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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Samuel 22:14 - 22:14
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
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. הָמַם, 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., Exo 14:24; Exo 23:27; Jos 10:10; Jdg 4:15; 1Sa 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 2Sa 22:13-16 the text of the Psalms deviates greatly and in many instances from that before us. In v. 13 we find אֵשׁ וְגַחֲלֵי בָּרָד עָֽבְרוּ עָבָיו instead of אֵשׁ גַּחֲלֵי בָּֽעֲרוּ; and after v. 14 אֵשׁ וְגַחֲלֵי בָּרָד is repeated in the psalm. In v. 15 we have רָב וּבְרָקִים for בָּרָק, and in v. 16 מַיִם אֲפִיקֵי for יָם אֲפִיקֵי. The other deviations are inconsiderable. So far as the repetition of אֵשׁ וְגַחֲלֵי בָּרָד 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 מַיִם אֲפִיקֵי in v. 16 is an obvious softening down of the יָם אֲפִיקֵי 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 רָב בְּרָקִים in the 15th verse of the psalm is more poetical and a stronger expression than the mere בָּרָק of our text.)