Introduction

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David spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from the grasp of all his enemies and from the grasp of Saul. He said:

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,
my God, my rock where I seek refuge.
My shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, my refuge,
and my Savior, you save me from violence.
I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise,
and I was saved from my enemies.
For the waves of death engulfed me;
the torrents of destruction terrified me.
The ropes of Sheol entangled me;
the snares of death confronted me.

I called to the Lord in my distress;
I called to my God.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry for help reached his ears.
Then the earth shook and quaked;
the foundations of the heavens trembled;
they shook because he burned with anger.
Smoke rose from his nostrils,
and consuming fire came from his mouth;
coals were set ablaze by it.
He bent the heavens and came down,
total darkness beneath his feet.
He rode on a cherub and flew,
soaring on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness a canopy around him,
a gathering of water and thick clouds.
From the radiance of his presence,
blazing coals were ignited.
The Lord thundered from heaven;
the Most High made his voice heard.
He shot arrows and scattered them;
he hurled lightning bolts and routed them.
The depths of the sea became visible,
the foundations of the world were exposed
at the rebuke of the Lord,
at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

He reached down from on high
and took hold of me;
he pulled me out of deep water.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out to a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

The Lord rewarded me
according to my righteousness;
he repaid me
according to the cleanness of my hands.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord
and have not turned from my God to wickedness.
Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me
and have not disregarded his statutes.
I was blameless before him
and kept myself from iniquity.
So the Lord repaid me
according to my righteousness,
according to my cleanness in his sight.

With the faithful
you prove yourself faithful,
with the blameless
you prove yourself blameless,
with the pure
you prove yourself pure,
but with the crooked
you prove yourself shrewd.
You rescue an oppressed people,
but your eyes are set against the proud—
you humble them.
Lord, you are my lamp;
the Lord illuminates my darkness.
With you I can attack a barricade,
and with my God I can leap over a wall.
God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord is pure.
He is a shield to all who take refuge in him.

For who is God besides the Lord?
And who is a rock? Only our God.
God is my strong refuge;
he makes my way perfect.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer
and sets me securely on the heights.
He trains my hands for war;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You have given me the shield of your salvation;
your help exalts me.
You make a spacious place beneath me for my steps,
and my ankles do not give way.
I pursue my enemies and destroy them;
I do not turn back until they are wiped out.
I wipe them out and crush them,
and they do not rise;
they fall beneath my feet.
You have clothed me with strength for battle;
you subdue my adversaries beneath me;
I annihilate those who hate me.
They look, but there is no one to save them—
they look to the Lord, but he does not answer them.
I pulverize them like dust of the earth;
I crush them and trample them like mud in the streets.

You have freed me from the feuds among my people;
you have preserved me as head of nations;
a people I had not known serve me.
Foreigners submit to me cringing;
as soon as they hear, they obey me.
Foreigners lose heart
and come trembling from their fortifications.

The Lord lives—blessed be my rock!
God, the rock of my salvation, is exalted.
God—he grants me vengeance
and casts down peoples under me.
He frees me from my enemies.
You exalt me above my adversaries;
you rescue me from violent men.

Therefore I will give thanks to you among the nations, Lord;
I will sing praises about your name.
He is a tower of salvation for his king;
he shows loyalty to his anointed,
to David and his descendants forever.

2 Samuel 22

1. Because God is our Rock, we are encouraged and secure.

The Lord is my rock is the refrain of this song. Not only does it open the song, but it’s repeated in the middle and toward the end.

David doesn’t just begin to praise, he explodes in praise!

A. This God is personal. (2–4)

He’s not just a rock, not just the rock, he’s my rock.

People ask, “Do you believe in God?” Only around 10% of Americans identify as athiest or agnostic. Not that great of a question to guage someone’s spiritual beliefs.

Even if they say yes, “the demons believe, and they tremble.”

There’s a world of difference in believing a God exists out there and knowing that He resides in here.

He listens to the cries of his children.

Things were bad for David before he prayed, but they were much worse for his foes as soon as the petition had gone up to Heaven.

Charles Spurgeon

B. This God is powerful. (7–15)

This is a piece of poetry that most will find rather strange, especially if poetry is not really your thing.

