It’s also helpful to know what the author intended by seeing how a text naturally divides. This one-two divine punch destroys fear and lifts us to the astounding reality that God is right here, present, loving us. I love that these two Psalms have this meaningful ‘conversation’ of entreaty and response because it mirrors our own prayers when in need.
91:3 responds: “Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler…”. 90:17 entreats: “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us.”.91:14 replies: “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him.” 90:16 invokes: “Let your work be manifest to your servants.”.91:5 answers: “You shall not be afraid of the terror by night nor of the arrow that flies by day.” 90:14 petitions: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love”.And that brings us to Psalm 91 which is a response to the petitions of Psalm 90. The English hymn writer, Isaac Watts (1674-1748) captured this in his loved Christian hymn (of the 750 he wrote!):Ģ – Response. How life-saving must have been their growing realization that home wasn’t a physical place but the presence and power of the eternal God. Its opening declares unequivocally: ‘Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” ( Ps 90:1). While it’s not possible that Moses actually wrote this Psalm (formed after the Exodus period), the anonymous author clearly wants to remind us that in God we find our home. What hope this must have given the Children of Israel. It was just the people and their God, which reminds us that even in the most desolate, abandoned situation, God is in charge and reigns. We’re reminded of the Wilderness period before there was a Temple, land or king. 90 is the only Psalm attributed to the great Hebrew lawgiver.
It takes us back to the time of Moses since Ps.
PSALM 91 AUDIO/VIDEO FULL
While the previous Book III is full of laments over Jerusalem’s fall and the Exile, Book IV’s tone changes significantly. Psalm 90 is the opening of Book IV of the Psalter (which has five books total) and includes Psalms 90 – 106. 90-92 are a unit, all written while Israel was in Exile, yearning for their homeland, embedded with a foreign culture, language, and religion. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned studying different Biblical texts is to look at their context: what precedes and follows them. Here are three ‘doors’ for understanding it more, which I hope you also find helpful:ġ–Context. They must have felt particularly close to it given the name of their Division. Some claim the Commander of the Army’s 91st Brigade even had the Psalm printed on a small card for his men, asking them to pray with it daily. 91 daily, earning its moniker as “The Soldier’s Psalm”. In World War I, many of the troopers recited Ps.