Psalm 91: Trusting God’s protection

Psalm 91 is a psalm of trust. There’s only half a dozen of these, and all the others in Books 1 and 2 (Psalms 11, 16, 23, 62, 63).

Now David is no longer teaching his people to pray, “The Lord is my shepherd.” David is gone, leaving them under foreign powers (Psalm 89). Moses prays the Lord to take pity on his people (Psalm 90). Psalm 91 affirms they are still in God’s care. Even without David’s reign, the Lord reigns (Psalms 93:1; 95:3; 96:10; 97:1; 98:6; 99:1). They’re still a flock shepherded by the Lord (95:7; 100:3). That’s the context of this psalm of trust.

Psalm 91:1-2 (NIV)
¹ Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
² I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

It’s hard to trust when God seems far away. As they went into exile, God seemed hidden:

• Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?” (88:14)
• How long, Lord? will you hide yourself forever? (89:46)

Psalm 91 answers their cry. God isn’t hidden; God is their hiding place. Beth Tanner offers this word-for-word translation of verse 1 (Psalms, NICOT, 697):

One living within the hiding place of the Most High, in the shadow of the Almighty this one abides.

God’s people in exile felt like they’d lost their identity. They felt as if they were hidden, far from home, under other powers and gods. Not so, says Psalm 91. They’re the people of the Most High (ěl·yôn), the Almighty (šǎd·dǎy) who rules over all powers in the heavens and on earth. Even in exile — among foreign rulers with their foreign gods — the Most High/Almighty is their hiding place, the shelter from which they will one day emerge again.

Protective hiding places were part of the ancient world. In Cappadocia, people began building underground shelters in the seventh century BC. Eventually, Kaymakli became an underground city, several stories deep (photo above).

Verse 2 therefore calls God’s people to trust the Lord, their covenant sovereign. He will save them!

Psalm 91:3-8 (NIV)
³ Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.
⁷ A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

During the 2020 pandemic, these verses were among the most popular on social media. “The deadly pestilence will not touch me,” people declared. “A thousand may fall at my side, ten thousand at my left hand, but it will not come near me!”

While it is generally true that trouble comes to those who ignore God’s wise ways, it isn’t like that for every individual. Some of those who died in 2020 were godly people. King Josiah died in battle, even though he was a godly king. Anyone who thinks the godly are invincible has not understood Job. Or Jesus. When Babylon invaded, thousands fell defending Jerusalem. The very context of this Psalm asks for caution in the way we apply it.

Psalm 91 is about trusting God’s heart. A fowler’s snare (verse 3) is a trap for birds. That’s not God’s heart. God is a mother hen, calling his people under her wings to protect us (verse 4).

After the exile, the Jewish people began to reframe their understanding of their enemies. Before the exile, the enemy was whoever the king was fighting: Philistines, Arameans, Assyrians, Edomites, or even the northern nation of Israel. But when they became part of the kingdom of Babylon, and then Persia, and then Greece, they began to realize that their enemy wasn’t merely whichever human ruler was in power. There had to be an Enemy behind the enemies, a satan to use the Hebrew word.

Some of them became preoccupied with these spiritual powers that were now their Enemy. They began to blame demons for everything that was wrong with the world. They reread Psalm 91 as all about the spiritual powers they feared. The deadly pestilence (verses 3 and 6) was an angel of death. The terror of the night and the arrow flying in the daylight (verse 5) were evil spirits. They developed a whole new form of writing (apocalyptic) in which God defeated the evil spirits and therefore the nations that had been empowered by evil spirits to defeat God’s nation.

Even before the time of Jesus, Psalm 91 had become a favourite among the exorcists. These phrases became incantations for casting out evil spirits.

But Psalm 91 is not about ranting at evil spirits. It’s about trusting the Lord for our protection:

Psalm 91:9-13 (NIV)
⁹ If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling,
¹⁰ no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.
¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;
¹² they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

Maybe the devil heard Psalm 91 more than any other. The Enemy (Satan) used this Psalm against God’s Anointed:

Matthew 4:5-6 (NIV)
⁵ Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ⁶ “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Was the devil right? Could Jesus demonstrate his status as God’s ruler by jumping off the high temple walls without stubbing his toe? Or did the devil misuse the psalm by omitting “in all your ways” (Psalm 91:11)? Putting God to the test is not faith (Matthew 4:7).

What did the Father’s protection mean for Jesus? Was his life genuinely in danger, or did his Father’s protection mean he was not vulnerable? What do you think Jesus believed? You’ll find the answer in Jesus’ prayers (Matthew 26:36-47).

In the preceding psalms, God was silent:

• “Darkness is my closest friend” they said, as if speaking to a void (88:18).
• “Where is your former great love?” they asked. There was no answer (89:49).
• “Relent, Lord! How long will it be?” they pleaded. Silence (90:13).

Finally, at the end of Psalm 91, God speaks:

Psalm 91:14-16 (NIV)
¹⁴ “Because he loves me, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. ¹⁵ He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

God is responding to the one who said, “He is my refuge and fortress, my God, in whom I trust” (verse 2). God’s response: “Because he loves me, I will rescue him” (verse 14).

When did God do this? When did God restore his fallen nation?

I can’t help thinking about Jesus as the one in whom the Lord’s promise is ultimately fulfilled. Jesus faced the evil enemy for his people. He sank into the death of the kingdom, the death of God’s people. He rescued God’s deceased nation as God answered his cries and raised him out of death:

Hebrews 5:7–9 (NIV)
⁷ During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸ Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered ⁹ and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

One final twist. The notion that God would fulfil these promises through his messiah was part of Jewish thinking. A Targum was an interpretative translation of the Hebrew texts into Aramaic. The Targum of Psalm 91 interprets the psalm as David passing on to his son the promise that the Lord will deliver him from trap and snare, death and tumult:

Targum of Psalm 91:1-3
¹ He who has made his residence in the secret place of the Most High will abide in the shade of clouds of the glory of the Almighty.
² David said, “I will say to the Lord, ‘My security and my strong fortress, my God!’ I will trust in his Memra.
³ For he will deliver you, Solomon my son, from the trap and the snare, from death and tumult.
—  Kevin Cathcart et al (eds), The Aramaic Bible: The Targum of Psalms (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004).

In the context of a nation that had fallen and the proclamation of the Lord’s reign, the Targum of Psalm 91 treats it as a messianic hope, the hope that one day the son of David would be raised up to save his people.

Psalm 91 is about trusting God to save his people. That salvation is so much more than anyone imagined. The Most High — the Almighty who rules heaven and earth — is saving those who place their trust in him.

Adapted from the series, “Formed in God’s Story: Psalms.” Full notes and podcasts here.

Related posts

• Trusting God’s love when life hurts
• The story of the Psalms
• Psalm 89: The Lord’s reign through David has died
• Losing faith