A SONG OF DEGREES.
The Source of Help.
IN the preceding Psalm distress and conflict mark the condition of God’s people; whereas here, while the pressure is still upon them, we are permitted to see what the Lord is on their behalf in their special circumstances. The greater the sense of need, the greater the discovery of what God is for us; and hence it is that, like these saints of a future day, we are often put to the test, in order that, learning our own helplessness, we may realize that our help and succor are to be found alone in God. This will explain the connection between these two Psalms. In the last verse of the foregoing, the Psalmist cries, “I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.” What, then, is his resource? The answer is found in the first two verses of Psalm 121
1. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
2. My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The beauty of the connection will be more fully seen if a slight rectification is made in the rendering of the first verse. Many read as follows: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills: from whence shall my help come?” And then the second verse is taken as the answer to this question. Adopting this change, it will be perceived that faith is in activity; for no sooner does the soul cry in its sorrow, “From whence shall my help come?” than the answer springs forth, “My help cometh from the Lord,” etc. This part illustrates a principle found everywhere in the Scriptures. If God works for the succor and deliverance of His people, He acts in connection with, and in response to, their faith. For example, when Peter writes of the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for believers, he adds, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:4, 54To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:4‑5).) Truly, faith itself is produced and sustained in the soul by divine power, but none the less is it the living link between the soul and God, and that which secures His intervention, brings Him in, for our aid and deliverance. (See Mark 9:2323Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. (Mark 9:23); Hebrews 11., etc.)
It is to be remarked, as pointed out in the last paper, that God is here known as Jehovah, the covenant name of God as in relationship with Israel; and also that the words, “which made heaven and earth,” are appended, for this was according to the revelation God made of Himself to His earthly people. So Jonah confessed to the mariners, “I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord (Jehovah), the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.” (Chapter 1:9.) Of this creation, Jehovah revealed Himself to His ancient people as the Creator, although He discovered much more than this to Moses (Ex. 34:5-75And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:5‑7)), when He announced the sovereignty of His grace and mercy as the foundation on which He could spare His guilty people after the sin of the golden calf. The Christian is in the light as God is in the light, for God is now fully revealed in and through the Lord Jesus Christ; and the believer is, moreover, in accordance with God’s counsels, brought, through association with Christ, into His own place and relationship. We know God, therefore, in a far more intimate manner, inasmuch as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our God and Father. (John 20:1717Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17); Eph. 1:3-53Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, (Ephesians 1:3‑5).) This difference must ever be borne in mind when reading the Old Testament Scriptures.
Passing now to verse 3, we have the divine response, through the Spirit, to the faith expressed in the second verse. Turning in the confidence of faith to Jehovah, who made heaven and earth, the soul is assured of the support and protection of its Omnipotent Keeper.
3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Two things are brought before us in this assurance; first, that whatever the dangers, or the slippery character of the path, the Lord will not suffer the foot of one trusting in Him to be moved, or, perhaps, to “slide”; and, secondly, that there is never a moment when the eyes of the Lord are not upon His people, when He does not maintain unceasing and constant vigilante on their behalf. The night may be never so dark round about us, but for Him the night shineth as the day, and even as Jesus saw from the mountain-top His disciples toiling in the rowing, so God withdraweth not His eyes from the righteous, but ever beholdeth them in all their circumstances of trial and sorrow. And, let it be observed, that He who thus watches over His saints is their Keeper, the One who guards, keeps safe, preserves—for such is the force of the word here used. What encouragement is thus ministered to God’s tried and suffering people! And what an invitation to unwavering repose in Himself in the midst of surrounding trials and agitations!
The next verse seems to proceed from another speaker, as verse 5 resumes the address to the individual soul, though he is undoubtedly the representative of the people. Still, verse 4 appears as an emphatic endorsement of the assurance of verse 3, and, at the same time, gives it a wider application. In the structure of the Psalm, it may be a chorus breaking forth at this point, all the people uniting in the song:
4. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
It is not, therefore, merely that Jehovah will preserve His people in their special difficulties, but He is introduced as Israel’s Keeper. It is a characteristic relationship; and, consequently, additional force is given to Jehovah’s not slumbering by the words “nor sleep”; that is, He is ever wakeful; He never at any moment forgets His own; and there is, therefore, no intermission in His watchful care and keeping. Nor should the shadowing forth of the unity of God’s people be overlooked. He is not only the Keeper of the believer, but He is also the Keeper of Israel. There are many touching illustrations of this unity in the Old Testament, showing how even the people themselves rose sometimes almost to the level of thoughts, and were thus enabled to embrace their oneness as the chosen nation. Much more should this be the case with us, who have been taught the blessed truth of union with Christ, and, consequently, with all the members of His body. Not that the individual aspects of blessing are to be forgotten, but rather that we should be in communion with the mind of Christ as to all His own, who together, corporately, form His body, and will be His bride. It is when we enter into this, in the power of the Holy Ghost, that the affections of Christ for His people are reproduced in us, if but feebly, and we behold them with His own vision, as robed in His own beauty and excellencies.
