Week 4 Psalm 18
Sometimes David speaks directly to-the-Lord in this psalm. Then at other times he just makes a comment about-the-Lord.
There are fifty verses in the psalm and about 26 individual comments / phrases where David speaks directly to-the-Lord (for instance I love you Lord; you are my strength). They’re almost like prayers.
I doubled-back and counted how many times David says something about-the-Lord. Talking about-the-Lord David uses words like he-him-his-the Lord-God. There are roughly 49 things he says about-the-Lord (for instance: as for God his way is perfect).
So that means that there are really two audiences listening to the psalm: the Lord and then regular people.
I get the impression that the things David says about-the-Lord – the things he thinks about him – are his foundational jumping-off points for what he says to-the-Lord.
On a simple level this makes sense. If I can say about-the-Lord something like: ‘you save me from my enemies’ then that’s a staging-point for me to move ahead and say something like this to-the-Lord: ‘for this, O Lord, I will praise you’.
If I’ve formed a personal opinion about what the Lord is like then it’ll affect my interaction with him. And I think that holds true no matter what my opinion about him is – good-bad-or-indifferent.
Note: quotes from Psalm 18:1 30 (NLT)