2 Samuel 22:21

The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.

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

The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. See Gill on Psalm 18:20.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD rewarded me according to my {l} righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.

(l) Toward Saul and my enemies.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. according to my righteousness] This is no vain-glorious boasting of his own merits, but a testimony to the faithfulness of Jehovah to guard and reward His faithful servants. David does not lay claim to a perfect righteousness, but to sincerity and single-heartedness in his devotion to God. Compare his own testimony (1 Samuel 26:23), God’s testimony (1 Kings 14:8), and the testimony of history (1 Kings 11:4; 1 Kings 15:5), to his essential integrity.

Is not this conscious rectitude, this “princely heart of innocence,” a clear indication that the Psalm was written before his great fall?

the cleanness of my hands] = the purity of my actions. Cp. Psalm 24:4.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 21-25. -

"Jehovah hath requited me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.
For I have kept the ways of Jehovah,
And sinned not so as to depart from my God.
For all his judgments have been kept in sight,

And from his statutes I have not departed.
I was also perfect towards him,
And was on my guard against my sin.
Therefore hath Jehovah recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to my cleanness in his eyesight." It is impossible to suppose that these verses could have been written after David's fall. For while be acknowledges in them a tendency to sin, he affirms that he had been on his guard against it, and that he had ever kept God's statutes present before his view. However complete may be the penitent's recovery, yet can he never again be "perfect," the word applied to an animal without blemish, and therefore fit for sacrifice. The crime remains a blemish, even though the intense sorrow for the sin may make it the means of even attaining to a higher stage of spirituality and devotion. In ver. 22 the words literally are, "I have not sinned away from God," sin necessarily removing the sinner away from that nearness to God which is the privilege of the saint. 2 Samuel 22:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

21 Jehovah rendered to me according to my righteousness,

According to the cleanness of my hands He recompensed me.

22 For I have observed the ways of Jehovah,

And have not wickedly departed from my God.

23 For all His rights are before my eyes;

And His statutes,-I do not depart from them.

24 And I was innocent towards Him,

And kept myself from mine iniquity.

גּמל signifies to do to a person good or evil, like the Greek εὖ and κακῶς πράττειν τινά. The righteousness and cleanness of hands, i.e., the innocence, which David attributed to himself, were not perfect righteousness or holiness before God, but the righteousness of his endeavours and deeds as contrasted with the unrighteousness and wickedness of his adversaries and pursuers, and consisted in the fact that he endeavoured earnestly and sincerely to walk in the ways of God and to keep the divine commandments. מן רשׁע, to be wicked from, is a pregnant expression, signifying to depart wickedly from God. לנגדּי, i.e., as a standard before my eye. In the psalm we find עמּו תמים, innocent in intercourse with the Lord, instead of לו תמים (see Deuteronomy 18:13); and for the fact itself, David's own testimony in 1 Samuel 26:23-24, the testimony of God concerning him in 1 Kings 14:8, and the testimony of history in 1 Kings 15:5. מעוני, from mine iniquity, i.e., from the iniquity which I might have committed.