Scripture Daily

Context No. 3793 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 18:33-50: in context

33He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and sets me on my high places. 34He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms bend a bow of bronze. 35You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your right hand sustains me. Your gentleness has made me great. 36You have enlarged my steps under me, My feet have not slipped. 37I will pursue my enemies, and overtake them. I won’t turn away until they are consumed. 38I will strike them through, so that they will not be able to rise. They shall fall under my feet. 39For you have armed me with strength to the battle. You have subdued under me those who rose up against me. 40You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, that I might cut off those who hate me. 41They cried, but there was no one to save; even to the LORD, but he didn’t answer them. 42Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind. I cast them out as the mire of the streets. 43You have delivered me from the strivings of the people. You have made me the head of the nations. A people whom I have not known shall serve me. 44As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me. The foreigners shall submit themselves to me. 45The foreigners shall fade away, and shall come trembling out of their strongholds. 46The LORD lives! Blessed be my rock. Exalted be the God of my salvation, 47even the God who executes vengeance for me, and subdues peoples under me. 48He rescues me from my enemies. Yes, you lift me up above those who rise up against me. You deliver me from the violent man. 49Therefore I will give thanks to you, LORD, among the nations, and will sing praises to your name. 50He gives great deliverance to his king, and shows loving kindness to his anointed, to David and to his offspring, forever more.

This section of David's psalm of victory is full of strength, God arming him for battle, steadying his feet, giving him triumph over his enemies. But at its center is a line of surprising tenderness: your gentleness has made me great.

Amid all the language of strength and conquest, David traces his true greatness not to his own power but to God's gentleness, God's stooping down to help him. It is a striking confession from a warrior king. Whatever David had become, whatever victories he had won, he knew that the deepest cause was not his own strength but God's kindness in bending low to lift him up. It was God's gentleness, not David's greatness, that made him great. There is a humbling truth here for anyone who has risen or accomplished anything. Whatever we attain, if we are honest, we owe to God's gracious stooping to help us, his gentleness bending down to a people who could not lift themselves. The right response to any greatness we are given is not pride but gratitude to the God whose gentleness made it so.

When I consider whatever I have attained or become, do I trace it with gratitude to God's gentleness stooping down to lift me, rather than taking the credit as though my own strength made me great?

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