way this affected other people and even affected his exercise of power? We can’t answer that question with regard to David; it is between him and God. We have to answer it in regard to ourselves.
David’s enemies, he says, looked for a deliverer and did not find one. They looked to God, but God did not answer. David himself knows that experience; God did not answer him when he prayed for his sick baby. Perhaps there is a way of looking to God to which God responds and a way of looking that God ignores. Yet we have to be wary of thinking that we have our minds round the basis on which God sometimes answers and sometimes does not. When Job looked to God, there was nothing in Job that made God decline to respond (unless, paradoxically, it was the fact that he was such a committed person and God was allowing that commitment to be tested). Once again, God’s choice of someone and the grace God shows to someone and God’s nonresponsiveness to someone else may reflect something about God’s bigger purpose and not something about the individuals or communities involved.
John Goldingay, 1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, Old Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2011), 169–173.