What Does II Samuel 22:20 Mean?

The deliverance is described in spatial terms: "He brought me forth also into a large place: he delivered me, because he delighted in me." The "large place" (merchav) is the open space of freedom, the opposite of the narrow confines of the cave or the trap. David moves from the claustrophobic confinement of persecution to the expansive freedom of deliverance, and the spatial metaphor communicates the experiential reality: the rescued man breathes freely again because the walls that closed in on him have been pushed back by the hand of God.

The reason for the deliverance is remarkable: "because he delighted in me." The motive for God's rescue is not David's merit or David's prayer but God's own delight. The God who saves David does so because He loves David, and the love that motivates the salvation is prior to any response that the saved man can offer. The delight of God in His anointed is the bedrock of the psalm's theology: the king is saved not because he earned the rescue but because the Rescuer loves the king.

The Father's delight in the Son is the ultimate expression of this theology: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The delight that motivates every act of divine deliverance finds its source in the Father's love for the Son, and the believer who is "in Christ" shares the delight that the Father directs toward the Son. The large place into which every redeemed soul is brought is the spacious freedom of the gospel, where the grace of God provides room to breathe, room to grow, and room to worship.