Psalms 18:11

Psa 18:11 He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him [were] dark waters [and] thick clouds of the skies.

Ver. 11. He made darkness his secret place] As a king, that, being angry, withdraweth himself from his subjects, and will not be seen of them. Vel quia decreta Dei veniunt invisibiliter, said R. David.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_18:11

His pavilions round about Him were . . . thick clouds of the skies.

The ministry of the cloud

His pavilions are thick clouds! Then the cloud is not a destructive libertine, some stray, haphazard, lawless force, the grim parent of shadow and chill and tempest. His pavilions are thick clouds. The clouds are the dwelling places of God. He lives in them; He moves through them; He pervades them with the gentle ministries of grace and love. The clouds drop down their dew. Then the clouds are more than shutters; they are springs. They do more than exclude the sunlight; they are the parents of the fertilising rains, and the drenching mists and dews. It is something of a triumph when we have got thus far in our religious faith. The cloud may hide the light; it does not destroy it. The cloud does not disprove the light; it is really the proof of the light. Without the warm and genial light there could be no cloud; the cloud is the creation of light. When, therefore, the cloud is forming, it means the sun is working. Raindrops can be traced to sunbeams. Love yearns to send a gentle rain, and so love prepares a cloud. So, the cloud is part of the answer to our prayer for dew. If, therefore, I have been asking my God for a softening, fertilising rain, I must not be discomfited by the appearance of a chilling and darkening cloud. If I have been asking for a drenching baptism of dew, I must not lose my heart when there comes a confusing mist. We asked the Lord to bless our nation; there came a chilling disappointment; the answer was in a cloud! Have you ever noticed how many of the dispositions of the perfected life can only be richly gained in the baptism of shadow and tears? And when I contemplate the dispositions which are the creations of the Spirit I feel that for their perfect nourishing something is needed of moistness and of shade. Here is a short list of the beautiful things: Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. I am more inclined to call them ferns than flowers! I dont think they would come to any luxurious profusion and beauty if they were grown in the prolonged and cloudless glare! Here is an exquisite fern--gentleness. Where will you find it growing in richest profusion? You will find it growing in the life that has known the shadow and the tear. There is no touch so tenderly gentle as the touch of the wounded hand. There is no speech so insinuatingly sympathetic as the speech of those who have been folded about by the garment of night. Gentleness is a fern, and it requires the ministry of the cloud. Here is another rare and beautiful fern--long suffering. How can you grow that in the garish day? Long suffering is a fern, and it needs the ministry of the cloud. And is it otherwise with the ferns of goodness and love? How this love fern expands when life passes into the shadow; when husband or child is laid low, how love puts on strength and beauty, whether the lover be peasant wife or queen! Now, I do not think we have any difficulty in perceiving the influence of the cloud in the individual life. in my distress Thou hast enlarged me. Enlarged! It is a very spacious word, and includes the complementary meanings of broadening and enrichment. In my cloud experience Thou hast enriched me! A man goes into the cloud rough and boorish, and full of domineering aggression, and he emerges from its ministry strangely softened and refined! He entered the cloud hard and dry as a pavement; he emerges with disposition suggestive of the fernery. In my distress Thou hast enriched me! But the cloud experience is not only the minister of enrichment, but also of enlargement! It is in the cloud that men grow the fern of a spacious tolerance. Narrowness is transformed to breadth. In the personal life, if it were not for the cloud we should become and remain dry and infertile as Sahara; it is the providential cloud that calls forth the hidden growth, the sleeping ferns, and transforms, the dust heap into a thing of grace and beauty. It is not otherwise with the ministry of the cloud m the sphere of the home. There is many a family which never realises its unity until it is enveloped in the folds of a chilling cloud. Health and luxury are too often divisive; sickness and sorrow are wondrous cements. Luxury nourishes a thoughtless individualism; adversity discovers hidden and profounder kinships. We shall know each other better when the mists have roiled away! Ah! but we sometimes never know each other until we meet together in the mist! It is in the common cloud that the family finds its kinship. It is in our sorrow that deep calleth unto deep, and our communion is revealed. Is it otherwise in the larger life and family of the nations? Does the cloud ministry exercise its influence in the State? Surely we may say that the common life of a people is deepened and enriched by the ministry of the shade. A people is not consolidated by common material interests end aims. It is not by free trade or by reciprocity that we shall forge the links of enduring fellowships. Juxtaposition is not fellowship. It is not the prosperous glare that makes us one. We fall apart in the noontide; we draw closer to each other in the night. It is in the national clouds and shadows, and in the nations tears that you will find the forces of a true consolidation. The clouds, in their courses, have been the friends of the national life. (J. H. Jowett M. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 18:11. He made darkness his secret place — Or, his hiding place: his covert, says Dr. Waterland; his tent, says Chandler. He covered himself with dark clouds. God is frequently represented as surrounded with clouds, in the sacred writings; this representation is peculiarly proper in this place, as thick, heavy clouds, deeply charged, and with lowering aspects, are always the forerunners and attendants of a tempest, and greatly heighten the horrors of the appearance; and the representation of them, as spreading around the Almighty for his pavilion and tent, is truly poetical and grand. And, as storms and tempests in the air are often instruments of the divine displeasure, they are therefore here selected with great propriety as figures of it; and God, who has the whole artillery of the aerial regions at his command, and holds the reins of whirlwinds in his hand, and directs their impetuous course through the world when and how he pleases, is here fifty represented as employing them against his enemies in the day of battle and war.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. (Psa 18:11). (And) set darkness (as) his covert about him, his shelter, darkness of waters, clouds of the skies, This concealment suggests the idea of a brightness insupportable by mortal sight. Compare Deu 4:11, Job 36:29, Psa 97:2. Darkness of waters does not mean dark waters, but watery darkness, a beautiful description of clouds charged with rain. The two nouns in the last clause both mean clouds, but the second is used only in the plural, and seems properly to designate the whole body of vapours constituting the visible heavens or sky. A somewhat similar combination occurs in Exo 19:9.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As a king angry with the people, will not show himself unto them.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

