1 Had not Jehovah been for us,
--Thus let Israel say--
2 Had not Jehovah been for us,
When men rose against us:
3 Then had they swallowed us alive,
When their wrath blazed out upon us;
4 Then had the waters overwhelmed us,
The torrent had gone over our soul;
5 Then had gone over our soul
The proud waters.
6 Blessed be Jehovah,
Who has not given us [as] a prey to their teeth.
7 Our soul is like a bird escaped from the fowlers' snare;
The snare is broken, and we--we are escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of Jehovah,
Maker of heaven and earth.
A sequence may be traced connecting this with the two adjacent
psalms. In Psalm cxxiii., patient resignation sighed for deliverance,
which here has been received and has changed the singer's note into
jubilant and wondering praise; while, in the next little lyric, we
have the escaped Israel established in Jerusalem, and drawing omens
of Divine guardianship from its impregnable position, on a mountain
girt by mountains. This psalm is an outgush of the first rapture of
astonishment and joy for deliverance so sudden and complete. It is
most naturally taken as the expression of the feelings of the exiles
on their restoration from Babylon. One thought runs through it all,
that the sole actor in their deliverance has been Jehovah. No human
arm has been bared for them; no created might could have rescued them
from the rush of the swelling deluge. Like a bird in a net panting
with fear and helplessness, they waited the fowler's grasp; but, lo,
by an unseen Power the net was broken, and they are free to wing
their flight to their nest. So, triumphantly they ring out at last
the Name which has been their help, abjuring any share in their own
rescue, and content to owe it all to Him.
The step-like structure is very obvious in this psalm. As Delitzsch
puts it, "In order to take a step forward, it always goes back half
a step." But the repetitions are not mere artistic embellishments;
they beautifully correspond to the feelings expressed. A heart
running over with thankful surprise at its own new security and
freedom cannot but reiterate the occasion of its joy. It is quite
as much devotion as art which says twice over that Jehovah was on
the singers' side, which twice recalls how nearly they had been
submerged in the raging torrent, and twice remembers their escape
from the closely wrapping but miraculously broken snare. A suppliant
is not guilty of vain repetitions though he asks often for the same
blessing, and thanksgiving for answered petitions should be as
persistent as the petitions were. That must be a shallow gratitude
which can be all poured out at one gush.
The psalmist's metaphors for Israel's danger are familiar ones.
"They had swallowed us alive" may refer to the open jaws of Sheol,
as in other psalms, but more probably is simply a figure drawn from
beasts of prey, as in ver. 6. The other image of a furious swollen
torrent sweeping over the heads (or, as here, over the soul) recalls
the grand contrast drawn by Isaiah between the gently flowing "waters
of Siloam" and the devastating rush of the "river," symbolising the
King of Assyria, which, like some winter torrent swollen by the
rains, suddenly rises and bears on its tawny bosom to the sea the
ruins of men's works and the corpses of the workers.
The word rendered "proud" is a rare word, coming from a root meaning
_to boil over_, and may be used here in its literal sense, but is
more probably to be taken in its metaphorical meaning of haughty, and
applied rather to the persons signified by the waters than to the
flood itself. Vv. 6 and 7 are an advance on the preceding, inasmuch
as those described rather the imminence of danger, and these magnify
the completeness of Jehovah's delivering mercy. The comparison of
the soul to a bird is beautiful (Psalm xi. 1). It hints at tremors
and feebleness, at alternations of feeling like the flutter of some
weak-winged songster, at the utter helplessness of the panting creature
in the toils. One hand only could break the snare, and then the bruised
wings were swiftly spread for flight once more, and up into the blue
went the ransomed joy, with a song instead of harsh notes of alarm.
"We--we are escaped." That is enough: we are out of the net. Whither
the flight may be directed does not concern the singer in the first
bliss of recovered freedom. All blessedness is contained in the one
word "escaped," which therefore he reiterates, and with which the song
closes, but for that final ascription of the glory of the escape to the
mighty Name of Him who made heaven and earth.