Psalm 18

Given the image of God as a volcano, it does not seem unordinary to view this Psalm in a bizarre or frightening light. Personally, God’s image in Psalm 18 does not scare me because I can kind of relate. As a child, I used to think God controlled the weather. I believed that when it rained, God was sad= (. I was fascinated by God’s power. He was so interesting and played such a huge role in my life, that I would relate him to everything. As I got a little older, I learned about precipitation and all that jazz and became less comfortable about my childhood beliefs. My point: the speaker in Psalm 18 and I were once on the same page.

The image of God as a fighter is no more (or less) frightening or problematic than the image of a rabbit’s foot. What I mean by this is simple. Some people choose to carry around a rabbit’s foot with some expectancy of good luck and protection. The speaker in Psalm 18 has this same level of expectancy. God is his source of strength and protection. Without him he would die (he almost did); therefore he carries God with him wherever he goes.

In verse 9, Alter believes that the man simply uses imagery to express his strong belief in God’s power; God is literally the volcano. His belief is so strong, that he literally sees nothing else in its natural form. Maybe before God saved him from evil he would have said “Eghh…that’s just and old volcano...about to erupt.” But now, he sees the God in everything. God is a volcano, a tree, a rabbit etc. God is everything to this man. This is his way of giving back to God after rescuing him from evil.

I can think of many different ways that Psalm 18 can be interpreted. Right now I can’t formulate the words to actually write these thoughts down, but, I will write about them sometime in my future blogs. This is the most interesting Psalm thus far!