Psalm 18

⁴³        You delivered me from strife with [my own] people;
          You made me head of [neighboring] tribal states;

people whom I had not known became my servants.

⁴⁴                      hearing of me they feigned obedience;

                  these foreigners [even] bowed before me.

⁴⁵        They all lost heart

they [stumbled defeated] out of their strongholds.

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As for the Nations

For the Lord’s Day:  the 6^th of June 2004

 

Introduction:  The background for our text today is to be fund in 2^nd Samuel 8: 1-14 where we read a comprehensive list of subordinate tribal states.  Those under his rule are summarized in the twelfth verse: “Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, Amalek, and from the spoil of Hadadezer the son of Rehob, king of Zobah.”  Now we should certainly understand these conquests in light of the original mandate given to the people of Israel at the time of Moses and even earlier in the promises to Abraham and the other patriarchs.

 

We realize of course that the majority of these petty kingdoms were hardly worth the name, being in reality only tribal states covering the land of Palestine like an American made quilt fabricated from various patches and colors of previously used cloth.  And yet – like many of the colonial quilts once made – the carefully crafted “empire” given to David shines out in history as a prelude to the world wide conquest of David’s greater Son: our Lord Jesus Christ. 

In fact, while we habitually read the verbs here in this passage in the past tense of David’s report, still the Messianic proposition of God’s unfolding Covenant must inform our expectations of what God was and is still doing in our own time.  Even Calvin’s translation of our text, is set in this futuristic vision:  “The change of the tense in the verb from the past to the future does not break the continuity of the narration.”  And while Spurgeon is familiar with the past tense in the version he uses, he also observes:  “Surely there is far more of Jesus than of David here.”

 

In my translation of this section, I will remember this prophetic future which is carefully implied, and yet given the status of the whole psalm; I have left the verbs in the past tense.  Still, more so than other places in this hymnic psalm, I have amended the text with bracketed words to more carefully define the implications of the original Hebrew.  Please note that I have carefully used the word “amend” rather than “emend” here!  The very subtle difference is between “to make minor alterations in” and “to alter something written to correct errors” (Oxford American Dictionary).  My purpose is the first, rather like a sailor adjusting the sails to catch the fullness of the wind, or in this case to catch what seems apparent in the text itself.  My practice here is not unlike a copy of the old King James Version which carefully distinguishes between the actual words in the text and the implications that must be explained by additive and formative words.

 

 

Development:  With that being said, let us begin our study of this Psalm portion with line one of verse forty-three:  “You delivered me from strife with [my own] people.”  This line should stand alone, since the reference to civil strife is entirely different from the foreign adventures described in the balance of this section.  Delitzsch tells us that the words here “can only be understood of the conflicts among his own people, in which David was involved by the persecution of Saul and the rebellions of Absolom and Sheba the son of Bichri; and from which Jahve delivered him, in order to preserve him for his calling of wold-wide dominion in accordance with the promise.”

 

Calvin too, entertains the same substance:  David “was in great danger from the tumults which sometimes arose among his own subjects, if God had not wonderfully allayed them, and subdued the fierceness of the people.”  And so, in due time – peace was gained on the home front, so that David could move beyond the borders of Israel to buy peace at the expense of every enemy that had plagued the people since the time of the original conquest.  Sometimes, as we well know it is necessary to take the battle to our enemies so that our own villages, cities and countryside may remain at peace.  This was a lesson written large in Tolkien’s great epic adventure.

 

The bulk of our text is contained in the last two-thirds of verse forty-three and the whole of the forty-fourth:

 

“You made me head of [neighboring]  tribal states;

people whom I had not known became my servants.

hearing of me they feigned obedience;

these foreigners [even] bowed before me.”

 

In that short outline, we may see written larger the entire career of David, who through the foreign wars brought a sense of “Pax Judean” to the immediate vicinity of western Palestine.  Calvin tells us that because of God’s gracious help in this regard we should view the outcome of David’s territorial increase as “a type under which the Holy Spirit intended to shadow forth to us the kingdom of Christ, let us remember that, both in erecting ad preserving it, it is necessary for God not only to stretch forth his arm and fight against avowed enemies, who from without rise up against him, but also to repress the tumults and strifes which make take place within the Church.”

 

But, this application is many generations in the future in David’s day, so let us for the moment consider the immediate historical background of David’s success under the general mandate of heaven’s only God and Lord.  In the second line of verse forty-three we sense the awe in David’s pen and voice, when he realizes the success that God has laid upon him in so many and numerous diplomatic and military blessings.  David has become the head of the neighboring “tribal states.”  And even though our ordinary translations seek a more modern terminology – we have to remember the petite sizes of the small township and county sized kingdoms of antiquity.  Certainly, because of a necessary tribal cohesion within Israel, he is able to raise a sizeable host large enough to not only overawe the neighbors but also to defeat them in some detail through the ordinary heroics of the battlefield and siege craft.

