2 Samuel 22:15

And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:1-51 David's psalm of thanksgiving. - This chapter is a psalm of praise; we find it afterwards nearly as Ps 18. They that trust God in the way of duty, shall find him a present help in their greatest dangers: David did so. Remarkable preservations should be particularly mentioned in our praises. We shall never be delivered from all enemies till we get to heaven. God will preserve all his people, 2Ti 4:18. Those who receive signal mercies from God, ought to give him the glory. In the day that God delivered David, he sang this song. While the mercy is fresh, and we are most affected with it, let the thank-offering be brought, to be kindled with the fire of that affection. All his joys and hopes close, as all our hopes should do, in the great Redeemer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This song, which is found with scarcely any material variation as Psalm 18, and with the words of this first verse for its title, belongs to the early part of David's reign when he was recently established upon the throne of all Israel, and when his final triumph over the house of Saul, and over the pagan nations 2 Samuel 22:44-46, Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Ammonites, and Edomites, was still fresh 2 Samuel 21. For a commentary on the separate verses the reader is referred to the commentary on Psalm 18.

The last words of David - i. e., his last Psalm, his last "words of song" 2 Samuel 22:1. The insertion of this Psalm, which is not in the Book of Psalms, was probably suggested by the insertion of the long Psalm in 2 Samuel 22.

David the son of Jesse said ... - The original word for "said" is used between 200 and 300 times in the phrase, "saith the Lord," designating the word of God in the mouth of the prophet. It is only applied to the words of a man here, and in the strikingly similar passage Numbers 24:3-4, Numbers 24:15-16, and in Proverbs 30:1; and in all these places the words spoken are inspired words. The description of David is divided into four clauses, which correspond to and balance each other.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 22

2Sa 22:1-51. David's Psalm of Thanksgiving for God's Powerful Deliverance and Manifold Blessings.

The song contained in this chapter is the same as the eighteenth Psalm, where the full commentary will be given [see on [278]Ps 18:1, &c.]. It may be sufficient simply to remark that Jewish writers have noticed a great number of very minute variations in the language of the song as recorded here, from that embodied in the Book of Psalms—which may be accounted for by the fact that this, the first copy of the poem, was carefully revised and altered by David afterwards, when it was set to the music of the tabernacle. This inspired ode was manifestly the effusion of a mind glowing with the highest fervor of piety and gratitude, and it is full of the noblest imagery that is to be found within the range even of sacred poetry. It is David's grand tribute of thanksgiving for deliverance from his numerous and powerful enemies, and establishing him in the power and glory of the kingdom.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them. See Gill on Psalm 18:14.

Geneva Study Bible

And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. scattered them] “Them” obviously refers to the enemies whose destruction was the object of this divine interposition (2 Samuel 22:4).

discomfited them] A word denoting the confusion of a sudden panic, and used specially of supernatural defeat. Cp. Exodus 14:24 (E. V. troubled); Joshua 10:10; Jdg 4:15; 1 Samuel 7:10.

2 Samuel 22:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

14 Jehovah thundered from the heavens,

And the Most High gave His voice.

15 He sent arrows, and scattered them;

Lightning, and discomfited them.

16 Then the beds of the sea became visible;

The foundations of the world were uncovered,

Through the threatening of Jehovah,

By the snorting of the breath of His nostrils.

God sent lightning as arrows upon the enemies along with violent thunder, and threw them thereby into confusion. המם, to throw into confusion, and thereby to destroy, is the standing expression for the destruction of the foe accomplished by the miraculous interposition of God (vid., Exodus 14:24; Exodus 23:27; Joshua 10:10; Judges 4:15; 1 Samuel 7:10). To the thunder there were added stormy wind and earthquake, as an effect of the wrath of God, whereby the foundations of the sea and land were laid bare, i.e., whereby the depth of the abyss and of the hell in the interior of the earth, into which the person to be rescued had fallen, were disclosed.

(Note: In 2 Samuel 22:13-16 the text of the Psalms deviates greatly and in many instances from that before us. In v. 13 we find אשׁ וגחלי בּרד עברוּ עביו instead of אשׁ גּחלי בּערוּ; and after v. 14 אשׁ וגחלי בּרד is repeated in the psalm. In v. 15 we have רב וּברקים for בּרק, and in v. 16 מים אפיקי for ים אפיקי. The other deviations are inconsiderable. So far as the repetition of אשׁ וגחלי בּרד at the end of v. 14 is concerned, it is not only superfluous, but unsuitable, because the lightning following the thunder is described in v. 15, and the words repeated are probably nothing more than a gloss that has crept by an oversight into the text. The מים אפיקי in v. 16 is an obvious softening down of the ים אפיקי of the text before us. In the other deviations, however, the text of the Psalms is evidently the more original of the two; the abridgment of the second clause of v. 13 is evidently a simplification of the figurative description in the psalm, and רב בּרקים in the 15th verse of the psalm is more poetical and a stronger expression than the mere בּרק of our text.)