Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 18:11
He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him [were] dark waters [and] thick clouds of the skies.
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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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 – sether – 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 – 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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
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.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. dark watersor, cloudsheavy with vapor.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He made darkness his secret place,…. Which, and the dark waters in the next clause, are the same with the thick clouds in the last, in which Jehovah is represented as wrapping himself, and in which he lies hid as in a secret place; not so as that he cannot see others, as wicked men imagine, Job 22:13; but as that he cannot be beheld by others; the Targum interprets it,
“he caused his Shechinah to dwell in darkness;”
his pavilion round about him [were] dark waters, [and] thick clouds of the skies; these were as a tent or tabernacle, in which he dwelt unseen by men; see Job 36:29; all this may design the dark dispensation of the Jews, after their rejection and crucifixion of Christ; when God departed from them, left their house desolate, and them without his presence and protection; when the light of the Gospel was taken away from them, and blindness happened unto them, and they had eyes that they should not see, and were given up to a judicial darkness of mind and hardness of heart; which were some of the dark, deep, and mysterious methods of divine Providence, with respect to which God may be said to be surrounded with darkness, dark waters, and thick clouds; see Ro 11:7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(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.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
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
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 18:11. He made darkness his secret place His tent. Chandler. God is frequently represented in the sacred writings as surrounded by clouds. See Psa 97:2. Deu 4:11. This representation in the place before us is peculiarly proper, as thick heavy clouds, deeply charged, and with louring aspects, are always the forerunners and attendants of a tempest, and greatly heighten the horrors of the appearance; and the representation of them, as spread around the Almighty for his pavilion and tent, is truly poetical and grand.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
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.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
darkness . . . dark. Hebrew. hashak. See notes on Job 3:6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
secret: Psa 27:5, Psa 81:7, Psa 91:1
thick: Psa 97:2, Deu 4:11, Joe 2:2
Reciprocal: Exo 14:20 – General Exo 19:9 – Lo Exo 19:16 – thunders 1Sa 7:10 – thundered 2Sa 22:12 – made Job 26:8 – thick clouds Job 36:30 – and Job 36:32 – General Job 38:19 – darkness Psa 104:3 – Who layeth Isa 50:3 – General Jer 43:10 – his royal Eze 1:4 – a great Dan 3:17 – our God Mat 17:5 – behold
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
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.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
18:11 He made darkness his {h} secret place; his pavilion round about him [were] dark waters [and] thick clouds of the skies.
(h) As a king angry with the people, will not show himself to them.