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Day 140: David's Prayer of Thanksgiving
David Praising God
Chapter 22: Davidic Hymn of Thanksgiving
This is one of Scripture's eight songs (not counting the songs found in the Book of Psalms). Five songs are found in the Old Testament:
- The Victory Song of Moses and Miriam (Ex 15:1-18).
- The Song of Moses and Joshua also called the Song of Witness (Dt 32:1-43).
- The Song of Hannah (1 Sam 2:1-10).
- The Song of David (2 Samuel 22:2-51).
- Isaiah's Song of Thanksgiving (Is 26:1-19).
Two in the Gospel of Luke:
- The Song of the Virgin Mary: the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55).
- The Song of Zechariah: the Benedictus (Lk 1:68-78).
And the eighth is in the Book of Revelation:
- The New Song of the Lamb (Rev 5:9-13; 15:3-4).
David's song is a canticle of praise to God for delivering him from Saul and from all his enemies, including his own son. The Divine Name is evoked fourteen times in David's poem in the Hebrew text. In the symbolic significance of numbers in Scripture, seven is the number of fullness, completion, and spiritual perfection. David's poem is an expression of double fullness and spiritual perfection. This hymn, with minor variations, is identical to Psalm 18. The introduction to the Psalm 18 is found in 22:1.
The hymn is full of poetic devices and can be divided into two parts:
- Part I: Praises God for His actions in Favor of the King (verses 1-28)
- Lists the divine attributes (verses 2-4)
- The dangers encountered by the king (verses 5-6)
- Calling for God's help and thanking God for His response (verses 7-16)
- God rescues the king from all his enemies (verses 17-20)
- Divine favor abides with the king because his conduct is upright (verses 21-28)
- Part II: Celebrates the Deeds of the King guided by Yahweh (verses 29-51)
- He exalts God who is the giver of strength and equips David for battle (verses 29-37)
- God gives David victory over his enemies (verses 38-43)
- God gives David rule over Israel and foreign nations (verses 44-46)
- David's concluding praise of God (verses 47-51)
2 Samuel 22:1-51 ~ David's Song Celebrating Yahweh Delivering Him from His Enemies
David's Hymn Part I: Praises God for His actions in Favor of the King (verses 2-28)
1 David addressed the words of this song to Yahweh, when Yahweh had delivered him from the clutches of all his enemies and from the clutches of Saul.
2 Samuel 22:2-4 ~ David praises God and lists His Divine Attributes
He said: 2 "Yahweh is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer is my God. 3 I take refuge in him, my rock, my shield, my saving strength, my stronghold [the horn*], my place of [my bulwark and] refuge. My Savior, you have saved me from violence; 4 I call to Yahweh, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my foes. *The Hebrew word "horn" expresses great strength like the goring horns of a bull; for examples in the Hebrew text see 1 Sam 2:1, 10; 22:3; Job 16:15; Ps 18:2; 75:4, 5; 89:17; etc.
Using rich poetic imagery, David's hymn of praise opens with a litany of invocations acclaiming God as his personal Savior (verses 2-3).
Question: List the string of metaphors that David uses in verses 2-4 to stress God's strength.
Answer: Rock, fortress, shield, stronghold [horn], place [bulwark] and refuge.
2 Samuel 22:5-6 ~ David's cry for help from dangers that threaten his life
5 With Death's breakers closing in on me, Belial's torrents ready to swallow me, 6 Sheol's snares on every side of me, Death's traps lying ahead of me,
David recalls those times in his life when he was close to death and called to God to save him.
Question: What is meant by God's "Abode" in verse 7? See verse 10.
Answer: God's "Abode" is, according to verse 10, God's heavenly Sanctuary.
2 Samuel 22:7-16 ~ God Appearing in Answer to David's Plea
God's theophany in coming to David's defense is manifested by terrifying natural phenomena.
Question: What images from nature does David use to describe God coming to his defense?
Answer: He uses the imagery of an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, the violence of a storm with wind, thunder, lightning, hail and fire and flood imagery.
In verse 8 David describes God's intervention on his behalf with the description in poetic imagery of God's descent from His celestial throne. He comes to do battle to support his faithful servant in what is described as a seismic event; an earthquake that upsets the whole earth (also see Ex 19:16-18; Judg 5:4-5) and the prophet Zechariah's description of the Messiah coming in divine judgment on the Day of the Lord in Zech 14:3-9).
There are several types of winged creatures, including Cherubim and Seraphim, that guard God in the heavenly Temple (Rev 4:6-8) and at times act as His vehicle of descent into the temporal world (Ez 1:4-27). Similar angelic creatures guarded the entrance to Eden (Gen 4:24) and images of them were on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 24:17-22). They are one of several classes of angels and are mentioned as "cherubim" (cherub in the singular) ninety-two times in Scripture: ninety-one times in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament in Hebrews 9:5.
The "dense cloud' in verse 12 and the thunder and lightning of His theophany are reminiscent of the Exodus theophany (see Ex 19:16-19), the Glory Cloud that led the children of Israel on their exodus out of Egypt (Ex 13:21-22; etc.), and Moses disappearing into the "dense, dark cloud on Mount Sinai (Ex 24:16-18). In verses 9-16 God is described in anthropomorphic terms; these are images to which David can relate as he pictures Yahweh as his defending warrior God.