Why all the poetic language? Why not just say, “God rescued me from my enemies” and leave it at that?

David doesn’t merely want to tell you a fact about Yahweh, he wants you to see Yahweh in all his saving fury. He doesn’t want you to just know what God has done, he wants you to see the God who did it.

Ralph Davis

He does this by using the language of God’s work in Israel’s past, in particular the Exodus, the great saving event that defined the identity of Israel.

For us, it’s the death & resurrection of Jesus—that’s what exodus and the Passover point us to.

This is the Biblical way to understand your story.

God never literally did any of these things for David. With hindsight, however, David now sees that God was active beneath the surface of it all.

Tim Keller

Can you look back at periods in your life and see God’s hand at work, even if you couldn’t see it in the moment?

That’s just the part you can understand now. How much more is there? All of it!

When God intervens on your behalf in your life, it might look like the help of another Christian or a timely “coincidence”. But David wants us to recognize it as an act of the earth-shaking, fire-breathing, darkness-dispelling God.

Let your imagination run wild! The next coincidence, the next illness cured by a doctor/medicine, the next timely word from a friend—stop and see behind these things the God of the exodus and the God of the resurrection.

Tim Chester

When/where are you the most vulnerable to not believing this truth about God? Where in your life does the ground seem shaky, unstable, like it’s about to give out underneath you at any second?

2 Samuel 22 is an invitation to put your feet down and feel firm ground underneath you as by faith you rest on God the Rock.

Tim Chester

1. Because God is our Rock, we are encouraged and secure.

2. Because God is our Rock, we are empowered to serve.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer
and sets me securely on the heights.
He trains my hands for war;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You have given me the shield of your salvation;
your help exalts me.
You make a spacious place beneath me for my steps,
and my ankles do not give way.

2 Samuel 22:34–37

You have clothed me with strength for battle;
you subdue my adversaries beneath me;

2 Samuel 22:40

Remember Hannah’s song at the beginning of 1 Samuel?

He guards the steps of his faithful ones, but the wicked perish in darkness, for a person does not prevail by his own strength.

1 Samuel 2:9

Isn’t that what we’ve seen in the life of David?

Does that mean that David sat around and did nothing?

David knew, in the end, that God accomplished it all through his gracee. But that did not make him passive. Work done in the belief it is all up to us quickly becomes a joyless, deadly grind. Only those who know that salvation comes by sheer grace, not our efforts, have the inner dynamic of grateful joy that empowers the greatest efforts.

Tim Keller

God does not just call you to serve him; he also empowers you to serve him. He gives all you need to do all he asks.

Tim Chester

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

1 Corinthians 15:10

1. Because God is our Rock, we are encouraged and secure.
2. Because God is our Rock, we are empowered to serve.

3. Because God is our Rock, we are announced as righteous.

The Lord rewarded me
according to my righteousness;
he repaid me
according to the cleanness of my hands.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord
and have not turned from my God to wickedness.
Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me
and have not disregarded his statutes.

2 Samuel 22:20

“Wait, what?! Hang on a minute! Isn’t this the David who committed adultery and murder? How can he say this?”

The writer is not an idiot—he knew we would read this after we read the full and frank ccount of David’s faults. No one reading David’s words in the context of Samuel could possibly take them at face value.

John Woodhouse

Part of the answer is that David is talking about covenant faithfulness. Once you repent, your righteousness within the covenant is restored.

So David is righteuos in the same way that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Paul actually connects Abraham and David’s experience this way in Romans 4. So David isn’t claiming to be sinless, but to be righteous.

The other part of it is that David could say that the same way that you and I can—because he knew that God had cleansed him from his sin.

David can desccribe his life without reference to his failures, not because he is self-righteous, but because he is deeply aware that God had “put away his sin” (12:13). What puzzles us is that David sees his life as God sees his life.

John Woodhouse

Application

Why was God David’s Rock? Why is he yours? Why is he mine?

He rescued me because he delighted in me.

2 Samuel 22:20

That’s why.

Tim Keller death

For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps his gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commands.

Deuteronomy 7:6–10

I love you because I love you, because I love you. It’s the most beautiful circular reasoning in all the world.