The Old Testament is full of examples of God or Yahweh having personal relationships with his people. There are countless instances where He visibly or audibly provides evidence that He is in control and working in the lives of those who follow Him. David, who was known as a man after God's own heart, found himself constantly pursued by King Saul but always saved by God from certain death. In Psalm 18, David praises the Lord in what is now canonized in the Bible and is known as the Psalm of Praise. The psalm opens with the powerful phrase, "I love you, O Lord, my strength," which immediately demonstrates David's devotion to the Lord as well as the recognition that He provides something that David does not have: the strength (New International Version, Ps. 18.1). Throughout the psalm, a personal relationship between God and David is illustrated. David is a warrior and he sees God as the ultimate warrior, teaching him how to fight. The extended metaphor of preparation for war and the act of war is followed throughout Psalm 18. Although David acknowledges that it was the Lord who ultimately defeated the enemy, David explains that his God gave him learned to stand against the enemy. Heavy imagery as well as other figures of speech allow the psalm to move fluidly from one idea to the next. Synthetic, antithetical, and synonymous parallelism, as seen in most biblical poetry, is used to emphasize important ideas. This repetition of phrases and ideas adds to the movement of the poem while the extensive use of personal pronouns makes the poem an intimate experience between David and the Lord. This song of praise illustrates God's personal intervention in the lives of his people, rather than being personal or communal oriented,...... middle of paper ...... how great God is and how much he is powerful to save. Ryken says, “In all of these cases, the hyperbole is a literal ‘lie’ used for emotional effect” (Words 177). As Ryken points out in Delight, "In Psalm 18:31-42...the warrior's conventional weaponry and warrior's boasting treat God as the one who arms the hero and is worthy of honor" (116). The simile of Psalm 18 alone provides the entry point to an important part of the psalm. When David said, “He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights,” the image of David climbing to the heights of God is clearly visible (Ps 18:33). We no longer know that David is a clumsy human but an elegant deer who climbs mountains. (reverse personification?) But even with this added height gained by being made like a deer, the Lord still had to “stoop down to make me [David] great” (Ps.. 18.35).