Psalm 18

Again I am working at memorizing Scripture. It has been healing to me and brought much peace and insight. This is only the first six verses of a very long piece.

1) I love you, O LORD, my strength.
2) The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3) I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.
4) The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5) The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.
6) In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice, my cries came before him, into his ears.


Battling life, people who seek your destruction weary a soul, God only can provide actual strenth. (Other bases are temporary refuges that leave one weaker and unprotected.) Gibralter is a rock, a fortress. But even it can be bridged. That is how it got its name Jebel Tariq, when it was mounted by Tariq the Muslim conquerer sometime during the 800 years Muslims occupied Spain. A deliverer is needed to maintain one's safety. He is our rock in which to find safe refuge.

A shield. A Christian woman well versed in Hebrew traditions informed me that the Star of David is actually called the shield of David. So when I read that the shield of David is the Lord, it made me understand that the shield is the LORD, the protector of His people. I had been wearing a Star of David, so that made that sign a better symbol to me-more of the Lord than of remembrance of the Jewish people.

I grew up in the culture of the 1950's, when westerns were a daily affair. Three or four hours each evening were saturated with watching the good guys fight with the bad guys, the cowboys fight the Indians. Wagon trains which were almost destroyed, battles that were nearly lost, were reassured by the call of the bugle. The calvary came to the rescue. Sometimes bagpipes substited for them. Thus, "the horn of my salvation" brings to mind the call of the army that is coming to my defense, who will win the day. The army of the Lord, his heavenly hosts, or just the Lord himself.

My stronghold. Many Christian books speak of strongholds of the enemy where we have given ground due to our sin, fears, or sins of our fathers. We are to take authority over them, rebuke the devil and he will flee from us. But with the Lord as my stronghold, I am safe. I call and I am saved. Cause and effect, dependable. Such a Lord is worthy to be praised.

What threatens us? Death, destruction, the grave, enemies who want to put us there. Such poetic language here, grasps the horror he went through. He had Saul frothing over him, though he had given no reason to the king to oppose him. He had his son take allies and remove him from power for awhile. He had to flee and hide in order to survive. Though we may not have actual armies out hunting us, or kings seething over us, yet we face death, disease, destruction. Cords tie us up. Yet this is progressive. Entangles me becomes coils around me.

Torrents speak of flooding waters with such power the currents are impossible to withstand. David was overwhelmed, as we all are by things that face us. Death is final, but the grave leaves no room for rescue, no hope for resurrection except in the Last Day. The snares of death confront us-where some item takes us and holds us and will not let us escape. At that point we must face it for we cannot avoid the situation further. Whether it is physical death we face, such as by cancer, we all have items in our life we are confronted by and that we must confront. So what does the psalmist do?

In his distress he called to the Lord. He cried to his God for help. Now many a person cries to God, but not all receive help. The other day my cat was meowing, as she does daily. Sometimes she can be quite obnoxious in her determination. It is not as if she is not taken care of. But sometimes even with food, she complains. We open the door but she will not go out. At times we must ignore her plaintive cries if we are to concentrate on anything else. It occured to me that we were like cats. The Lord hears all our constant complaints, and sometimes just shuts them out. After all, the praises of the cherabim and seraphim, thousands upon thousands of angels, compete against all the prayers of the saints, and the growlings of the unbelievers. Not that He doesn't hear them, but they may not have the same urgency to Him as they do to us.

But for David, the Lord recognized his voice. Just as a mother can hear, even in her sleep, the cries of her baby. Anyone can hear it when it is loud, but a special attachment is in her hearing to recognize the calls of her child. Because He heard the voice of one belonging to him, he allowed the cries to come before him, into his ears. Come before signifies a throne room in which the needs are brought before a soverign. Not just everyone can barge in, it is a privilege to be heard.

I saw the ruins of such a room in Marrakech. Barely the floorplan remained, and a few walls, of this centuries old ruler's domain. Nevertheless, it was impressive. One could imagine the envoys from other lands passing the garden (orchards of tangerines) or the subterfuges of this or that messenger trying to be heard. The waiting rooms, the family rooms (the harem for women and children) and private chambers. It was wearisome just walking the distance. And the heat without air-conditioning or electric fans would have been stifling. Of course, in old movies one sees slaves whose job it is to fan with feathers so that the privileged do not suffer much. They have iced drinks. With the city being not too far from the High Atlas mountains, the snow run off provided cool spring water even though it is only a couple of hundred miles (? or less) from the Sahara. Clearly the luxuries of the Lord's court and temple, are far below that of the Moroccan king, whose name I cannot even remember. But if the terror and power of such a man in an obscure place was so great, how much more impressive is that of the Lord?


Now you may not believe this psalm to be a better sura, but I do. While the Koran speaks of God's help with peoples, his believers as a group, it declares no one can know God. This passage clearly indicates a relationship exists of such intimacy and individual protection that that premise is refuted. The next verses show such power in how the Almighty responds, that it is overwhelming. But that must wait for another day and another post, after I have put to memory those verses and meditated on their meaning.

(I also note that when I quote the verses, though I might want to capitalize words, I do not unless they are written thus in Scripture. And when I use the word Scripture I mean the Bible, as when you do, you probably mean the Koran.)