earth shook and trembled
Psalms 18:7
18:7 earth shook and trembled. Psalm 18:7-16 give a graphic description of a tremendous convulsion of nature, involving earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, great winds and lightnings, thick darkness, hail stones and deep waters. According to the superscript, David is believed to have written this psalm after the Lord delivered him from the hands of Saul, but no such upheavals took place on these occasions. Commentators usually assume that David was using very picturesque poetic imagery to express his awe and relief when God providentially saved him from Saul’s murderous purposes. The source of this imagery, however, must have been either some real event he had experienced or more likely a vision of some great cataclysm of the past, sent to deliver God’s people from their enemies. The most likely model for David’s figurative narrative would have been the global flood that convulsed the antediluvian world in the days of Noah.
