The Old Testament is filled with amazing stories of God delivering his people from the hands their enemies while doing miraculous things to bring them salvation. One story that immediately comes to mind is the Exodus, where God parted the Red Sea so his people could walk across on dry ground before bringing the waves crashing back down on the Egyptians. Another story comes from the book of Joshua, where God sent hailstones from heaven to strike down their enemies and caused the sun to stand still for an entire day while Israel conquered them completely.
David himself had experienced a remarkable salvation from the hands of his enemies when he wrote Psalm 18, and he describes the experience using powerful language reminiscent of these past events of Israel’s history. He describes God coming to his rescue with the language of thunder, lightning, fire, smoke, earthquakes, hailstones, and even a reference to the channels of the sea being visible like they were at the Red Sea. The language David uses to speak of God’s salvation is powerful, evocative, and memorable, and it makes clear that David knew full well that he wasn’t rescued by his own power, nor did he just get lucky. God had acted on his behalf and delivered him by his amazing sovereign power.
David spends much of this long psalm praising God for his great salvation, and he ends in last two verses with a remarkable statement—“For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing to your name. Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever ” (vv. 49–50). On the surface, these verses may seem fairly uninteresting, but to those who understand the covenantal structure of the Old Testament, they point forward to something even more remarkable.
You see, God had made a promise to David that one day a king from his line would sit on the throne forever. Long after David had died and many kings had come and gone, it seemed unclear who this anointed offspring would be. But, in the New Testament, we learn that God’s promise to David was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, the Son of David, who provided a salvation even greater than Israel or David had ever experienced. God rescued them from their earthly enemies, but their hearts were never freed from slavery to sin. On the other hand, in Jesus, God provides salvation from sin and from the death that sin brought into the world.
David spoke of God’s salvation in the most powerful terms, and in the moment of his writing, he himself likely didn’t understand the full significance of what he was saying. Without a doubt, God’s salvation for his people throughout history was miraculous and amazing, but David was pointing forward to an even greater miraculous salvation—one that all of us who have trusted in Jesus have experienced for ourselves. Praise God for his remarkable salvation!
All the best,
Luke Burrow
