Psalm Reflection - Week 6

Psalm 18

The beginning verses of Psalm 18 clearly identifies this as a love song. We could spend much time simply pondering the series of titles addressed to God: my strength, my rock, my deliverer, my shield, my salvation, my stronghold, my God in whom I take refuge. Can you not hear in these words the trusting relationship that is between the psalmist and God! It is almost as though we are listening in on some intimate conversation. We learn of the threats that are present in the life of the pray-er. Each one strikes like a hammer blow in our ears: cords of death, torrents of destruction, snares of Sheol, traps of death. These assail, surround, confront and entangle. Such a contrast between Vs 2-3 and 5-6!

The psalmist trusts God and turns to him in the midst of the upheaval in his life and knows God can be trusted to hear him. When we first met God in the Exodus story he was similarly listening to the groanings of his people, aware of their suffering and ready to act on their behalf.

The description of God's departure from his heavenly abode to take up the cause of his favored one uses typical biblical language that draws on all the force, power, beauty and mystery of nature to help speak of the grandeur of God. Human language will always fall short of our attempt to adequately speak of God, but the language we find here does take our imagination into some place beyond our comprehension and opens a window onto the awesomeness of God's presence. This is the language of God's mysterious appearance (theophany). "God bends the heavens and comes down"! What an amazing image! The mysterious elements of nature (more mysterious to our ancestors than to us perhaps) speak of God's proximity yet incomprehensibility.

Within the heart of the one who thus prays, all this happens to rescue the beloved from the chaos and fear that surrounded them. " God brought me out to a place of freedom; God saved me because he loved me" (vs 20) What a profound expression of faith in God! The qualities of one in right relationship with God, one deserving of such preferential treatment from God are described in vs 21-25: righteousness, "my hands were clean", "I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not fallen away from my God", blameless, free of guilt. For the psalmist, God's response to the individual person is conditioned by the persons effort to maintain a right relationship with God. Such single-minded fidelity draws the psalmist to say: "God bends down to make me great"! (vs 36)

It is generally easy for us to imagine the psalms as prayers of an individual or a community. As such they are our words to God. As you pray this psalm, try to imagine these words, as they truly are, as God's word to us! Read and pray this psalm from this perspective. The "you" becomes "I" as God speaks and promises his love to us, his presence in the midst of any trouble, fear, concern or burden that we carry. Let the psalm be a two-sided conversation as prayer should be!

If this psalm sounds somewhat familiar, there is a repetition of it to be found in 2 Sam 22 with few differences. As the title of the psalm says: "This is a psalm which David, the servant of the Lord, sang to the Lord who had rescued from the grasp of all his enemies and from Saul." As we have said before in these reflections, the title of many psalms mention David. It does not mean necessarily that he wrote each Psalm (but some say Ps 18 might be one he did compose!). The mention of David in connection with many psalms has to do with the ideal that David was for Israel. David embodied the attributes Israel cherished especially with regard to the right relationship with God. We do a similar thing when we attribute to Abraham Lincoln simple honesty and to George Washington the ideal of truthfulness. This says something about what we see as essential qualities upon which our nation is built. Israel's frame of reference (the biblical writers) is always about right relationship with God. So how David repents of sin (Ps 51) or how he encounters the threat from his enemies (ps 3) or how he remembers God's deliverance of him (Ps 18) becomes the paradigm or ideal which should set before each of us who might find ourselves in similar situations and looking for some direction.

Recall the life of David as you pray this psalm. How many were the threats, the dangers he encountered? There was Goliath and Saul, his son Absalom, the troubles within his own house and his own wrestling with his humanity. The "enemies" or "foes" need not be foreign nations but whatever seems like the traps, cords, snares that entrap, entangle assail and surround us. Each person who is reading this and praying with this psalm this week has something that fits what the psalmist is describing. Name it and call on the God of compassion to "bend the heavens and come down"; to help you to grow in trust, and to better come to know the ways of "God who lightens my darkness".