I hadn’t seen my sister Joy for more than a few minutes the previous Christmas. My wife and our infant son had arrived an hour before she and her family had to leave to spend the rest of the day with her husband’s family. And since I hadn’t seen her the previous couple years, she and I arranged for a visit after classes at Regent College were done for the year.
We had stopped for the night on the drive down the Pacific coast to see her when I received a phone call in the middle of the night. Joy had been in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. She wasn’t expected to survive.
What? I was on my way to see her and she was going to be snatched away? I was just hours away!
Dozens of people gathered each day at the crash site to pray for a Joy’s healing. Hundreds of flowers festooned the spot and a huge banner read, “We believe in miracles. We pray for Joy.”
But despite the efforts of her doctors and nurses, Joy was gone a week after her crash. Somewhere, someone has her heart in beating inside, while more have other organs of hers in them.
Why didn’t God protect my sister? She was on her way home from picking up flowers for an early Father’s Day celebration for her husband, a doctor who would be working on the actual day. And why no miracle?Thousands of people were praying for one.
Psalm 91 is a bold declaration of the sure protection of God. While its initial recipient was most likely the king of Israel, its inclusion in the Psalter extends it to us. And many have taken great comfort from it. But it raises questions because of its boldness.
Is God’s protection over-promised? What do we do when we follow Psalm 91’s instructions and the very protections it promises fail to happen? Do we end up with less faith as a result instead of more faith?
I have a friend who says he too often over-promises things with his kids and they end up disappointed over and over again. Might Psalm 91 be setting us up for such a crush?
When my sister died, what happened to the people who had gathered every evening during the week she was in the ICU, praying for her healing, feeling sure God would come through? Did they merely pack up everything, put it in a box, and move on?
A few years before, my Mom had had a stroke and I had prayed so hard, believing she would be healed on the spot. My prayer life took a big hit when she wasn’t. Why? Why did I believe so deeply? Why did God not come through? Why do we get Psalm 91 promises when they don’t match our day-to-day reality? Should we believe less or should God do more?
Let’s take a look at the psalm to see if we can find some peace with out unanswered prayers.
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty (Ps. 91:1).
The psalm begins with a general truth applied to all: If you live your life under the roof of God the Greatest, you’ll find rest there, shadowed by the Powerful One.
God is a safe place for all who come to him. Just knowing he’s there and covering over us allows us to rest in a dangerous world. This is true for all who pray.
I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust” (Ps. 91:2).
The general “whoever” turns to the specific “I.” The psalmist speaks not to God, but about God. This is testimony. This is the assertion of a lifetime of experience.
Tenses don’t work quite the same way in Hebrew as they do in English, but the basic sense communicates: God is trustworthy and secure right now in the thick of things. Not just in the past. Not just sometime in the future. Right now.
The past is important to biblical faith. Because of God’s loyalty to his covenant with his people, we can pull the past into the present. We can expect God to be faithful now just as he was in the past. Memory is essential to biblical faith.
The future is also important to biblical faith. Again, because of God’s loyalty to his covenant with his people, we can pull the future into the present. We know God will ultimately succeed. None of his purposes with be thwarted. His future is guaranteed. Hope is essential to biblical faith.
But here the emphasis isn’t on God’s past faithfulness or future faithfulness. Here, we rest fully on his present security and help.
Surely he will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked (Ps. 91:3-8).
The whole world shut down to combat COVID-19 in a remarkable and historic response to a deadly outbreak. Throughout history, plagues would run through cities and nations unchecked. Illnesses were mysterious and misunderstood. They could bring a kingdom to its knees, just as the final plague did to Egypt, finally freeing its Hebrew slaves. In a world without vaccines and quarantines, there was nothing that could be done to resist a plague. Even the king’s well-protected chambers weren’t pestilence-proof.
War is best of friends with the grim reaper. And it, too, can snatch the lives of the seemingly well-protected, especially with the invention of the arrow. An armored king behind the lines or in a chariot can still be brought down by a lucky arrow.
These two fears — disease and war — and the undefined “terror of night” are the biggest fears of the ancient world and continue to devastate the world to this day. But the psalmist promises protection from them.
Whether by plague or by war, a countless crowd of people may die, but it won’t touch you, according to the psalm. You’ll see it happen, but only from a distance. It’ll be the wicked who are getting what they deserve.
Well, now. That’s a big promise. What do we do with that? Before we answer that, there’s more.
If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent (Ps. 91:9-13).
