Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him.
In the last three verses of this psalm the speaker changes: God Himself replies. The first question is who this "him" is; the second is what the promise means for us.
What we hear is God's own verdict on the Man who set His love on Him.
In Christ, God has at last found a Man in wilderness circumstances. Of Him He can say, "He has set his love upon Me"; "He has known My Name"; "He shall call upon Me." In this perfect Man, God can find all His delight. To His perfections God can give a perfect answer, as He says "I will" bless Him. When God says "I will," who can contradict Him?
Read the other way round, each promise tells us what this Man would have to pass through.
The time would come when He would need deliverance, and when God would show Him His salvation. So He must be in weakness and hardship. He would be set on high, so He must first have been brought low. He is to know what trouble is. He is to be not only delivered but honoured, so He must pass through a time of dishonour. And He is to be satisfied with long life, which means He is to come face to face with death. Such is the wonderful story.
"I will be with him in trouble" raises a hard question, because on the cross Jesus cried out that God had forsaken Him. Commentators differ in how they hold the two together. One writer warns us to weigh our words here.
We need great care when we speak of the cross and the hours of abandonment. We must guard this: Scripture does not speak of Him being abandoned by the Father. That cry of abandonment came in the carrying out of God's holy will, and because of His righteous judgment against sin. We know that He is honoured now and set at God's right hand in glory.
Another writer calls those three hours the one exception. He also reads the rescue as coming out of death, not as escape from it.
God did not deliver Him from dying. That had to happen, so that sin might be atoned for and put away. But He did deliver Him "out of death" (Heb. 5:7) after He had finished His great work of redemption. God was with Him in trouble at all times, with one exception: for three hours on the cross God forsook Him (Matt. 27:46)... And so God shows Him His salvation, and believers also enter into this, by grace.
For God's people the promise holds, and one writer weighs it against the alternative.
The Lord does not offer to keep us out of trial and trouble. He says the opposite: we will have to meet both. But He promises to be with us in them, and this is far better. God's presence in the trial is much better than being spared the trial. The sympathy of His heart with us is far sweeter than the power of His hand for us.
The same promise changes how we count trouble.
"I will be with him in trouble" (Ps. 91:15). When we are most assaulted, we shall be most assisted. What if we have more trouble than others, if we have more of God with us than others? It cannot be ill with that man with whom God is. Better to be in prison and have God's presence, than be in a palace without it.
One writer tells of a man who read this psalm as a guarantee of safety.
He took up the blessings of God's providence in Psalm 91. When the plague was raging around him in the East, he felt sure it would not come near his house. The plague seemed to leave for a time without touching him. But it soon came back and took his wife... We are not to look for rescue out of the hard circumstances. We are to learn our God as the God of resurrection in the middle of death... Neither Paul nor John were taken out of the trial.
- Speaker. The "I will" of this verse is God's own voice, His answer to a Man who set His love on Him, knew His name, and called on Him.
- Cost. Every promise points to a need behind it. Rescue means weakness, honour means shame, long life means death.
- Trouble. The promise is company in trouble, not a way round it. Commentators differ on how the cry of the cross fits in.
- Deliverance. God did not keep Him from dying; He brought Him out of death. Believers enter that same salvation by grace.
- Caution. Claim this psalm as a promise of safety and it will disappoint. Take it as the presence of the God of resurrection and it never will.
With length of days will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.
God Himself speaks the closing lines of Psalm 91, and this verse is His last word to the one who trusts Him. Two questions shape it: who is the "him" here, and what life could ever satisfy him?
The promise of long life answers a fear raised earlier in the Psalms, and God Himself gives that answer:
In Psalm 89 the saint reminds God how short human life is, and fears that death is certain... Will death overtake them? An answer comes in Psalm 91. God will not leave His earthly saints in doubt about that... Then God speaks, "Because he has set his love upon Me," and so on to the end of the Psalm. So God guarantees lasting security to the one marked out in this way. Length of days, too, he shall enjoy, and God will show him His salvation.
Verse 16 closes a chain of promises. Each one is God's reply to a Man who loved Him perfectly:
In this perfect Man, God can find all His delight. To His perfections God can give a perfect answer, as He says "I will" bless Him. When God says "I will," who can say otherwise? So we hear God saying of Christ: "I will deliver Him" from every snare. "I will set Him on high," above every power. "I will answer Him," when He calls upon Me. "I will be with Him," in trouble. "I will deliver Him, and honour Him." "I will satisfy Him with length of days in glory." "I will show Him My salvation" in the coming kingdom.
Read backwards, every promise in verses 14–16 shows what this Man must first have passed through:
The time would come when He would need deliverance and would be shown the salvation of God: so He must be in weakness and hardship. He would be set on high: then clearly He must have been brought low. He is to know what trouble is. Again He is to be not only delivered but honoured: that shows He must pass through a time of dishonour. And yet again He is to be satisfied with long life: that implies He is to come face to face with death. Such is the wonderful story.
One writer marks the limit of what this psalm covers, and still arrives at the same end:
God did not deliver Him from dying. That had to happen, so that sin might be atoned for and banished. Yet He did deliver Him "out of death" (Heb. 5:7) after He had accomplished His great work of redemption... This psalm does not deal with that great work of redemption at all, as Psalm 22 does. But thank God, He has been delivered from all His sorrows and is honoured by God with "long life" — a life that never ends (v. 16). So He is shown God's salvation, and believers also enter into this, by grace.
The ESV reads "long life" where older translations have "length of days." It is not a promise of a long old age, and another psalm gives the measure:
The last verse overlaps time and stretches through eternity... Compare Psalm 21:4 for the meaning: "He asked life of You; You gave it to Him, length of days forever and ever." It is the same Person before us in both psalms.
The suffering is over for good, and that changes where the believer looks:
Never again will Christ need to suffer; so perfectly has that work been accomplished. Long life and salvation are His as the exalted Man, He who at every step of His pathway accomplished the will of God. He has sat down upon the throne, and has become the Object of our affections... Occupation with Him where He is will make us to be like Him.
- Because — the verse is the last link in a chain that begins with love. God gives His reasons in verse 14. Everything after that, long life included, answers a Man who set His love on Him.
- I will — seven times God pledges Himself. Deliver, set on high, answer, be with, honour, satisfy, show. The last two belong to glory and to the coming kingdom.
- Through death — the gift of long life implies a meeting with death first. He was not kept from dying but brought out of death, and delivered from all His sorrows.
- For ever — "length of days" is not a long old age but life that never ends, measured by Psalm 21:4, reaching past time into eternity.
- Shared — what God gives Him, He shares. Believers enter into this salvation by grace, and occupation with Him where He is makes us like Him.