124 The people of God, escaping a great peril, do acknowledge themselves to be delivered, not by their own force, but by the power of God. 4 They declare the greatness of the peril. 6 And praise the Name of God.
A song of degrees, or Psalm of David.
1 If the Lord had not been [a]on our side, (may Israel now say)
2 If the Lord had [not] been on our side, when men rose up against us,
3 They had then swallowed us up [b]quick, when their wrath was kindled against us.
4 Then the [c]waters had drowned us, and the stream had gone over our soul:
5 Then had the swelling waters gone over our soul.
6 Praised be the Lord, which hath not given us as a prey unto their teeth.
7 Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the [d]snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are delivered.
8 Our help is in the Name of the Lord, which hath made heaven and earth.
Footnotes
- Psalm 124:1 He showeth that God was ready to help at need, and that there was none other way to be saved, but by his only means.
- Psalm 124:3 So unable were we to resist.
- Psalm 124:4 He useth most proper similitudes to express the great danger that the Church was in, and out of the which God miraculously delivered them.
- Psalm 124:7 For the wicked did not only furiously rage against the faithful, but craftily imagined to destroy them.