 

David then goes on to recite three statements that flesh out the original and leading colon.  In line three of verse forty-three, David tells us that “people whom I had not known became my servants.”  Remember, David began as a country lad, knowing only the hills and pastures around Bethlehem.  Late in his youth, he traveled with supplies to find the army of Israel camped and entrenched against the Philistine flatlanders, who would invade the hill country in order to enlarge their own suzerainty in Palestine.

 

Once, David was recruited as a warrior, his experience and knowledge of the land and peoples of the region was greatly expanded, and so much so that at the end of his life, he ruled over a greatly expanded kingdom and in doing so brought great peace and prosperity to the whole region.  These conquered peoples now served him instead of demanding ransom for peace or ruin from banditry.

 

Our next line, the first of verse forty-four betrays a subtlety of the text not regarded in most of our modern translation:  “hearing of me they feigned obedience.”

This reading is absolute in its implications, the meaning of the Hebrew is realistic, the obedience of the foreigners in not gladly given, but desiring to survive at any cost, they only pretended to obey their King reigning from Israel.

 

And yet, there were some to whom the Old Covenant Kingdom must have meant ever so much more.  In various places we read of the factual “foreign legion” make up of David’s elite palace guard.  More than one of these fierce foreign warriors saw their hearts melted by the God of David, and they not only gave themselves fully and wholly to David the King, but also to the God and Father of David’s future and greater son.  Calvin tells us that in this matter, “God exhibited a type of the conquest which Christ would make of the Gentiles, who, by the preaching of the Gospel alone, were subdued, and brought voluntarily to submit to his dominion.”  Yet, he too is realistic in his appraisal of what was going on in this text:  “those who have been vanquished pay homage with great reverence to their conqueror; but it is by a feigned and forced humility.  They obey in a slavish manner, and now willingly or cheerfully.”

 

And so, while the ordinary rebellion of a majority of the human hearts in neighboring states was evident, in their temporary subservience to God’s servant - so may we understand even the state of Christ’s Church where rebellion still smolders in the hearts and minds of all too many:  against the rule and power and authority of God’s chosen Regent:  Jesus Christ.  Even in our day, we just have to wonder at the love and devotion of all too many within the Kingdom of our Lord and God?

 

The second phrase in verse forty-four and the last in this short section reads:  “these foreigners [even] bowed before me.”  While there is some mild surprise in David’s voice, still David was the sovereign power in the immediate region of his conquests.  The Hebrew text here is as Calvin notes: “is to be understood metaphorically” rather than realistically.  These foreigners are as Calvin allows “indeed, mingled among the chosen people, but they are not united to the same body with them by a true faith, and, therefore, ought not to be accounted children of the Church.  It is very true” he says, “that all the Gentiles, when in the beginning they were called into the Church, were strangers; but when they began to entertain new feelings and new affections towards Christ, they who before were “strangers and foreigners” became “fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2: 19).

 

Application:  And so, even while we realize the immediate observations in review of David in his life and times, we must also accommodate ourselves to the eternal perspective of God’s gracious rule over every time and place.  Yes, there be rebels aplenty in every age, and only when absolutely necessary will the wicked recognize the rule of God’s law in society, let alone any personal application to their own hearts and minds.  So it is in our time as well, many have yet to surrender to the authoritive civilization realized from faithful obedience to the covenant laws of our God and King.

 

But, from time to time the law and the gospel do hold sway and temporality it appears that the greater multitude give a general assent to a present rule of the Lord and Savior of mankind.  David reports of his generation that:  “They all lost heart, they [stumbled defeated] out of their strongholds.”

 

Here then we have a type of victory in and through David, that will only be fulfilled in its eternity once Christ returns at the end of the age.  We here in America have been blessed with several hundred years influence of the Reformation and its application to the economy and government of the western countries who benefited most from the revival of biblical authority begun by Luther, Calvin and Knox.

 

Only now is that general appreciation and devotion running down amidst continued attacks by every enemy against God and His eternal word.  Like David, we have many conflicts before us, and we must pray that in time, we too may see the hand of God forcing every spiritual and philosophic enemy to bow their knee before the superior revelation given to us in and through Christ.  May our ongoing spiritual campaigns be blessed by the Lord in this regard.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES

 

Calvin, John:  Commentary on Book of Psalms.

Delitzsch, F:  Commentary on the Old Testament – Psalms.

Spurgeon, C.H:  Treasury of David.

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