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2 Samuel 22 of 24

2 Samuel 22

The warrior-king sings his life story as a theology: God was the reason he survived and the reason he deserves to say so.

Summary

David speaks the words of this song to the Lord in the day that the Lord has delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul. He says: the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; the God of my rock, in him will I trust; he is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my saviour. I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and so shall I be saved from mine enemies. The sorrows of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid, the sorrows of hell compassed me about. In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried to my God; he heard my voice out of his temple and my cry entered into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down, and darkness was under his feet. He rode upon a cherub and did fly, and he was seen upon the wings of the wind. He sent out arrows and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them.

He drew me out of many waters and delivered me from my strong enemy. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, for I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright; with the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury. Thou wilt save the afflicted people; but thine eyes are upon the haughty, that thou mayest bring them down. For thou art my lamp, O Lord, and the Lord will lighten my darkness. For by thee I have run through a troop; by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried; he is a buckler to all them that trust in him. The Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation. Great deliverance giveth he to his king; and sheweth mercy to his anointed, unto David, and to his seed for evermore.

Appears
David
Themes
Praise and Thanksgiving Divine Rescue The Warrior King
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
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2 Samuel 21
Next · Chapter 23 →
2 Samuel 23
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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