dark waters--or, clouds heavy with vapor.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 11. He made darkness his secret place] God is represented as dwelling in the thick darkness, De 4:11; Ps 97:2. This representation in the place before us is peculiarly proper; as thick heavy clouds deeply charged, and with lowering aspects, are always the forerunners and attendants of a tempest, and greatly heighten the horrors of the appearance: and the representation of them, spread about the Almighty as a tent, is truly grand and poetic.

Dark waters] The vapours strongly condensed into clouds; which, by the stroke of the lightning, are about to be precipitated in torrents of rain. See the next verse.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(11) Secret place.—Better, veil. Comp. Job_22:14; Lam_3:44. A better arrangement of the members of this verse is, He made darkness His veil round about Him; His tent He made of dark waters and black clouds. Literally, darkness of waters and blacknesses of clouds. (Comp. Psa_97:2; Job_36:29.) In Samuel, instead of “blacknesses” of clouds, the expression used is “bendings,” or “collectings,” and the parallelism is marred by the omission of “his veil.”

Always present to the Hebrew imagination, God is still invisible, veiled by thick clouds, and far withdrawn in His own ineffable brightness.

This verse gives suggestion of that momentary lull so common before the final fury of a storm bursts. In the Hebrew imagery Jehovah stays His winged car, and draws round Him, as if to take up His abode within them, thick curtains of cloud.

“We often see, against some storm,

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,

The bold winds speechless, and the orb below

As hush as death.”—SHAKSPEARE: Hamlet.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11. R.V. He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion round about him;

Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.

The darkness of the rain-charged storm-cloud is the tent in which Jehovah shrouds His Majesty. Cp. Job_36:29; Psa_97:2. The rhythm gains by the omission of his hiding-place, as in 2 Sam.; and the text there may be right in reading gathering of waters for darkness of waters.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

At the brightness that was before him, The lightning that came out of the thick clouds; which may denote, either the coming of Christ to take vengeance on the Jewish nation, which was swift and sudden, clear and manifest; or the spreading of the Gospel in the Gentile world, in which Christ, the brightness of his Father's glory, appeared to the illumination of many; see Mat 24:27; and both may be intended, as the effects following show;

his thick clouds passed; that is, passed away; the gross darkness, which had for so many years covered the Gentile world, was removed when God sent forth his light and truth; and multitudes, who were darkness itself, were made light in the Lord;

hail stones and coals of fire; the same Gospel that was enlightening to the Gentiles, and the savour of life unto life unto them, was grievous, like hail stones, and tormenting, scorching, irritating, and provoking, like coals of fire, and the savour of death unto death, to the Jews; when God provoked them, by sending the Gospel among the Gentiles, and calling them: or these may design the heavy, awful, and consuming judgments of God upon them, which are sometimes signified by hail storms; see Rev 8:7. In Sa2 22:13, it is only, "through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled".

