2 Samuel 22:1

David Sings to the Lord

22:1 ¹ David sang ²  to the Lord the words of this song when ³  the Lord rescued him from the power ⁴  of all his enemies, including Saul. ⁵ 

2 Samuel 22:49

22:49 He delivers me from my enemies; ⁶ 

you snatch me away ⁷  from those who attack me; ⁸ 

you rescue me from violent men.

2 Samuel 22:1

David Sings to the Lord

22:1 ⁹ David sang ¹⁰  to the Lord the words of this song when ¹¹  the Lord rescued him from the power ¹²  of all his enemies, including Saul. ¹³ 

1 Samuel 18:11

18:11 and Saul threw the spear, thinking, “I’ll nail David to the wall!” But David escaped from him on two different occasions.

1 Samuel 18:21

18:21 Saul said, “I will give her to him so that she may become a snare to him and the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” So Saul said to David, “Today is the second time for you to become my son-in-law.” ¹⁴ 

1 Samuel 19:10-15

19:10 Saul tried to nail David to the wall with the spear, but he escaped from Saul’s presence and the spear drove into the wall. ¹⁵  David escaped quickly ¹⁶  that night.

19:11 Saul sent messengers to David’s house to guard it and to kill him in the morning. Then David’s wife Michal told him, “If you do not save yourself ¹⁷  tonight, tomorrow you will be dead!” 19:12 So Michal lowered David through the window, and he ran away and escaped.

19:13 Then Michal took a household idol ¹⁸  and put it on the bed. She put a quilt ¹⁹  made of goat’s hair over its head ²⁰  and then covered the idol with a garment. 19:14 When Saul sent messengers to arrest David, she said, “He’s sick.”

19:15 Then Saul sent the messengers back to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me on his bed so I can kill him.”

1 Samuel 23:7

23:7 When Saul was told that David had come to Keilah, Saul said, “God has delivered ²¹  him into my hand, for he has boxed himself into a corner by entering a city with two barred gates.” ²² 

1 Samuel 23:14

23:14 David stayed in the strongholds that were in the desert and in the hill country of the desert of Ziph. Saul looked for him all the time, ²³  but God did not deliver David ²⁴  into his hand.

1 Samuel 23:26-28

23:26 Saul went on one side of the mountain, while David and his men went on the other side of the mountain. David was hurrying to get away from Saul, but Saul and his men were surrounding David and his men so they could capture them. 23:27 But a messenger came to Saul saying, “Come quickly, for the Philistines have raided the land!”

23:28 So Saul stopped pursuing David and went to confront the Philistines. Therefore that place is called Sela Hammahlekoth. ²⁵ 

Mazmur 18:1

Psalm 18 ²⁶ 

For the music director; by the Lord’s servant David, who sang ²⁷  to the Lord the words of this song when ²⁸  the Lord rescued him from the power ²⁹  of all his enemies, including Saul. ³⁰ 

18:1 He said: ³¹ 

“I love ³²  you, Lord, my source of strength! ³³ 

[22:1]  ¹ sn In this long song of thanks, David affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. His experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the song appears in Ps 18.

[22:1]  ² tn Heb “spoke.”

[22:1]  ³ tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”

[22:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “hand.”

[22:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”

[22:49]  ⁶ tn Heb “and [the one who] brings me out from my enemies.”

[22:49]  ⁷ tn Heb “you lift me up.” In light of the preceding and following references to deliverance, the verb רוּם (rum) probably here refers to being rescued from danger (see Ps 9:13). However, it could mean “exalt; elevate” here, indicating that the Lord has given him victory over his enemies and forced them to acknowledge the psalmist’s superiority.

[22:49]  ⁸ tn Heb “from those who rise against me.”

[22:1]  ⁹ sn In this long song of thanks, David affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. His experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the song appears in Ps 18.

[22:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “spoke.”

[22:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”

[22:1]  ¹² tn Heb “hand.”

[22:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”

[18:21]  ¹⁴ tc The final sentence of v. 21 is absent in most LXX mss.

[19:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and he drove the spear into the wall.”

[19:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “fled and escaped.”

[19:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “your life.”

[19:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “teraphim” (also a second time in this verse and once in v. 16). These were statues that represented various deities. According to 2 Kgs 23:24 they were prohibited during the time of Josiah’s reform movement in the seventh century. The idol Michal placed under the covers was of sufficient size to give the mistaken impression that David lay in the bed, thus facilitating his escape.

[19:13]  ¹⁹ tn The exact meaning of the Hebrew word כָּבִיר (kavir) is uncertain; it is found in the Hebrew Bible only here and in v. 16. It probably refers to a quilt made of goat’s hair, perhaps used as a fly net while one slept. See HALOT 458 s.v. *כָּבִיר. Cf. KJV, TEV “pillow”; NLT “cushion”; NAB, NRSV “net.”

[19:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “at the place of its head.”

[23:7]  ²¹ tn The MT reading (“God has alienated him into my hand”) in v. 7 is a difficult and uncommon idiom. The use of this verb in Jer 19:4 is somewhat parallel, but not entirely so. Many scholars have therefore suspected a textual problem here, emending the word נִכַּר (nikkar, “alienated”) to סִכַּר (sikkar, “he has shut up [i.e., delivered]”). This is the idea reflected in the translations of the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate, although it is not entirely clear whether they are reading something different from the MT or are simply paraphrasing what for them too may have been a difficult text. The LXX has “God has sold him into my hands,” apparently reading מַכַר (makar, “sold”) for MT’s נִכַּר. The present translation is a rather free interpretation.

[23:7]  ²² tn Heb “with two gates and a bar.” Since in English “bar” could be understood as a saloon, it has been translated as an attributive: “two barred gates.”

[23:14]  ²³ tn Heb “all the days.”

[23:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:28]  ²⁵ sn The name הַמַּחְלְקוֹת סֶלַע (Sela Hammakhleqoth) probably means “Rock of Divisions” in Hebrew, in the sense that Saul and David parted company there (cf. NAB “Gorge of Divisions”; TEV “Separation Hill”). This etymology assumes that the word derives from the Hebrew root II חלק (khlq, “to divide”; HALOT 322 s.v. II חלק). However, there is another root I חלק, which means “to be smooth or slippery” (HALOT 322 s.v. I חלק). If the word is taken from this root, the expression would mean “Slippery Rock.”

[18:1]  ²⁶ sn Psalm 18. In this long song of thanks, the psalmist (a Davidic king, traditionally understood as David himself) affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. The psalmist’s experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the psalm appears in 2 Sam 22:1-51.

[18:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “spoke.”

[18:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”

[18:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “hand.”

[18:1]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”

[18:1]  ³¹ tn A number of translations (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV) assign the words “he said” to the superscription, in which case the entire psalm is in first person. Other translations (e.g., NAB) include the introductory “he said” at the beginning of v. 1.

[18:1]  ³² tn The verb רָחַם (rakham) elsewhere appears in the Piel (or Pual) verbal stem with the basic meaning, “have compassion.” The verb occurs only here in the basic (Qal) stem. The basic stem of the verbal root also occurs in Aramaic with the meaning “love” (see DNWSI 2:1068-69; Jastrow 1467 s.v. רָחַם; G. Schmuttermayr, “rhm: eine lexikalische Studie,” Bib 51 [1970]: 515-21). Since this introductory statement does not appear in the parallel version in 2 Sam 22:1-51, it is possible that it is a later addition to the psalm, made when the poem was revised for use in worship.

[18:1]  ³³ tn Heb “my strength.” “Strength” is metonymic here, referring to the Lord as the one who bestows strength to the psalmist; thus the translation “my source of strength.”