The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of chaos overwhelmed me.
PSALM 18. We all know through what difficulties and almost insurmountable obstacles David came to the kingdom. Even to the time of Saul’s death he was a fugitive, and, as it were, an outlaw, and wearily passed his life in fear, amidst many threatenings and dangers of death.
Commenting on Psalm 18:1-50
In most poetical language the Psalmist now describes his experience of Jehovah's delivering power. Poesy has in all her treasures no gem more lustrous than the sonnet of the following verses; the sorrow, the cry, the descent of the Divine One, and the rescue of the afflicted, are here set to a music worthy of the golden harps.
Commenting on Psalm 18:4
"The sorrows of death compassed me." Death like a cruel conqueror seemed to twist round about him the cords of pain. He was environed and hemmed in with threatening deaths of the most appalling sort. He was like a mariner broken by the storm and driven upon the rocks by dreadful breakers, white as the teeth of death.