David’s Victory Hymn, part 1: The LORD as My Rock and Deliverer (2 Sam 22.2–51)

With the loyal you show yourself loyal;

with the blameless you show yourself blameless;

with the pure you show yourself pure,

and with the crooked you show yourself perverse.

You deliver a humble people,

but your eyes are upon the haughty to bring them down.

Indeed, you are my lamp, O LORD,

the LORD lightens my darkness.

By you I can crush a troop,

and by my God I can leap over a wall.

This God—his way is perfect;

the promise of the LORD proves true;

he is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

For who is God, but the LORD?

And who is a rock, except our God?

The God who has girded me with strength

has opened wide my path.

He made my feet like the feet of deer,

and set me secure on the heights.

He trains my hands for war,

so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

You have given me the shield of your salvation,

and your help has made me great.

You have made me stride freely,

and my feet do not slip;

I pursued my enemies and destroyed them,

and did not turn back until they were consumed.

I consumed them; I struck them down, so that they did not rise;

they fell under my feet.

For you girded me with strength for the battle;

you made my assailants sink under me.

You made my enemies turn their backs to me,

those who hated me, and I destroyed them.

They looked, but there was no one to save them;

they cried to the LORD, but he did not answer them.

I beat them fine like the dust of the earth,

I crushed them and stamped them down like the mire of the streets.

You delivered me from strife with the peoples;

you kept me as the head of the nations;

people whom I had not known served me.

Foreigners came cringing to me;

as soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me.

Foreigners lost heart,

and came trembling out of their strongholds.

The LORD lives! Blessed be my rock,

and exalted be my God, the rock of my salvation,

the God who gave me vengeance

and brought down peoples under me,

who brought me out from my enemies;

you exalted me above my adversaries,

you delivered me from the violent.

For this I will extol you, O LORD, among the nations,

and sing praises to your name.

He is a tower of salvation for his king,

and shows steadfast love to his anointed,

to David and his descendants forever.

Background

This is part 2 of this prayer, a long prayer written by David in praise of God for how Israel and David have been blessed. In the first half of the prayer, David praised God as his deliverer and “rock,” how He heard David’s cries for help, and then a praise of God for why he defended and saved David and Israel. As we noted, that half of the prayer focuses on David as the object (though God is the subject): God is David’s deliverer, He heard David, and he did it because of David’s faithfulness as King. The second half of the prayer focuses on God as subject: he is faithful, he takes on the enemies of his people, and he is a God to be praised.

Verses 26–37 are about the faithfulness of God. We usually discuss the faithfulness of people—“he lacks faith,” “she has great faith,” “their faith has grown over the last year.” But human faithfulness to God is a response to His faithfulness. He keeps his promises. He can always be trusted (even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes). David employs the imagery of God as a lamp in the darkness, and again used the imagery of a rock. He says that God “set his feet like a deer.” During the time of David’s reign, deer were plentiful in the reign. They were known for their sure-footedness in the mountainous and rocky regions.

In verses 38–46, David attributes his skill in battle to God alone—He is the one who trained him. The result was that Israel’s enemies were defeated and Israel became a unified nation. Note that this combines the themes of God’s faithfulness and God as helper—by equipping David with skill and ability, He kept his promise to Israel. He makes mention that God also delivered him from the internal strife of the kingdom.

So we see that this praise-prayer, this Psalm, is rooted in the real history of David’s experience from a young boy as a shepherd who learned how to protect his sheep, to an important young man in strife with a dysfunctional king, to a leader who had to fight off many battles with foreign nations and with his own people. All to further God’s will for the world and to keep His promise to David’s ancestors.

The prayer ends with an outburst of praise, somewhat general, but still with the theme of God’s faithfulness, protector, and worthy of praise (verses 47–51). Note that the last line of the prayer looks to the future: God will be with those who come after David, too.

Meaning

The prayer is an excellent model of a praise prayer instead of a thanksgiving prayer. David is not so much thanking God for the things he has done as focusing on the character of God (though, as we have noted, there is a strong connection between praise and thanksgiving). He refers to events where God could be thanked but instead focuses on God’s steadiness (rock), protection (shield), deliverance (saving from danger, and God’s gift of talents, abilities, and experience (David as a warrior).

Application

How might you compose a praise-prayer about your life? Begin with important events in your life, but look at the whole arc. How did He deliver you when you were overwhelmed? How did God prepare you for later events or circumstances? Try writing a prayer in this fashion, using this one as a template. Use as much imagery as you can, but perhaps different imagery than David. You may not have a lot of experience with deer, shields, or weapons—what symbols would you use?

Once you have finished the prayer, offer it to God.

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