The chorus having been sung, the address to the representative individual is resumed:
5. The Lord is thy Keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The first sentence, the reiteration of the truth at the close of verse 3, is the foundation on which are built up the following pledges of security. “The Lord is thy Keeper” means nothing less than that He is an absolute and perfect Keeper, and the subsequent details are but the consequences of this, or the application of the general truth. In itself, however, it is an immense thing to know that the Lord is our Keeper. In dangers, difficulties, and trials, it would calm our fears immediately, as well as dispel our anxieties, if this assurance were held in power. That it is true, whatever our state of soul, is undeniable, but it must be remembered that faith alone can avail itself of the blessedness of being kept by God, or can turn to Him for succor at the moment of need and pressure.
After the statement that “the Lord is thy Keeper,” it is said, “the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.” “Shade” may be understood, from what follows, as protection, even as we read in Isaiah, “Thou hast been... a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” The force of “at thy right hand” may, perhaps, be gathered from another Psalm, where we read, “Because He (Jehovah) is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” (Psa. 16:88I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. (Psalm 16:8).) The expression would thus seem to signify that the Lord’s protection is ever available, always, to use a common phrase, “at hand” for His people. This protection is manifestly spoken of in reference to what follows:
6. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The rays, both of the one and of the other, would be necessarily obstructed by the “shadow of the Almighty,” wherewith He surrounds His people, and under which they forever safely abide. The “sun” and the “moon” are but emblems of the evil influences of the day and the night, of which these luminaries are the respective rulers. Both the scorching rays of the glaring day and the noxious evils of the night will be powerless to affect those who repose under Jehovah’s overshadowing care. How fearless, therefore, God’s people may be, and would be, if they did but realize how perfectly they are guarded ora every hand! These promises, it will be remembered, are for the earthly people in their primary application, but they are also available, in even a higher sense, for the Christian. Thus the apostle could say, “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom.” (2 Tim. 4:1818And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (2 Timothy 4:18).)
The last two verses do but amplify the assurance contained in verse 6.
7. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul.
8. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
The promise, “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil,” must not, we apprehend, be taken as applicable independently of the state of soul. As before remarked, the living link between the soul and God is faith, and God works through it to bless and protect the believer. Faith can thus take up, and repose upon, this word of consolation in the darkest days, when Satan’s power is demonstrated on all sides. The believer, moreover, will remember that, when the Lord presented His own before the Father, He said, “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” The apostle Paul also assures the Thessalonian saints that “the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.” (2 Thess. 3:33But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil. (2 Thessalonians 3:3).) All these scriptures show us God’s care over His people, and how abhorrent the thought of evil is to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. How solicitous we should be, therefore, to answer to His mind in this respect, and the more in that both His love and His power are engaged to keep us undefiled as we walk in His ways.
The next clause is, “He shall preserve thy soul.” The word rendered “soul” is, as in Greek also, a little ambiguous. It is sometimes translated “life,” and, inasmuch as preservation for blessings in Messiah’s kingdom is a characteristic Jewish promise, it is possible that this is its significance in this place.
Lastly, Jehovah’s overshadowing care includes the going out and the coming in of His people “from this time forth, and even for evermore,” on through the thousand years, to the close of the millennial kingdom. Everything is thought of, and we are thus permitted to have a glimpse into the heart of God for His people, as expressed in the daily and unwearying watchfulness which He exercises over them for their preservation and blessing. It is well to ponder it, and to observe that the foundation of all our security lies in what God is for His people. We need to remember this at all times, for, in the wretched legality of our hearts, if we are not established in grave, we are tempted to think that something depends on ourselves. No! we are wholly cast upon God, upon what He is as revealed in Christ. “But must we not watch and pray, and the like?” Even for the power to watch and pray we are dependent on the Lord, and it is as we realize this that we repose quietly and peacefully upon Him, that faith is called forth into constant activity; and, consequently, understanding what God is for us, we can exclaim with the apostle, “If God be for us, who can be against us... I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” May our eyes be ever kept upon Him from whom alone cometh our help!