John Calvin Commentary Psalms 118:10

"All nations compassed me about: In the name of Jehovah I will cut them off." — Psalms 118:10 (ASV)

All nations compassed me. In these verses, he relates the wonderful deliverance he had received, so that all might know that it was not of human but divine origin. Repeatedly, he declares that he was surrounded not by a few persons, but by a vast multitude. The people, all inflamed with anger and fury against him, surrounded him so that there were no means for his escape, and he could obtain help from no source but from heaven.

Some consider his complaint that all nations were hostile to him as referring to the neighboring nations, who, as we know, dangerously surrounded David. In my opinion, his meaning is that the whole world was hostile to him, because he sets God’s help alone against the deadly and furious hatred of both his own countrymen and the neighboring nations toward him, so that there was not a place on earth where he could be safe.

It is true, there was no army collected from several nations besieging him; still, he had no peaceful retreat except among the haunts of wild beasts, from which he was also driven by terror. And the snares laid to entrap him were proportional to the number of people he encountered.

Therefore, it is not surprising that he said he was surrounded by all nations. Besides, this concise way of speaking is more powerful than if he had merely said that he trusted in God, through which he had become victorious. By publicly mentioning the name of God alone, he maintains that no other means of deliverance were available to him, and that without God's intervention, he would have perished.

It seems preferable to me to translate the particle כי (ki,) affirmatively: “Besieged as I am on all sides by the world, yet if the power of God helps me, that will be more than adequate for the extermination of all my enemies.” Their obstinate and implacable hatred is pointed out by him in the repetition of the phrase compassed about, and their outrageous fury is set forth in comparing them to bees, which, though not possessing much strength, are very fierce, and when in their senseless fury they attack a person, they cause considerable fear.

He soon adds, they are quenched as a fire of thorns, which at first makes a great crackling and throws out a greater flame than a fire of wood, but soon passes away. The point is that David’s enemies had furiously assailed him, but their fury soon subsided. Therefore, he repeats that, sustained by the power of God, whatever opposition might arise against him would soon pass away.