Commentary - 2 Samuel 22:5-7

Bird's-eye view

This magnificent song of David, which we also have as Psalm 18, is a testimony given at the end of a long and tumultuous life. David had been delivered from the hand of all his enemies, with Saul being the chief of them. This is not the song of a young man who thinks he might be delivered, but the song of an old man who knows he has been. In these particular verses, David plunges into the depths of his past distress. He uses four powerful and parallel metaphors to describe the mortal danger he was in. He was drowning in death, swept away by wickedness, entangled by the grave, and trapped by death itself. This is the prelude to the great deliverance. Before God acts, the situation must be genuinely dire. And in that dire extremity, there is only one thing to do, which is precisely what David did. He called upon the Lord.

The structure here is simple and profound. First, the problem is stated in all its overwhelming force (vv. 5-6). Second, the solution is enacted (v. 7). The problem is totalizing peril; the solution is a desperate cry to God. This pattern is the bedrock of the life of faith. When you are at the absolute end of your rope, you find that God has tied a knot there for you to hang on to. And the way we take hold is by calling out to Him. God hears from His temple, a place of serene holiness and absolute authority, and the cry of a distressed saint on earth immediately has His full attention.

Outline

Context In 2 Samuel

This song functions as a grand summary of David's entire life from God's point of view. It is placed here at the end of 2 Samuel, not because it was composed last, but because it provides the theological capstone to his reign. The book has detailed his anointing, his flight from Saul, his ascension to the throne, his triumphs, and his terrible sins. Through it all, one theme is constant: God's deliverance of His anointed. This song is David's inspired reflection on that central reality. Verses 5-7 are the pivot point of the first section. They establish the utter hopelessness of David's situation apart from God. This is not hyperbole; this is how a man pursued by a mad king, betrayed by friends, and hunted in the wilderness actually feels. It is the necessary crisis that precedes the glorious deliverance described in the verses that follow, where the earth shakes and the Lord thunders from heaven.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 5 For the waves of death encompassed me;

David begins his description of the trouble with this image of drowning. The "waves of death" are not gentle lapping on the shore; this is a storm surge. He is surrounded, encompassed. There is no direction to swim, no land in sight. This is what it feels like when circumstances are utterly out of your control. Whether it was Saul's army closing in, or the consequences of his own sin bearing down upon him, the sensation was one of being overwhelmed by a force that would surely pull him under. Death was not a distant possibility; it was the very water he was treading, and his strength was failing. This is a picture of complete helplessness, which is the necessary prerequisite for a man to look outside of himself for salvation.

The torrents of vileness terrorized me;

The second clause here intensifies the first. The word for "vileness" is Belial, which can mean worthlessness or destruction. In later Scripture, it becomes a name for the devil. So David is saying that he was being swept away by flash floods of sheer wickedness. This wasn't just impersonal fate; it was malevolent. Ungodly men were raging against him, and their destructive power was terrifying. When you are the object of concerted, intelligent, and wicked opposition, it feels like a raging river that threatens to carry away everything you have built. David knew this terror intimately. He was not afraid of a fair fight, but this was a torrent of lawlessness, a flood of ungodly men coming at him.

v. 6 The cords of Sheol surrounded me;

Now the metaphor shifts from drowning to being bound. Sheol, in the Old Testament, is the place of the dead. It is not Hell in the final sense of Gehenna, the lake of fire, but rather the grave, the realm of departed spirits. To be surrounded by the cords of Sheol is to be entangled in the ropes that drag a man down to the grave. Imagine a man caught in a net, being pulled down into the depths. Every struggle only tightens the ropes. This is the feeling of being trapped. There is no escape. Death has its grip on you, and it is tightening. This is not just the threat of death, but the active work of the grave reaching up to claim its victim before his time.

The snares of death confronted me.

This completes the quartet of metaphors. A snare is a trap, something hidden and designed to catch the unwary. David is saying that wherever he turned, he was confronted with a death trap. He was walking through a minefield. Every path was blocked, every potential escape route was another snare laid by his enemies, or by the consequences of his own folly. Death was not just a passive state he was approaching; it was an active hunter, and its traps were laid out right in front of him. He was cornered, bound, drowning, and trapped. The case was hopeless, humanly speaking.

v. 7 In my distress I called upon Yahweh,

And here is the great turn. When all human options are exhausted, the only true option remains. In the midst of this suffocating, entangling, overwhelming distress, David did the one thing he could do. He called upon the Lord. This is not a calm, meditative prayer. This is a cry, a shout for help. It is the raw, unfiltered appeal of a man at his absolute limit. And he calls upon "Yahweh," the covenant name of God. He is not appealing to a generic deity, but to the God who made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to David himself. He is reminding God of His covenant relationship. This is the essence of faith in a crisis, to call upon the God who has promised to hear.

And I called to my God;

The parallel statement personalizes the cry. He is not just Yahweh, the God of Israel; He is "my God." This is the language of personal relationship, of sonship. Despite the terror and the feeling of being abandoned, David's faith lays claim to his relationship with God. This is crucial. In our darkest moments, the enemy wants us to believe that God is distant, angry, or indifferent. The cry of faith insists, "You are still my God." This is the anchor that holds in the storm. It is a confession of dependence and a claim of relationship, all in one desperate cry.

And out of His temple He heard my voice,

The location from which God hears is significant. His temple here refers to His heavenly dwelling place, the command center of the universe. It is a place of perfect order, power, and holiness. From that place of absolute sovereignty, God hears the faint, desperate cry of one man on earth. Your distress does not go unnoticed. The chaos of your circumstances does not drown out the sound of your voice to Him. The cry from the depths of Sheol on earth reaches the heights of the temple in heaven. There is no distance His hearing cannot cross.

And my cry for help came into His ears.

This final clause is a beautiful Hebrew parallelism, emphasizing the reality of what just happened. It is not just that God heard in a general sense, as though He were passively aware of all sounds. The cry "came into His ears." It arrested His attention. It demanded a response. This is the great encouragement for every believer in distress. Your prayer is not an unheard monologue. It is a summons that enters the very throne room of heaven and is received by the King who has the power to answer. And as the rest of this chapter makes abundantly clear, when God hears such a cry, He does not sit still.

Application

The pattern David lays out here is the pattern for every Christian who finds himself in deep waters. First, we must recognize that such times will come. You will face waves of death, torrents of vileness, cords of the grave, and snares of death. This is part of the Christian life in a fallen world. Do not be surprised when you are terrorized and feel trapped.

Second, in that moment, your theology must be reduced to its most basic and potent form: Cry out to God. Don't try to pretty it up. Don't wait until you feel worthy. In your distress, call upon the Lord. Your extremity is God's opportunity. He loves to deliver His people from cliff-hangers, because it leaves no doubt as to who gets the glory.

Finally, trust that He hears. Your cry is not lost in the static of the cosmos. It travels from your place of pain directly into the ears of your Father in His heavenly temple. He is not a distant landlord; He is your God. And when a child of God cries for help, the foundations of the world are about to be shaken.