If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say. The opening sentence is abrupt, and remains a fragment. By such a commencement attention was aroused as well as feeling expressed: and this is ever the way of poetic fire—to break forth in uncontrollable flame.

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us. When all men combined, and the whole race of men seemed set upon stamping out the house of Israel, what must have happened if the covenant Lord had not interposed? When they stirred themselves, and combined to make an…

Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us. They were so eager for our destruction that they would have made only one morsel of us, and have swallowed us up alive and whole in a single instant.

Then the waters had overwhelmed us. Rising irresistibly, like the Nile, the flood of opposition would soon have rolled over our heads. Across the mighty waste of waters we should have cast an anxious eye, but looked in vain for escape.

Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. The figure represents the waves as proud, and so they seem to be when they overleap the bulwarks of a frail bark, and threaten every moment to sink her.

Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Leaving the metaphor of a boiling flood, he compares the adversaries of Israel to wild beasts who desired to make the godly their prey. Their teeth are prepared to tear, and they regard the godly as their victims.

Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers. Our soul is like a bird for many reasons; but in this case the point of likeness is weakness, folly, and the ease with which it is enticed into the snare.

Our help, our hope for the future, our ground of confidence in all trials present and to come. Is in the name of the Lord. Jehovah's revealed character is our foundation of confidence, his person is our sure fountain of strength. Who made heaven and earth. Our Creator is our preserver.

The Lord...on our side. Jehovah is on the side of his people in a spiritual sense, or otherwise it would be bad for them. God the Father is on their side; his love and relation to them engage him to be so; hence all those good things that are provided for them and bestowed on them; nor will he…

If it had not been the LORD, etc. This repetition is not in vain. For whilst we are in danger, our fear is without measure; but when it is once past, we imagine it to have been less than it was indeed. And this is the delusion of Satan to diminish and obscure the grace of God.

Then they had swallowed us up quick. The metaphor may be taken from famished wild beasts attacking and devouring men (comp. v. 5); or the reference may be to the case of a man shut up alive in a sepulchre (Pr 1:12) and left there to perish, or (Nu 16:80) swallowed up by an earthquake.—Daniel…

A familiar, but exceedingly apt and most significant figure. Horrible is the sight of a raging conflagration; but far more destructive is a river overflowing its banks and rushing violently on: for it is not possible to restrain it by any strength or power.

Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. The same again, to note the greatness both of the danger and of the deliverance. And it may teach us not lightly to pass over God's great blessings, but to make the most of them.—John Trapp.

Two figures are again employed, in order to show how imminent was the destruction, had there been no divine interposition. The first is that of a savage beast which was formerly used. But an addition is made, to describe the urgency of the danger.

Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers, etc. Various snares are placed for birds, by traps, birdlime, guns, etc.: who can enumerate all the dangers of the godly, threatening them from Satan, and from the world? Ps 91:3: Ho 5:1.—"We are delivered, "not by our own skill or…

Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He hath made the earth where the snare lies, so that he can rightfully destroy the snare as laid unlawfully in his domain; he hath made the heaven, the true sphere of the soaring wings of those souls which he has delivered, so that…