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Psalm 18 · a question people ask

"I was also blameless with him" (18:23). How could David say that?

In the text

These are the psalm's words: "The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness" (18:20), and "I was also blameless with him. I kept myself from my iniquity" (18:23). 2 Samuel has these lines too, with "I was also perfect toward him" (2 Samuel 22:24); in Hebrew both are tamim. The same book of 2 Samuel tells of Bathsheba and Uriah, and of David saying, "I have sinned against the LORD" (2 Samuel 12:13). The title gives the song's occasion, the day the LORD delivered David "from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul" (18:1), but not when in his life he sang it. Christians read these lines in two main ways. The chapter on 2 Samuel 22 sets them out, each resting on its verses, and chooses none. These notes don't choose either.

The verses

“For the Chief Musician. By David the servant of the LORD, who spoke to the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said, I love you, LORD, my strength.”
Psalm 18:1 · World English Bible
“The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness. According to the cleanness of my hands, he has recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his ordinances were before me. I didn’t put away his statutes from me. I was also blameless with him. I kept myself from my iniquity. Therefore the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.”
Psalm 18:20-24 · World English Bible
“I was also perfect toward him. I kept myself from my iniquity.”
2 Samuel 22:24 · World English Bible
“David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin. You will not die.”
2 Samuel 12:13 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 18

Psalm 18: I love you, LORD, my strength

Psalm 18 is 2 Samuel 22's song with its own first line, "I love you, LORD, my strength" (18:1): love there is racham, a verb used everywhere else for compassion. In the psalm David and his enemies cry with one verb; he was heard (18:6), they weren't (18:41). And Paul gives its praise "among the nations", also 2 Samuel 22's, as written of Christ's work (Romans 15:8-9).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions