Today’s Passage: Psalm 124
This is a song of the road, one of David’s, sung by people walking up to Jerusalem. It looks back at a moment when the whole nation nearly went under. If the LORD had not been on their side, they say, the men who attacked them would have swallowed them alive, and the floodwaters would have carried them off. But He was on their side, and so they lived to sing about it. This is a real escape, remembered by people who know how close they came. The psalm never stops to spell out what it means for the LORD to be on our side. It simply knows that He was, and that this made all the difference.
As you read, hold this: If the LORD had not been on our side.
Psalm 124:1-5 (BSB)
A song of ascents. Of David. ¹ If the LORD had not been on our side—let Israel now declare— ² if the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us, ³ when their anger flared against us, then they would have swallowed us alive, ⁴ then the floods would have engulfed us, then the torrent would have overwhelmed us, ⁵ then the raging waters would have swept us away.
Context A deliverance told by its "if not"
The psalm says the same line twice, and then it calls the whole nation to say it along with it: let Israel now declare. If He had not been on their side, the jaws would have closed and the waters would have won. But they did not. The psalm lingers over how close it came, over the almost, so that no one can shrug the rescue off as though it were nothing.
Swallowed alive, floods, a torrent, raging waters: the psalm reaches for one picture after another of being dragged under. Every one of them is what would have happened. Not one of them is what did.
Psalm 124:6-7 (BSB)
⁶ Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. ⁷ We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the net is torn, and we have slipped away.
Blessed be the LORD, the psalm says, who did not give us over as prey to their teeth. Notice how the tense has changed. Before, it was all would have: they would have swallowed us, the waters would have swept us away, the pach, pronounced pahkh. Strong's H6341, a snare, trap. A snare like this is hidden and small, and the bird never sees it until it is already caught. The floods were loud, but this danger was quiet. And yet the net is already torn, and the bird has slipped away. The psalm does not say we might escape. It says we have. would have closed. Now it is have escaped. The rescue is no longer a hope. It is finished.
Psalm 124:8 (BSB)
⁸ Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Study notes The same Maker
The last line of the psalm names the same help that another song of the road had already named before it.
"My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:2 (BSB)
One song was sung by a single traveler on the road, and the other by a whole people who almost went under. Both of them look up to the same place for their help, and both of them find the same Maker of heaven and earth. If the LORD had not been on our side.
If the LORD had not been on our side.