322 – Psalm 18 – Introducing the Introduction

2 Samuel 22:1 (NKJV)

      22:1       Then David spoke to [Yahweh] the words of this song, on the day when [Yahweh] had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. 

I’m not sure you caught it, so I’ll point it out. I’ve titled this discussion “Psalm 18 – Introducing the Introduction”. Weird title right? But that’s not what I want you to notice. We are supposed to be studying Psalm 18, and yet the verse I’ve quoted (with the exception of replacing the wrong substitution “the LORD” with the correct translation [Yahweh]) 2 Samuel 22:1. What gives? Let me explain. Here’s The superscripted title for Psalm 18.

18:title (NKJV)      To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David The Servant of  [Yahweh], Who Spoke to [Yahweh] The Words of This Song on the Day that [Yahweh] Delivered Him from the Hand of All His Enemies and from the Hand of Saul. And He Said:

Compare Psalm 18 title and 2 Samuel 22:1. They are amazingly similar, as a matter of fact, compare the fifty verses of Psalm 18 to the fifty-one verses of 2 Samuel 22. It’s fun to discover they are the same “song” (which is why I bolded the word “song” twice above). 

I’ve mentioned before that the Hebrew Bible includes our “titles” of the Psalms as verse one. Had our English translations done that, the number of verses in these two copies of this Psalm would both be fifty-one. I went through and counted every occurrence of the word Yahweh. Psalm 18 has 19, and 2 Samuel 22:1 has one less at 18. The reason is the slight difference in the introduction to Psalm 18 contains an additional “Yahweh”. 

Clearly, 2 Samuel captures the words of this song before they were written down and as David was speaking them (v. 22:1). You may remember that the way the “book” of Psalms was constructed is individual Psalms were added to the collection at various times. “Adding to the collection” was literally sewing the addition into the scroll containing the Psalms. There were five books or scrolls of the Psalms. Book one, Psalms one through forty-one, were added during David’s lifetime. You’ll also see in verse one that David “spoke to Yahweh the words of this song”, indicating he added music to the words before he delivered them to the Chief Musician.

Pretty cool, right?? You might be thinking, “Yeah, so what?” 

I would like to suggest there are several reasons why this is notable. Significantly, this demonstrates the interconnectivity between the books of the Bible beyond various authors quoting other authors. These words of King David were recorded in the historical book of  2 Samuel, and then again in Israel’s Hymn book. Which leads me to the next point. What David said here was so significant it was to become a song the Israelites were to sing throughout the generations! 

I’m sure there are more reasons the duplication of this song is significant, but the last I want to mention here is it was important enough to Yahweh that He had it permanently preserved in His Holy word. The natural question that follows is why? And in response, It should be our compulsion to take these two passages of scripture seriously. Isn’t this just David pouring out his heart one more time to Yahweh? What makes this Psalm so special?

Even though we will probably just scratch the surface we’ll try to find the answers to the above questions. 

Yahweh is sovereign. He and He alone is worthy of all Praise, Worship, Adoration, Obedience, and Service! Won’t you thank Him and worship Him today?