13 Yahweh also thundered in the sky. The Most High uttered his voice: hailstones and coals of fire.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Jehovah thundered. David here repeats the same thing in different words, declaring that God thundered from heaven; and he calls the thunder the yoke of God, that we may not suppose it is produced merely by chance or by natural causes, independent of the appointment and will of God. Philosophers, it is true, are well acquainted with the intermediate or secondary causes, from which the thunder proceeds, namely, that when the cold and humid vapours obstruct the dry and hot exhalations in their course upwards, a collision takes place, and by this, together with the noise of the clouds rushing against each other, is produced the rumbling thunder-peal. But David, in describing the phenomena of the atmosphere, rises, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, above the mere phenomena themselves, and represents God to us as the supreme governor of the whole, who, at his will, penetrates into the hidden veins of the earth, and thence draws forth exhalations; who then, dividing them into different sorts, disperses them through the air; who again collects the vapours together, and sets them in conflict with the subtile and dry heats, so that the thunder which follows seems to be a loud pealing voice proceeding from his own mouth. The song in 2nd Samuel also contains the repetition to which we have referred in the commencement of our remarks on this verse; but the sense of this and the preceding verse, and of the corresponding verses in Samuel, are entirely similar. We should remember what I have said before, that David, under these figures, describes to us the dreadful power of God, the better to exalt and magnify the divine grace, which was manifested in his deliverance. He declares a little after, that this was his intention; for, when speaking of his enemies, he says, (verse 14,) that they were scattered, or put to flight, by the arrows of God; as if he had said, They have been overthrown, not by the hands or swords of men, but by God, who openly launched his thunderbolts against them. Not that he means to affirm that this happened literally, but he speaks in this metaphorical language, because those who were uninstructed and slow to acknowledge the power of God, could not otherwise be brought to perceive that God was the author of his deliverance. The import of his words is, Whoever does not acknowledge that I have been preserved by the hand of God, may as well deny that it is God who thunders from heaven, and abolish his power which is manifested in the whole order of nature, and especially in those wonderful changes which we see taking place in the atmosphere. As God shoots lightnings as if they were arrows, the Psalmist has, in the first place, employed this metaphor; and then he has expressed the thing simply by its proper name.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens - Thunder is often in the Scriptures described as the voice of God. See the magnificent description in Psalm 29:1-11; compare Job 40:9, "Canst thou thunder with a voice like him?" So 1-Samuel 7:10; 1-Samuel 12:18; Psalm 77:18; Job 37:4.
And the Highest gave his voice - God, the most exalted Being in the universe, uttered his voice in the thunder; or, the thunder was his voice.
Hail-stones, and coals of fire - Accompanying the thunder. The repetition seems to be because these were such striking and constant accompaniments of the storm.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice - And then followed the hail and coals of fire. The former verse mentioned the lightning, with its effects; this gives us the report of the thunder, and the increasing storm of hail and fire that attended it. Some think the words hail-stones and coals of fire are entered here by some careless transcribers from the preceding verse; and it is true that they are wanting in the Septuagint and the Arabic, in the parallel place in 2 Samuel, and in five of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. I should rather, with Bishop Horsley, suppose them to be an interpolation in the preceding verse: or in that to have been borrowed from this; for this most certainly is their true place.
The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave (i) his voice; hail [stones] and coals of fire.
(i) Thunders, lightnings and hail.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens,.... By his apostles and ministers, some of which were Boanergeses, sons of thunder, whose ministry was useful to shake the consciences of men, and bring them to a sense of themselves, Mark 3:17;
and the Highest gave his voice; the same with thunder; for thunder is often called the voice of the Lord, Job 37:5; compare with this Psalm 68:11; the Targum interprets it, "he lifted up his word"; the same effects as before follow,
hail stones and coals of fire; See Gill on Psalm 18:12.
The storm breaks forth--thunder follows lightning, and hail with repeated lightning, as often seen, like balls or coals of fire, succeed (Exodus 9:23).
(Hebrews.: 18:14-16) Amidst thunder, Jahve hurled lightnings as arrows upon David's enemies, and the breath of His anger laid bare the beds of the flood to the very centre of the earth, in order to rescue the sunken one. Thunder is the rumble of God, and as it were the hollow murmur of His mouth, Job 37:2. עליון, the Most High, is the name of God as the inapproachable Judge, who governs all things. The third line of Psalm 18:14 is erroneously repeated from the preceding strophe. It cannot be supported on grammatical grounds by Exodus 9:23, since קול נתן, edere vocem, has a different meaning from the נתן קלת, dare tonitrua, of that passage. The symmetry of the strophe structure is also against it; and it is wanting both in 2 Sam. and in the lxx. רב, which, as the opposite of מעט Nehemiah 2:12; Isaiah 10:7, means adverbially "in abundance," is the parallel to ויּשׁלח. It is generally taken, after the analogy of Genesis 49:23, in the sense of בּרק, Psalm 144:6 : רב in pause = רב (the ō passing over into the broader like עז instead of עז in Genesis 49:3) = רבב, cognate with רבה, רמה; but the forms סב, סבּוּ, here, and in every other instance, have but a very questionable existence, as e.g., רב, Isaiah 54:13, is more probably an adjective than the third person praet. (cf. Bttcher, Neue Aehrenlese No. 635, 1066). The suffixes ēm do not refer to the arrows, i.e., lightnings, but to David's foes. המם means both to put in commotion and to destroy by confounding, Exodus 14:24; Exodus 23:27. In addition to the thunder, the voice of Jahve, comes the stormwind, which is the snorting of the breath of His nostrils. This makes the channels of the waters visible and lays bare the foundations of the earth. אפיק (collateral form to אפק) is the bed of the river and then the river or brook itself, a continendo aquas (Ges.), and exactly like the Arabic mesı̂k, mesâk, mesek (from Arab. msk, the VI form of which, tamâsaka, corresponds to התאפּק), means a place that does not admit of the water soaking in, but on account of the firmness of the soil preserves it standing or flowing. What are here meant are the water-courses or river beds that hold the water. It is only needful for Jahve to threaten (epitiman Matthew 8:26) and the floods, in which he, whose rescue is undertaken here, is sunk, flee (Psalm 104:7) and dry up (Psalm 106:9, Nahum 1:4). But he is already half engulfed in the abyss of Hades, hence not merely the bed of the flood is opened up, but the earth is rent to its very centre. From the language being here so thoroughly allegorical, it is clear that we were quite correct in interpreting the description as ideal. He, who is nearly overpowered by his foes, is represented as one engulfed in deep waters and almost drowning.
*More commentary available at chapter level.