Relief For The Hunted

by CAPEWELL, P. | Category: N/a | Jul 2006

Psalm 18 is sometimes known as The Song of the Grateful Heart. The circumstances in which it was written are clearly shown from 2 Samuel 22 where it is also recorded in much the same terms. David had experienced some of the most severe trials during which he had been hunted like a partridge in the mountains (1 Sam.26:20). When visiting a local nursing home, I often converse with one of the residents, an old gamekeeper who relates tales of his shooting days when the ground-nesting, low-flying partridge was near the top of his hunting list. David was ruthlessly hunted and the �poacher�, Saul, must have thought him easy prey. But David had deep and lasting personal experience (nine times in 2 verses he uses the pronoun �my�) of the protection of Jehovah. The eight aspects of defence are distinct Hebrew words, indicating various aspects of protection that David enjoyed, for example, �my strength; my strong rock� (v.2), expressing immovable firmness: implying the immutable faithfulness of God, is distinct from �my strength�, implying height and inaccessibility (v.1). The natural state of Palestine, abounding in rocks, to which David resorted when fleeing from Saul, probably suggested the figure.

In addition, David was assured of the two outweighing contrary qualities of goodness and mercy that followed (same word as hunt in 1 Sam.26:20) him �all the days of his life� (Ps.23:6). �He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world� (1 John 4:4). What trials surrounded David, �pangs of death, floods of ungodliness, sorrows of Sheol, snares of death� swirling round and entangling him! Next, that marvellous word which many of us will have used, �In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears� (v.6). The only other reference to a partridge (Jer.17:11) is followed by the astoundingly contrasting verse, �a glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary� (Jer.17:12). That was the lofty point of contact for this besieged, ground-dwelling prey. Verse 7 of the psalm begins with the little word �then�; �at this juncture�, and there follows a description of scenes reminiscent of Sinai. Jehovah moving heaven and earth to deliver His servant! �He sent from above; He took me; He drew me out of many waters� (v.16).

From scenes of a king in a cave, to the King on the Cross! �O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent� (Ps.22:2). During the three hours under the scorching Jerusalem sun and throughout the unnatural darkness of the 6th to the 9th hours the Sufferer�s cries �reached the very heart of God on high, yet brought no answer from the throne above� (A.G.Jarvis Snr.).

Or, as Andy McIlree once wrote, �He who knew such praying power is left unanswered on the Tree.�

In vain, we search Psalms 22 & 69, Isaiah 53 and the four gospel records for an interventionary �then�. Though Jehovah�s Servant was Himself �surrounded� and �encircled� and with the waters come into His soul, there was no Rescuer to draw Him �out of the waters� that came into His soul nor from the waves and billows that went over Him.

Here was the sinless One forsaken by the Holy One. Here was the Son who had so readily responded to the Father�s questions, �Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?� (Is.6:8), thereby accepting total accountability for the payment of sin, the full cost of which He always knew. How poignant and comprehensive His view of His own bodily condition in Psalm 22, My bones, My heart, My strength, My tongue, My hands and My feet, My garments, My clothing! �Help Me, Deliver Me, Save Me!� But what a change of tone now as the gloom lifts and the glory descends, You have answered Me (Ps.22:21)! Was this His coming �forth o�er death victorious� on the resurrection morning? How prompt He was in fulfilling the next stanza, ��I will declare Your name to My brethren �"... go to My brethren and say to them, �I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God�"� (John 20:17)! And how glorious His ongoing fulfilment of the next promise, ��In the midst of the assembly I will praise You��! Little wonder that the hymn calls on us with such urgency,

Then haste, ye saints, your tribute bring

and laud the everlasting King;

Laud Him, Laud the everlasting King. (T.Kelly)

CAPEWELL, P. | Jul 2006
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