- Read Psalm 125 from the ESV.
- Read my Psalm 125 poem from A New Song.
In Psalm 124 our focus was drawn toward the fact that if it were not for
They had been through a time of great upheaval and persecution when foreign nations invaded their land — invasions which were not by any means a non-hostile take-over. Most people have seen enough movies with battle scenes in them to be able to picture what this must have been like. For those who have been in a battle, they probably don’t need to use their imagination.
When I was much younger I knew a man by the name of Ralph who had been in one of the first waves at Normandy Beach, a fact I learned after seeing Saving Private Ryan. He and I were talking one day and I was describing the movie and how amazed I was that anyone could have actually survived that sort of battle. He didn’t say much until a few days later when the subject came up again and I asked if he had seen the movie to which he replied, “Yes. And I lived it.” He had very little to say about the event or even the film, but he did say that he was in one of the first waves assaulting Normandy Beach and the opening scene of the movie was not nearly as awful as it actually was in real life. I wanted to ask more, but I had learned not to push for details from people who had seen active duty from my father who was also in World War II. I knew Ralph was a believer and I sometimes wish I had asked him if he felt secure on that day, or if, when he looked back at that time, he saw God’s hand preserving him. But, as he has long since passed away, those are questions to which I will never know the answer.
I think there is a bit of a proper comparison between Ralph’s experience and the experience of those described in these two psalms. In the moment of trouble, I can only imagine the depth of fear and concern the Israelites had for their own life and the lives of those around them. Such fear also quite possibly extends into the days, months, and years following the event as they lived in shock of what they had just witnessed. We must never downplay how another person responds to such violence; for my part, I would imagine it would probably take decades for me to finally sleep at night, if ever.
But, as a believer standing on the other side of such violence, even with the psychological and physical toll such an event might exact, I hope I could look back and see that God’s hand had been over me during that time. And, given that I had made it through, I would hope that no amount of worry could change the fact that God had surrounded me during those trials, protecting me from the storm that had swirled about me. (I know this opens up a deep and somewhat unanswerable question regarding why God chooses to save one person and not another. I find the beginning of an answer in John 21:18-23, but it still doesn’t answer every aspect of the question.)
In the instances of Normandy Beach and Israel’s exile, I have no sense for God’s calculus regarding who was saved and who wasn’t. We are given a glimpse into God’s mind in Psalm 125 that the righteous are the ones being protected, and those who continue to live crooked lives will be sent into the fire. But this claim of the Lord’s protection must have not felt very real for those living during the midst of the storm.
Notice that the psalmist describes those who trust in the Lord as an unmovable mountain surrounded by a range of immovable mountains protecting them from the enemy’s attack. Taking this analogy back to the midst of the battle, we should realize that the righteous man has nothing to fear. This doesn’t mean that we won’t suffer or die, it doesn’t mean we should become fool-hardy and make stupid, even unrighteous, choices, and it doesn’t mean that every situation will turn up roses for us. But it does mean that the righteous man should trust in the Lord and not worry, for the Lord is a shield around the believer and his will will be done.
One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is found in II Kings 6:8-23 where we read how Elisha and the King of Israel were under attack by the King of the Arameans. Israel’s King had begun to worry about his life when Elisha prayed that the Lord would open the King’s eyes to see how their enemy was surrounded by horses and chariots of fire. In the face of what the King believed to be almost certain destruction, the Lord’s army was revealed, showing him that even though the enemy was beyond his capacity for defense the Lord had everything under control and he must not fret.
This is the message of Psalm 125. If we are following God’s ways, either our entire life or after repentance from a failure, we must know that God is a shield around us. He is an immovable protector stopping the hand of those who seek our demise. And even if our demise is to come, we are called to still trust in God’s plan and his steadfast love. This is why the psalmist was able to look back at the trials of the exile and praise God, it is why Paul was able to sing in prison,
