Psalm 18:31

For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(31) Comp. Deuteronomy 32:31, where we see that “rock” was a common term among the tribes of Canaan for their divinities. Notice some trifling variations in Samuel.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

18:29-50 When we praise for one mercy, we must observe the many more, with which we have been compassed all our days. Many things had contributed to David's advancement, and he owns the hand of God in them all, to teach us to do likewise. In verse

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For who is God save the Lord? - Who is God except Yahweh? The idea is, that no other being has evinced the power, the wisdom, and the goodness which properly belong to the true God; or, that the things which are implied in the true nature of God are found in no other being.

Or who is a rock save our God? - See Psalm 18:2. There is no one who can furnish such safety or defense; no one under whose protection we can be secure in danger. Compare Deuteronomy 32:31.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

30-32. God's perfection is the source of his own, which has resulted from his trust on the one hand, and God's promised help on the other.

tried—"as metals are tried by fire and proved genuine" (Ps 12:6). Shield (Ps 3:3). Girding was essential to free motion on account of the looseness of Oriental dresses; hence it is an expressive figure for describing the gift of strength.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

It must needs be as I have said, because our Lord is the only God, and therefore there is none, neither God nor creature, that can hinder him from accomplishing his own word and work, or from defending those that trust him: he is unchangeable and invincible. Or this is an amplification, As God is what I have now described him to be, so he only is such, and there is no other God or Rock in which they may safely trust.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For who is God save the Lord?.... Or Jehovah: there is but one God, and Jehovah is he; there is none besides him, nor any like him: there are many that are called gods, nominal deities, who are not by nature gods; fictitious ones, the idols of the Gentiles, made of gold, silver, brass, wood, and stone; but there is but one true God: there are gods, in an improper sense, as civil magistrates; but there is none really and truly so but the Lord; which is to be understood, not of Jehovah the Father, to the exclusion of the Son and Spirit; for the Son is Jehovah, and the Spirit is Jehovah; both are so called, as well as the Father, and all three one God;

or who is a rock save our God? to have recourse to for shelter and protection; or to trust to, and build upon, for eternal life and salvation. False gods are rocks; but not like ours, our enemies themselves being judges, Deuteronomy 32:31; so Apollo at Delphos is called the Delphian rock (n): the words seem to be taken from, or at least there is in them a reference to, 1 Samuel 2:2.

(n) , Sophoclis Oedipus, v. 472.

Geneva Study Bible

For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

31. For who is a God save Jehovah?

And who is a Rock beside our God?

Jehovah alone is Elôah, a God to be feared and reverenced. The singular Elôah is found instead of the usual plural Elohim elsewhere in the Psalter only in Psalm 50:22; Psalm 114:7; Psalm 139:19. It is used frequently in Job; in Deuteronomy 32:15; Deuteronomy 32:17; Isaiah 44:8; Habakkuk 1:11; Habakkuk 3:3; and in a few other passages.

For Rock see note on Psalm 18:2; and for similar declarations of the unique character of Jehovah cp. Deuteronomy 32:31; 1 Samuel 2:2; 2 Samuel 7:22.

31–34. The unique character of Jehovah, to whom alone David owes all that he is. Observe how he recognises that the advantages of physical strength and energy, important qualifications in times when the king was himself the leader of the people in battle, were gifts of God; yet that it was not these which saved him and made him victorious, but Jehovah’s care and help (Psalm 18:35 ff.). Cp. 1 Samuel 17:34-36.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 31. - For who is God save the Lord (see Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 32:39). As the one and only God, absolute confidence may be placed in Jehovah, who is able to protect and preserve to the uttermost all who serve him (comp. 2 Samuel 7:22-29). Or who is a Rock save our God? (comp. ver. 2; and see also Deuteronomy 32:4, 18, 30, 31; and Psalm 61:2). Psalm 18:31

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 18:32-35) The grateful description of the tokens of favour he has experienced takes a new flight, and is continued in the second half of the Psalm in a more varied and less artificial mixture of the strophes. What is said in Psalm 18:31 of the way and word of Jahve and of Jahve Himself, is confirmed in Psalm 18:32 by the fact that He alone is אלוהּ, a divine being to be reverenced, and He alone is צוּר, a rock, i.e., a ground of confidence that cannot be shaken. What is said in Psalm 18:31 consequently can be said only of Him. מבּלעדי and זוּלתי alternate; the former (with a negative intensive מן) signifies "without reference to" and then absolutely "without" or besides, and the latter (with ı̂ as a connecting vowel, which elsewhere has also the function of a suffix), from זוּלת (זוּלה), "exception." The verses immediately following are attached descriptively to אלהינוּ, our God (i.e., the God of Israel), the God, who girded me with strength; and accordingly (fut. consec.) made my way תמים, "perfect," i.e., absolutely smooth, free from stumblings and errors, leading straight forward to a divine goal. The idea is no other than that in Psalm 18:31, cf. Job 22:3, except that the freedom from error here is intended to be understood in accordance with its reference to the way of a man, of a king, and of a warrior; cf. moreover, the other text. The verb שׁוּה signifies, like Arab. swwâ, to make equal (aequare), to arrange, to set right; the dependent passage Habakkuk 3:19 has, instead of this verb, the more uncoloured שׁים. The hind, איּלה or איּלת, is the perfection of swiftness (cf. ἔλαφος and ἐλαφρός) and also of gracefulness among animals. "Like the hinds" is equivalent to like hinds' feet; the Hebrew style leaves it to the reader to infer the appropriate point of comparison from the figure. It is not swiftness in flight (De Wette), but in attack and pursuit that is meant, - the latter being a prominent characteristic of warriors, according to 2 Samuel 1:23; 2 Samuel 2:18; 1 Chronicles 12:8. David does not call the high places of the enemy, which he has made his own by conquest "my high places," but those heights of the Holy Land which belong to him as king of Israel: upon these Jahve preserves him a firm position, so that from them he may rule the land far and wide, and hold them victoriously (cf. passages like Deuteronomy 32:13; Isaiah 58:14). The verb למּד, which has a double accusative in other instances, is here combined with ל of the subject taught, as the aim of the teaching. The verb נחת (to press down equals to bend a bow) precedes the subject "my arms" in the singular; this inequality is admissible even when the subject stands first (e.g., Genesis 49:22; Joel 1:20; Zechariah 6:14). קשׁת נחוּשׁה a bow of brazen equals of brass, as in Job 20:24. It is also the manner of heroes in Homer and in the Ram-jana to press down and bend with their hand a brazen bow, one end of which rests on the ground.