Psalm 91:1-3, 5-7, 9,10
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence…Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday…Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The triumphant assurances of this psalm, “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling,”—“the pestilence shall smite thousands and ten thousands beside thee, but not come nigh thee,”—seem to be entirely contradicted by experience which testifies that “there is one event to the evil and the good,” Ecclesiastes 9:2; and that, in epidemics or other widespread disasters, we all, the good and the bad, God-fearers and God-blasphemers, do fare alike, and that the conditions of exemption from physical evil are physical and not spiritual. It is of no use trying to persuade ourselves that this is not so. We shall understand God’s dealings with us, and get to the very throbbing heart of such promises as these in this psalm far better, if we start from the certainty that whatever it means, it does not mean that, with regard to external calamities and disasters, we are going to be God’s petted children, or to be saved from the things that fall upon other people. No! no! we have to go a great deal deeper than that.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): This is a Psalm written for comfort, but it is not addressed to all mankind—neither I venture to say, to all believers, but only those who are described in the first verse. There are some that abide in Christ and His words abide in them. They live near to God. They receive therefore choicer favours than those who do but come and go. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High.”
ROBERT HORN (Circa 1628): That which is here translated “dwelleth,” is as much in weight as sitteth, or is settled; and so, our dwelling in God’s secret place, is as much as our sitting down in it; the meaning is, we must make it our rest, as if we should say, Here will we dwell. From whence we learn, that God’s children should not come to God’s secret place as guests to an inn, but as inhabitants to their own dwellings.
C. H. SPURGEON: He who has learnt to stand in the holy of holies, near the blood-besprinkled mercy-seat, to whom prayer is a constant privilege and enjoyment—he dwells in the secret place. Such a man, living near to God, “shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
MARY B. M. DUNCAN (1807-1867): This is an expression which implies great nearness. We must walk very close to a companion, if we would have his shadow fall on us. Can we imagine any expression more perfect in describing the constant presence of God with His chosen ones, than this—they shall abide under His shadow? In Solomon’s beautiful allegory, the Church, in a time of special communion with Christ, says of Him, “I sat down under his shadow with great delight,” Song of Solomon 2:3—“sat down,” desiring not to leave it, but to abide there for ever. And it is he who chooses to dwell in the secret place of the most High, who shall “abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” There is a condition and a promise attached to it. The condition is, that we “dwell in the secret place”—the promise, that if we do so we “shall abide under the shadow.” It is of importance to view it thus.
C. H. SPURGEON: So there must be great access to God—great familiarity with Him; there must be something of the assurance of faith, before we shall be able to grip such a Word as that which follows in this Psalm. Read it again, and if you have not attained to it, labour after it.
MARY B. M. DUNCAN: He wishes us to know Him, and by His Word and His Spirit, He puts Himself before us. Ah! it is not his fault if we do not know him. It is our own carelessness.
JEREMIAH DYKE (1584-1639): Our safety lies not simply upon this, because God is a refuge, and is an habitation, but “Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee,” It is therefore the making of God our habitation, upon which our safety lies; and this is the way to make God an habitation, thus to pitch and cast ourselves by faith upon His power and providence.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Though God is the judge of the whole world, yet he would have His providence to be especially acknowledged in the government of His own Church—He indeed puts forth his hand indifferently against His own people and against strangers; for we see that both are in common subjected to adversities.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): It may befall a saint to share in a common calamity; as the good corn and weeds are cut down together, but for a different end and purpose.
JOHN CALVIN: He restores by corrections His own children, for whom He has a care, to the right way, whenever they depart from it. In this sense it is that Peter says that judgment begins at the house of God, 1 Peter 4:17; for judgment includes all those punishments which the Lord inflicts on men for their sins, and whatever refers to the reformation of the world. “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”
JOHN TRAPP: A good man may die of the plague, as did John Oecolampadius, and many others; Hezekiah is thought to have had it, so had Theodore Beza—his family was four different times visited herewith, and he was much comforted under that and other heavy afflictions by this sweet psalm, which, therefore, he hugged and held most dear all the days of his life.
THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY (ANNOTATIONS, 1658): Most dangerous then and erroneous is the inference of some men, yea, of some expositors upon these words of the Psalmist, that no godly man can suffer by the plague, or pestilence…Most interpreters conclude here, that the godly are preserved in time of public calamities; which, in a right sense, may be true; but withal they should have added, that all godly men are not exempted at such times, to prevent rash judgments.
THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): God doth not say here that no afflictions shall befall us, but no evil.
C. H. SPURGEON: As for His saints, it is their consolation that their death is entirely in His hands. In the midst of fever and pestilence, we shall never die until He wills it!
JOHN RYLAND (1753-1825): Plagues and deaths around me fly,
Till He bids I cannot die:
Not a single shaft can hit,
Till the God of love thinks fit.
