Following On

Every day my computer gives me a verse for the day on my computer desktop. For today that verse was from Psalm 124:7 which says, “We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped.” Well good … I guess. I don’t really understand what that verse is about. Who is the bird? How did it escape?

We can’t understand that verse until we know the context. In Psalm 124:2 the Psalm writer says that “Men attacked us. Their anger flared against us. They wanted to swallow us alive. [They were like a] flood that would have engulfed us.”

We’ve seen that scene in a movie. The wagon train is slowly making its way through the mountains, but up on the hillside bandits are waiting. They’re hiding in the rocks. We see one bandit peek his head up from out of the sagebrush. Then he points his rifle. The settlers in the wagon train don’t know the danger they’re in. We jump up from our easy chair and shout at the television screen, “Look out! He’s got a gun!”

David says that there were men against him who were ready to attack. He and his little band were making their way through the valley. They didn’t know that attackers were hiding in the rocks ready to jump down and kill.

In verse six David writes, “Praise be to the LORD, who has not let us be torn by their teeth.” In verse 2 he says, “If the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us … they would have swallowed us alive …”

And now we come to verse 7 (the verse I didn’t understand). “But We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped.” God was with us. He stretched out his arm to save us. In verse eight, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Do you feel as if you are under attack? Does the enemy come in like a flood? If so, call upon the name of the Lord, for he is your helper. God rises in defense of his children. Trust him. Run to him. Your help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.