Theological Commentary: Click Here
These two
psalms naturally go hand in hand. So
much of human existence is spent dealing with the consequences of
sinfulness. We deal with our sinfulness. We deal with other people’s sinfulness. So often the things that we worry about are
rooted in the parts of our lives and the lives of others than run contrary to
God’s ways.
Because of
this, we have times like the psalmist experiences in Psalm 120. He is in distress. He calls out to the Lord. People around him are lying. People around him don’t want peace. They desire to bring him down in their
midst. They want to see him stumble and
fall. What they really want is a war.
This is why
the psalmist turn to the Lord. Notice
the psalmist’s tone, though. The
psalmist doesn’t call for the destruction of his enemies. He doesn’t ask God to rain down wrath upon
him. He merely asks to be delivered. He wants to be freed from their scheming.
This brings
us to psalm 121. The Lord is our
keeper. He watches over us. He will keep us from evil. We can call upon the Lord and He will know
our going in and our going out.
Again, though,
we can pay attention to what the psalmist doesn’t say. The Lord will protect us from evil, but He
will not do evil. The psalmist does not
presume that the Lord will punish others unfairly while protecting us. We know that scripture says that vengeance is
the Lord’s, but it is also the Lord’s to decide when and where His vengeance is
put on display.
I think this
a great point to bring out. It is one
thing to ask the Lord to protect and deliver us. It is acceptable to remember that the Lord
has a covenant with us. But we must not
be presumptuous and tell the Lord how He is to protect us. He will protect us in His own righteous way,
which is far better than any way we could dream up anyways.
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