redemption from death, but only by means of an inference drawn from that which was conceived and existed within itself, without having an express word of promise in its favour.[1]
Thus it is here also. David certainly gives full expression to the hope of a vision of God, which, as righteous before God, will be vouchsafed to him; and vouchsafed to him, even though he should fall asleep in death in the present extremity (Psa 13:4), as one again awakened from the sleep of death, and, therefore (although this idea does not directly coincide with the former), as one raised from the dead. But this hope is not a believing appropriation of a “certain knowledge,” but a view that, by reason of the already existing revelation of God, lights up out of his consciousness of fellowship with Him.
Psalm 18
David's Hymnic Retrospect of a Life Crowned with Many Mercies
2 FERVENTLY do I love Thee, Jahve, my strength, 8 Jahve, my rock, and my fortress, and my Deliverer, My God, my fastness wherein I hide myself, My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high towerl
4 As worthy to be praised do I call upon Jahve, And against mine enemies shall I be helped.
5 The bands of death had compassed me And the floods of the abyss came upon me.
6 The bands of hades had surrounded me, The snares of death assaulted mo.
- ↑ To this Hofmann, loc. cit. S. 496, replies as follows: “We do not find that faith indulges in such boldness elsewhere, or that the believing ones cherish hopes which are based on such insecure grounds.” But the word of God is surely no insecure ground, and to draw bold conclusions from that which is intimated only from afar, was indeed, even in many other respects (for instance, respecting the incarnation, and respecting the abrogation of the ceremonial law), the province of the Old Testament faith.