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

He made darkness his secret place - Herder has beautifully rendered this verse,

“Now he wrapped himself in darkness;

Clouds on clouds enclosed him round.”

The word rendered “secret place” - סתר sêther - means properly a hiding; then something hidden, private, secret. Hence, it means a covering, a veil. Compare Job 22:14; Job 24:15. In Psa 81:7 it is applied to thunder: “I answered thee in the secret place of thunder;” that is, in the secret place or retreat - the deep, dark cloud, from where the thunder seems to come. Here the meaning seems to be, that God was encompassed with darkness. He had, as it were, wrapped himself in night, and made his abode in the gloom of the storm.

His pavilion - His tent, for so the word means. Compare Psa 27:5; Psa 31:20. His abode was in the midst of clouds and waters, or watery clouds.

Round about him - Perhaps a more literal translation would be, “the things round about him - his tent (shelter, or cover) - were the darkness of waters, the clouds of the skies.” The idea is that he seemed to be encompassed with watery clouds.

Dark waters - Hebrew, darkness of waters. The allusion is to clouds filled with water; charged with rain.

Thick clouds of the skies - The word rendered skies in this place - שׁחקים shachaqiym - means, in the singular, dust, as being fine; then a cloud, as a cloud of dust; then, in the plural, it is used to denote clouds, Job 38:37; and hence, it is used to denote the region of the clouds; the firmament; the sky; Job 37:18. Perhaps a not-inaccurate rendering here would be, “clouds of clouds;” that is, clouds rolled in with clouds; clouds of one kind rapidly succeeding those of another kind - inrolling and piled on each other. There are four different kinds of clouds; and though we cannot suppose that the distinction was accurately marked in the time of the psalmist, yet to the slightest observation there is a distinction in the clouds, and it is possible that by the use of two terms here, both denoting clouds - one thick and dense, and the other clouds as resembling dust - the psalmist meant to intimate that clouds of all kinds rolled over the firmament, and that these constituted the “pavilion” of God.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

His secret place; or, his hiding-place; i.e. he covered himself with dark clouds, from hence he secretly shot at his enemies, as it follows.

Dark waters, i.e. watery vapours and thick clouds, as the next words expound these.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 11. The storm thickened, and the clouds pouring forth torrents of rain combined to form the secret chamber of the invisible but wonder working God. "Pavilioned in impervious shade" faith saw him, but no other eye could gaze through the

thick clouds of the skies. Blessed is the darkness which encurtains my God; if I may not see him, it is sweet to know that he is working in secret for my eternal good. Even fools can believe that God is abroad in the sunshine and the calm, but faith is wise, and discerns him in the terrible darkness and threatening storm.

Ver. 11. The darkness in which Jehovah hides, Why? When? What then? etc.

Psalms 18:12*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

11. Darkness his secret place—Compare Psa_18:9 and Psa_97:2. The allusion is to Deu_4:11.

His pavilion… dark waters and thick clouds—Tempestuous storm clouds were his military tent. See Psa_104:3

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He made darkness his secret place; i.e. he hid himself amid clouds and thick darkness. In executing his judgments he did not allow himself to be seen. God"s action is always secret and inscrutable. His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. The original runs as follows: "He made darkness his secret place his pavilion round about him dark waters, thick clouds of the skies." The whole forms one sentence, "his pavilion" being in apposition with "secret place," and the last clause, "dark waters, thick clouds of the skies," being exegetical of the "darkness" in the first clause. God"s "pavilion," or "tent" (hBs), is mentioned again in Psa_27:5 and Psa_31:20.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Darkness - He covered himself with dark clouds. Waters - Watery vapors.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

He made darkness ... him

Here the words "He" and "him" refer to Yahweh.

He made darkness a tent

Here darkness is spoken of as if it were a tent. AT: "He made darkness a covering" or "He made darkness a hiding place" (See: Metaphor)

heavy rainclouds

"clouds heavy with rain" or "thick, dark rainclouds"

Hailstones

stones made of ice

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

He swooped Heb. וידא, He flew, as (in Deut. 28:49), “as the eagle swoops (ידאה).”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.