The Song of the Lord’s servant for deliverance vouchsafed at every step of the way 

In 1582, the Rev. J. Durie was released from his prison in Scotland, and two hundred friends met him. They grew to two thousand, and they marched down Edinburgh High Street singing this psalm in four parts. Also, v. 8 was always used to open French Protestant worship. This is a song of miraculous deliverance. The Psalmist cites three analogies to describe this rescue. There are the overwhelming water, the teeth of the enemy, and the trap of the hunter. Whether this tells of the deliverance of God’s people through the Red Sea from the Egyptians, is undecided, but it is certainly a song to be sung when salvation occurs at any time for His people. There is the positive confession, that unless God had acted then all would have been lost, for He, and He only is our help. Retrospective realisation should engender this joyful admission.

Pastor Jeff O’ Neil

Recommended Tune: Old 124th

Psalm 124 (II)

¹Now Israel
    may say, and that truly,
If that the LORD
    had not our cause maintain’d;
²If that the LORD
    had not our right sustain’d,
When cruel men
    against us furiously
Rose up in wrath,
    to make of us their prey;

³Then certainly
    they had devour’d us all,
And swallow’d quick,
    for ought that we could deem;
Such was their rage,
    as we might well esteem.
⁴And as fierce floods
    before them all things drown,
So had they brought
    our soul to death quite down.

⁵The raging streams,
    with their proud swelling waves,
Had then our soul
    o’erwhelmed in the deep.
⁶But bless’d be GOD,
    who doth us safely keep,
And hath not giv’n
    us for a living prey
Unto their teeth,
    and bloody cruelty.

⁷Ev’n as a bird
    out of the fowler’s snare
Escapes away,
    so is our soul set free:
Broke are their nets,
    and thus escaped we.
⁸Therefore our help
    is in the LORD’s great name,
Who heav’n and earth
    by his great pow’r did frame.