Picture him now, marching victoriously at the head of his column of troops. It’s a long hike, and David is full to bursting with thanksgiving. With his natural grand talent for what was music and poetry among Hebrew people, he burst into song. All along the path for quite some distance, the phrases kept bubbling over in his mind. Every common expression of victory heard in the Hebrew tongue was not enough, even piled altogether in one song. David sang the initial composition of this song after a series of victories that confirmed his reign, a song first recorded in 2 Samuel 22. This is a somewhat updated version of that same song.
Could we have caught any other commander in a similar context in those ancient times, he would have praised his war deity in just this manner. But David had only one God to receive this torrent of praise, a God who was also his emperor, and David his vassal. The first few verses are typical of someone bringing news of victory to his Lord. It starts with an open confession of adoration, as one did not enter any august presence with anything less. There could be no God as great as David’s Lord.
David admits it looked grim for awhile. He had been cornered more than once, but always escaped. That’s because David called out to God. Only a with a strong moral clarity and sense of calling would someone in dire straights know whether his calling on God would lead to resigning one’s spirit into the Lord’s hands or if it were a call in confidence of His deliverance. Your faith can know which to claim, but calling on God is the proper reflex regardless. It lets God decide whether He’s ready to accept your resignation.
Then David unloads a string of parabolic descriptions of God acting in divine power to save him. How many different ways can he say it? When God takes a notion to act, nothing opposes Him because He made all things. It is the same form of symbolic hyperbole when David claims to be a faithful servant of God. While it sounds in our ears like self-justification, it is actually proper protocol when standing before one’s feudal master. Declaring oneself faithful and willing to pay any price to please is a standard element in praising one’s Lord in that Ancient Near Eastern context. Notice David isn’t suggesting how wonderful he is, so much as indicating that he will stand with his God regardless how others might fail.
This leads right into describing how God supports those who serve Him. Because God is faithful and just, He grants extraordinary authority to those who genuinely love Him. This was the only reason David could offer to explain his stunning string of military victories, some of them major upsets. Thus, David ended up exercising rule over people he never actually wanted to conquer. More than a few simply begged for a chance to enter his feudal service as allies. David insists this was the work of his God. Thus, we can be sure that David began his reign on the right foot.
