Psalm 18:4-19

Now, if you are a tried-and-true literalist, you would have a hard time finding this in history. But this is the Psalms. It is poetry. It is metaphorical. It is exaggerated for us to get a point.

David is telling us here that God was so eager to answer David's prayer that He moved heaven and earth to come to his aid. Nothing was going to stand in His way. He brought the whole force of His power to stand beside David and mow down his enemies because He loved David. He delighted in that man. They were friends. They were in a relationship by the covenant, and David was God's chosen king.

And He wanted to do something for him, to take him from that depth of the pit of Sheol and put him, bring him up safe, secure in a broad place where He could bless him. And He did it all because He delighted in him. He was pleased with David. David satisfied Him because he trusted Him, because he looked to Him for the help that he needed. All of this happened, David says, because God felt something for him—delight.

This word is hapes or something along that line. It means to delight in or to take pleasure and to be satisfied with. In other words, God supported David because of His affection for the man. He loved him. God's affection and delight in David spurred, then, David's affection and loyalty to God, and it kept going around in a big circle because when God saw his affection and loyalty, He delighted in him some more and blessed him, and David then, you know, back and forth and back and forth. It was a mutual reciprocal arrangement of love and service, one toward the other. It did not end.