In v. 2, the psalmist wrote, “I will say …” and here he writes, “If you say,” followed by an abbreviation of the previous saying. Both emphasize Yahweh as refuge. It seems to promise the same protection the psalmist has received for those who say the same things of God and make him their dwelling, their home.
Not only are disasters avoided, but you won’t even trip over a rock. Angels will make sure of that. Not only that, poisonous snakes and ferocious lions won’t hurt you — even if you step on them!
Having had a close call with a coiled rattle snake in Yosemite, I’m not sure I want to test this one out. I didn’t tread on it and neither did the rest of my family, which had walked right by it obliviously less than a minute before, but maybe that was the protection. I don’t know. I do know that I’d make a terrible snake handler. And that’s not because I haven’t made my home in God. I truly have.
But no tripping on stones, because of angelic protection? And the ability to walk of cobras and lions? Certainly this is a joke, right?
Hold that thought while we look at the final section.
“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation” (Ps. 91:14-16).
The psalm started out with “I will say” and moved on to “If you say.” Now we get, “says the LORD.” Yahweh himself speaks up. And what we get sure looks like a conditional relationship.
We love him. Therefore, he rescues us. We acknowledge his Name. Therefore he protects us. We call. Therefore, he answers.
And the promises stack up: I will rescue. I will protect. I will answer. I will be with in trouble. I will deliver. I will honor. I will satisfy with long life. I will show my salvation. That’s a pretty comprehensive collection of promises.
OK. So how does this work? Because all of the things protected from and all of the things promised don’t measure up to reality. In fact, the over-promised nature of this psalm makes it unbelievable. And if this is unbelievable, doesn’t it weaken other promises elsewhere?
This is where the genre of this psalm helps us. This is neither a prayer not a worship psalm. It’s a wisdom psalm. And wisdom psalms don’t offer us promises. They offer us general principles. They teach a uniquely theological view of life that starts with an unfaltering belief in Yahweh, Israel’s covenant God, rather than with our circumstances.
Despite being a general teaching poem, Psalm 91 uses individual language. The “you” in the psalm is individual not plural as it is in many other psalms. The effect is to make the reader feel personally addressed. This has a double effect. It makes God feel closer, more immediate. It also makes the general principle of protection feel similarly closer and more immediate (even though the range of things being protected from are an inventory of the things the original readers feared most rather than things specific to any one reader). Because of this, Psalm 91 has been a favorite throughout the centuries for those seeking the comfort of a psalm of protection.
Commentator James L. Mays suggests one goal of the psalmist is to strengthen reliance on Yahweh as opposed to the use of charms, amulets, idols, and other alternate forms of spirituality offering protection. Each of the dangers listed in Psalm 91 had a different god or charm or amulet to protect the vulnerable human. Psalm 91 declares an emphatic NO to them all. It’s Yahweh who protects you. And he protects you from all of these things. He’s your one-stop shop. You don’t need all of these things to cover your bases. He’s the only comprehensive insurance there is.
The irony is that the psalm is so emphatic about Yahweh and his ability to protect, according to Mays, that both Jews and Christians have made amulets with bits of it as wards of protection. An anti-magic text has been used as magic itself! I had a co-worker many years ago who would recite biblical references such as Psalm 91 as cures against all kinds of ailments and wards against all kinds of evils.
She called it prayer, but it was just magic.
The reference to angels here is the source of beliefs in personal guardian angels. But this, too, deflects the focus on God as protector and places attention on beings we know almost nothing about. Might they participate in God’s protection of us? That’s certainly a possibility. Jesus said he could call on angels to protect him (Matt. 26:53). At roughly 5,000 soldier per legion, those 12 full legions would have numbered around 60,000 angels. But Jesus chose the way of trust and suffering and death instead of angel armies.
The use of this psalm by the devil to tempt Jesus is itself a warning against misuse, isn’t it?
Jesus recognized the temptation, which was disguised as an act of trust in God, was actually an act of testing God (Matt. 4:5-7 ; Luke 4:10-11).
Protection from evil and harm is important. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from Evil.” And yet he allowed himself to be crucified by evil and taught that the cross is normative for all who would follow him (Matt. 16:24). Likewise, the epistle of 1 Peter normalizes suffering as the furniture of the life of faith.
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed (1 Peter 4:12-13).
So, we live with this tension. Our sufferings aren’t strange. They’re normal. And yet we are taught to pray against evil and harm. In the middle of that tension, Psalm 91 is emphatic: Look for your protection from God alone. What feels like an over-promise is the hyperbole of poetry, exaggerating to make its point.
Stop looking around. Look to God. He’s looking out for you.