'He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt
thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.'
--PSALM xci. 4.
We remember the magnificent image in Moses' song, of God's protection
and guidance as that of the eagle who stirred up his nest, and hovered
over the young with his wings, and bore them on his pinions. That
passage may possibly have touched the imagination of this psalmist, when
he here employs the same general metaphor, but with a distinct and
significant difference in its application. In the former image the main
idea is that of training and sustaining. Here the main idea is that of
protection and fostering. _On_ the wing and _under_ the wing suggest
entirely different notions, and both need to be taken into account in
order to get the many-sided beauties and promises of these great
sayings. Now there seems to me here to be a very distinct triad of
thoughts. There is the covering wing; there is the flight to its
protection; and there is the warrant for that flight. 'He shall cover
thee with His pinions'; that is the divine act. 'Under His wings shalt
thou trust'; that is the human condition. 'His truth shall be thy shield
and buckler'; that is the divine manifestation which makes the human
condition possible.