2 Samuel 22:21-31. Part of David's Song of Deliverance. David acknowledges that the Lord has rewarded him according to his righteousness. As long as he kept God's ways, he was recompensed. God is loyal to the loyal, blameless to the blameless, and pure to the pure, but with the devious, he shows himself to be shrewd or perverse. God delivers the humble, but brings down the haughty. God is our light in the darkness. With God at his side, David was able to defeat his foes and overcome obstacles. God's way is perfect, and always proves true. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

First, remember that David was a sinner, just like the rest of us, so this is not him bragging. He acknowledges, in Psalm 51, that his sins are ever before him, and he is in great need of God's mercy. Here, though, he acknowledges that when he follows God, and avoids sin, he is protected and given power and strength. David has been the haughty, he knows God's punishment of them. We all have been the haughty, at times, and we have all suffered the consequences.

Second, David is describing spiritual physics here! In the Old Testament often it seems that God is vengeful, causing harm and destruction. David alludes to this here "your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low." The truth is, God is merciful and all-loving, but there are consequences to choosing evil, to choosing sin, and those consequences hurt, they hurt us and they hurt others. Thus, it seems like God is punishing us (and God, revealing himself to the young humanity of the Old Testament, explains it this way, too. So David is not wrong - it is how he understands the effects of evil in the world - as God punishing the sinful.). God, as our creator, knows what will hurt us and others, and tells us not to do those things - they are sinful. But we keep thinking we know better and do them anyway, and we keep hurting ourselves and others.

We are fallen - every single one of us - and we all suffer the consequences of our sin and the sins of others. But God really is all merciful, and so much of a shield for us that his only begotten, perfect, unsinful Son, took all the blast of the Fall, all of the consequences of our sin, onto himself. He absorbed all of this so that we can live forever with him. Although David lived before Jesus, and therefore did not know how God's plan of mercy would play out, he understands it here, he rejoices in God's protection and strength.