Psalm 124--Our Help Is in the Name of the LORD

Psalm 124
English Standard Version

Our Help Is in the Name of the LORD
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
124 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side--
    let Israel now say--
2 if it had not been the LORD who was on our side
    when people rose up against us,
3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
    when their anger was kindled against us;
4 then the flood would have swept us away,
    the torrent would have gone over us;
5 then over us would have gone
    the raging waters.

6 Blessed be the LORD,
    who has not given us
    as prey to their teeth!
7 We have escaped like a bird
    from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
    and we have escaped!

8 Our help is in the name of the LORD,
    who made heaven and earth.

---

While this psalm doesn't specifically mention the word "hased," the covenant love of the LORD, it is the theme of this song.  Also, the psalm says what many people (even secular people) admit--Israel's history doesn't make sense without the LORD's intervention and the constant and continual salvation that He provides.  It is such an obvious proof for the existence and active involvement of the LORD that Atheists have to dismiss Israel's history as fables and fairy tales and say that the books of Genesis and Exodus couldn't have really happened the way that they did with the miraculous events that were described, nor could such a small group of people conquered armies with such overwhelmingly military superiority.  Israel should have been utterly defeated and wiped out 100-times over (at least) were it not for the LORD's intervention.  We've even seen total genocide against the Jews in places like the book of Esther that failed and in more modern history we've seen the genocide against Jews (and Christians) by the Nazis and Communists fail too.  Now we are at another time in history where another genocide was attempted and failed--the attacks on Israel from Gaza on October 7th, 2023. by Hamas terrorist with the goal of killing all Jews that they found living in the land of Israel. We say we will never forget, but history tells us otherwise, which is why I recorded the date here in this blog so that when we get to the place where we say, "What is he talking about that happened on October 7th, 2023?" we can go back and look it up.  If the LORD was not with Israel on these days, and every day, Israel would not be a people or a nation today.

This should lead the people of Israel to praise the LORD and worship Him with gladness, for He is their Redeemer and Savior (in even greater ways than they realize, for He has not only saved them from their physical enemies, but their spiritual ones through the substitutionary atonement that Jesus provided through His death on a cross, burial in a borrowed tomb, and resurrection on the third day).  The LORD has allowed the people of Israel to escape from all the snares that have been set for them and often turned those very snares against the people who set them so that they fell into their own traps and snares (like Haman being hanged on the very gallows that he meant to use to hang Mordecai).

​Our help and hope (both as Jews and Christians) are in the Name of the LORD--the Redeemer, Defender, and Savior of His people!  He is the one that spoke creation into existence out of nothing--if He can do that, we know that nothing is too hard for the LORD.  We also know that he took us when we were "nothing" and made us something.  We were dead and He made us alive in Christ through the power of the gospel.  He continues to fight for, defend and preserve His people and the Spirit will present us holy and blameless to the Father and Son on the Day of the LORD, for the LORD is faithful to keep us for "Nothing will snatch them out of My hand."