Psalm XCI
1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: My God; in him will I trust.
3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the
noisome pestilence.
4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness:
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; But it shall not come nigh thee.
8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, and see the reward of the wicked.
9 Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, even the Most High,
thy habitation;
10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy
dwelling.
11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy
ways.
12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a
stone.
13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:
The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him:
I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.
“Incarnate God! the soul that knows
Thy name’s mysterious power.
Shall dwell in undisturbed repose
And fear the trying hour.”
The Messiah, of whom former Psalms have sung, and to whom every sweet singer of Israel had regard, is here prominently before us. In contrast to the utter failure of man in himself, here is Messiah’s safety in his God. Besides (in the wonted manner of all these holy songs for the Church in all ages), Messiah’s seed are included, who, though as reeds in themselves, are as the cedars of God in their Head.
The imagery is taken from Israel’s history. Thus, verse 1 ai speaks of “the Almighty,” the “ShaddaV who spoke to Abraham, Gen. xvii. 1; verse 5, the Passover night, and David’s escape from the pestilence; and the same again, in another aspect, in verses 6, 7, 8. Not to speak of the reference in verse 2 to the Tabernacle and its Holy of Holies, verses 3, 4, allusion is made to Jehovah as the eagle (Deut. xxxiii. 12) who bore up Israel. Not less so verses 11-13, where the scorpions of the desert, and the beasts of “the waste, howling wilderness” are in view, as well as the flints and the pit-falls of the desert, needing an angel-hand to do the service done by the angel of the covenant in the Cloudy Pillar. Even verse ] 5 abounds in such references; the “calling” and “trouble” resemble Psa. lxxxi. 7, where Israel’s distresses are the theme; the “delivering,” too, and then the “glorifying” remind us of Israel made glorious in the eyes of the nations; while the “length of days” sends us back to such promises as Deut. xi. 21.
The Psalm, then, may be viewed as gathering round Messiah and his seed all the Lord’s gracious and glorious interpositions in behalf of his own from the beginning; and all the Lord’s promises. It is Christ who realises verse 1 to the full, (as Satan seems to have known when he used this Psalm in the temptation, Luke iv. 10, 11) —
“He who sits in the covert of the Most Iligli Shall spend the night {i. e., his darkest hours) under the shade of the
Almighty;
Saying to Jehovah, ‘He is my Refuge,’’ £c”
Let US simply notice that “ip5< may very naturally be rendered as the present part, “He sits, saying to Jehovah.” Christ’s people, in their measure, may be thus described; for does not faith confidingly “sit in the covert of the Most High,” going in by the rent vail? And in the measure they so do, in the same measure they claim and they enjoy the blessings afterwards set forth. It is interesting to notice in verse 6 the 121 and the 2tpp which Hosea xiii. 14 alludes to, when telling that at the resurrection morn he will be plague and destruction to death. The putrid plague-fever often comes on in the night while the patient is asleep; the solstitial disease seizes in heat of harvest upon a man in open air, and cuts him off, per-Christ and lii: nienibers.
haps ere evening. It is safety from perils like these that is spoken of All these blessings are derived from and rest on verse 1, the position of Him that claims them “under the coveH of the Most High.” Hence, verse 9 brings this prominently into view again, and in the Hebrew the form of it is peculiar. The speaker says,
“Because thou, Lord, aH my confidence /” and forthwith a voice from heaven* seems to reply,” Yes,
“Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation.” (Psa. xc. 1.) And that same voice utters the blessing onward to the end. It is the Lord’s own voice, for verse 14 has the words of Deut. vii. 7 —
“Because he has set his love on me,
Iherefore tdll I deliver him.
I toill set him on high
Because he has hiown my name.”
The tenor of the Psalm reminds us of John xvii., when the Lord prays down his own privileges and blessings on his disciples. How like is this last clause to John xvii. 6-25, where the Incarnate Son describes his disciples (ver. 14) by that same feature, “They have known thee.”’ The “length of days,” in verse 15, con-esponds to Isa. liii. 10, “He shall prolong his days,” but tells here of resun-ection and eternal life to Messiah’s seed as well as to himself. One thing still let us notice —
“/ tvill shew him my salvation.” This salvation is the full redemption — all the glory purchased by the Saviour as well as all the grace, “Salvation” is here used as in Psa. 1. 23, in Rom. xiii. 11, 1 Thess. v. 8, Heb. ix. 18, 1 Peter i. 5, and many other passages. It tells of the day that is yet to come, when Rev, xii. 10 shall be sung, and all the unknown glory of the New Jerusalem and its King shall burst on our view. “All these promises,” says Bishop Horner,” have already been made good to our gracious Head and Representative. Swift fly the intermediate years, and rise that long-expected morning, when He who is gone to prepare a
* “A voice from heaven,” remarks Tholuck, “seems to accompany the promise of God.”
place for us shall come again and take us to himself, that where he is we may be also I”
Augustine speaks of this Psalm as, “Psalmus iste de quo Dominum nostrum Jesus Christum tentator tentare ausus est.” And e may say of it, that it exhibits More than Israel’s blessings resting on Messiah and his seed.