David's Thanksgiving Psalm

What balm to come to II Samuel, Chapter 22!

A poem here is also Psalm 18, which has the heading:  

                God the Sovereign Savior

            To the Chief Musician.  A Psalm of

              David “the servant of the Lord,

            who spoke to the Lord the words

               of this song on the day that the

            Lord delivered him from the hand

               of all his enemies and from the

                  hand of Saul.  And he said:

                                                NKJV

The NRSV has this to say about the second section (vv. 29-51): “The theme of conquest in the second section may have led to the poem’s association with David, but features of the language show that it was composed centuries after his lifetime.”

Dummelow’s Commentary of The Holy Bible calls II Samuel Chapter 22, David’s Thanksgiving Psalm, and says of it, “This beautiful poem has also been preserved as the Eighteenth Psalm.  It probably belongs to the earlier portion of David’s reign, when his conquests and God’s promise (2S7) were still fresh in his mind. See Ps 18.”

And, when one does “see Ps 18”, one finds that Dummelow offers this: “Of all the Pss. this is the one which can be ascribed with greatest confidence to David.  Interesting that it is described as a “series of triumphant thanksgivings to God…” as I have come to it the day before the Thanksgiving Service at my church.

 Dav