2 Samuel 22:17-20 ~ God rescues David
David's rescue could have been from any one or all of the dangerous encounters of his long life. The important statement is found in verse 20.
Question: What reason does David give for God rescuing him?
Answer: Because God loves him.
2 Samuel 22:21-28 ~ God rewards David's righteousness
Question: In these verses David gives the reason God loves him. What is that reason?
Answer: God loves David for his purity of heart and that he strived to keep himself blameless before God by working to avoid evil.
Question: Why did God save David; was it only out of love?
Answer: David says that his deliverance was a reward for merit in striving to live in righteousness before his God.
David understands the key to a close relationship with God.
Question: What are the key attributes one must have that David lists to have a close relationship with God? How are these attributes demonstrated in one's relationship with Yahweh?
Answer: One must be faithful to God (worshipping no other gods), blameless under the Law, sincere and humble in one's repentance.
David's Hymn Part II: Celebrates the Deeds of the King guided by Yahweh (verses 29-51)
1 Samuel 22:29-32 ~ The power of God's help
David then gives a second example of deliverance. This time he is being rescued on the battlefield (verses 29-43). The hardship is the "darkness" and the deliverance is the "light." Verse 32 is David's declaration of monotheism (also see Is 44:8). The pathway of David's life would be uncertain without God's guidance like a lamp for his life's journey. Again David uses the metaphor "rock" for God.
2 Samuel 22:33-37 ~ God equips David for battle
David gives God the glory for all his victories. It was God who gave him the physical strength, the skill in battle, and the intelligence to win Israel's victories.
2 Samuel 22:38-43 ~ God gives David victory over his enemies
He tells how God gave him victory over his enemies in battle (verses 32-43), and how God allowed him to assert his authority over his people and over other nations (verses 44-46).
2 Samuel 22:44-46 ~ God gives David rule over Israel and over foreign nations
David has enemies within his own countrymen (evidenced by two civil wars in chapters 15-20) and from neighboring countries, but God has given him victory over both internal and external enemies. With God's help David has established Israel as a nation among nations.
2 Samuel 22:47-51 ~ David's concluding praise of God
47 Life to Yahweh! Blessed be my Rock! Exalted be the God of my salvation, 48 the God who gives me vengeance and crushes the peoples under me, 49 who takes me away from my enemies. You lift me high above those who attack me; you deliver me from the man of violence. 50 For this I will praise you, Yahweh, among the nations, and sing praise to your name. 51 He saves his king, time after time, displays faithful love for his anointed, for David and his heirs forever."
It is because of all that God has done for him that he again acclaims the Lord as his personal Savior (verse 47; also see 22:3b). The psalm ends in verse 51 with another mention of David's name that was first mentioned in the preface to the hymn in 22:1. In the last line he recalls God's promise of an eternal covenant for David and his heirs forever.
Question: What is the most repeated metaphor for God in David's hymn?
Answer: "Rock" in verses 2, 3, 32, and 47.
Question: How can the perspective of this psalm change in the light of Jesus in the New Testament?
Answer: Jesus is the Davidic heir who achieved His glory as the king of all nations. He did this by obediently doing his Father's will. He established His kingdom on earth and in heaven and those who serve Him have carried His Gospel message of salvation to the ends of the earth, allowing the people of all nations to acknowledge Him as Lord-Savior and King of kings.
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A Daily Defense
DAY 140 The Consecrated Life
CHALLENGE: “Monks and nuns are unbiblical. We don’t see them in Scripture.”
DEFENSE: Yes, we do. In both testaments we see people who take vows to specially consecrate themselves to God.
In the Old Testament, we read about Nazirites. The Hebrew term nazir means “consecrated” or “separated,” and the Nazirites were those consecrated to God by a special vow (Num. 6:2). As a result, they were not to drink wine or use any grape products (6:3–4), they were not to cut their hair but let it grow long (6:5), and they were to abstain from contact with dead bodies, even of their own relatives (6:6–12). There were also ceremonies to be performed upon the completion of the vow, which included cutting the hair (6:13–21). Many Nazirites made temporary vows, but some had perpetual ones. These included Samson and Samuel, who were Nazirites from the womb (Judg. 13:5, 1 Sam. 1:11).
Like modern monks and nuns, Nazirites were vowed to live lives of special consecration to God. The parallel is so clear that in modern (twenty-first century) Hebrew, the word for monk is nazir and the word for nun is nazirah (the feminine form of nazir). Monks and nuns thus are the Christian equivalent of Jewish Nazirites.
In the New Testament, Paul appears to have taken temporary Nazirite vows more than once (Acts 18:18, 21:23–27). He also describes a first-century order that took a perpetual vow of celibacy: “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband; and she must be well attested for her good deeds, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, relieved the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way. But refuse to enrol younger widows; for when they grow wanton against Christ they desire to marry, and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge” (1 Tim. 5:9–12).
Paul is concerned that younger widows will be tempted to remarry and thus break the vow of celibacy the order required, bringing judgment upon themselves. He thus says younger widows should remarry and have children rather than join the order (vv. 14–15).
Both testaments thus affirm the principle of some taking vows of special consecration to God.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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