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Selected Verse: Psalms 18:11 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Ps 18:11 |
King James |
He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
| dark waters--or, clouds heavy with vapor. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
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. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Darkness - He covered himself with dark clouds. Waters - Watery vapours. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
He made darkness his secret place - God is represented as dwelling in the thick darkness, Deu 4:11; Psa 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 vapors strongly condensed into clouds; which, by the stroke of the lightning, are about to be precipitated in torrents of rain. See the next verse. |
18 Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?
37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,
20 Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.
5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.
7 Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.
15 The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me: and disguiseth his face.
14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.
2 Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.
11 And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.