They encompassed me, yea, encompassed me; but in the name of Jehovah have I destroyed them.
Psalm 118 is a victory song, and verse 11 is the middle of three almost identical lines about enemies closing in on every side. Who is the "I" who cuts down whole nations, and how can a surrounded people talk of destroying anyone?
The Setting: A City Ringed by Nations
Commentators link these verses to a siege of Jerusalem still to come.
Verses 10-12 seem to link on with verse 7. All nations will indeed surround Jerusalem when the day of the Lord comes. Zechariah 14:2 states this plainly, and it also states that they do so to their own destruction. This will be the moment when Jehovah appears to deliver His people and overthrow their enemies. On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.
The pressure comes from more than one direction at once:
They will be attacked on every side. Besides the Assyrian (the king of the north), there will be the first beast of Revelation 13 (the imperial head of the western empire). There will also be his ally the Antichrist, and the king of the south.
Bees and a Fire of Thorns
Verse 12 compares the attackers to bees and to burning thorns. That picture explains how such a huge crowd can already be counted as finished.
All nations had gathered against Israel, only to be cut off by a feeble people sheltered and strengthened by Jehovah's Name. They gather like bees. They are like a fire of thorns, which flares up and dies out; they are put out and gone.
Verses 8-9 give the lesson behind that confidence:
Their confidence in man, even in princes, is broken. They recognise it is better to trust in the Lord. How quickly do we put confidence in man; how slowly do we trust in the Lord!
"In the Name of the LORD I Cut Them Off"
The verb is startling from a surrounded man. One commentator works from an older translation, whose margin gives the wording the ESV uses:
Three times we get the words, "In the name of the Lord I will destroy them." More literally, as the margin shows, it is "I cut them off." The past tense is still used in its prophetic sense. It is remarkable that the psalmist should say, "I cut them off." But note that he does it "in the name of the Lord." That means the power in which the thing is done is the Lord's, and not his own. Verses 13-17 acknowledge this fully. It is the right hand of the Lord that has achieved the victory.
Three Layers of One Trial
Verse 11 is only the outer layer of the trouble. Verses 13 and 18 name two deeper ones.
All nations had surrounded them; in Jehovah's name he would destroy them... In verse 13 the enemy had thrust hard at them so that they might fall, and Jehovah helped them... Verse 18 gives another side of their trial. It was, after all, Jehovah's chastening. He had chastened them severely, but had not given them over to death... So we have the full character of trial, as we have seen it even in Job. First the instruments: men, even all nations. Next, the enemy working through them and acting on the spirit, thrusting hard at the soul. But behind it, and before it too, is God chastening, and not giving them up. This is full of instruction for us in many things we pass through.
Whose Voice Is This?
How far is the "I" of this verse Christ Himself? One reading has Christ sharing His people's distress:
All the nations had gathered together against Jerusalem, but Christ was there with them in His heart in the trouble. With Him Jehovah could be, for He trusted in Him, and in His name He destroyed them.
Yet the same writer elsewhere reads these lines as belonging to God's people, not to Christ personally. Not every line of every psalm fits Him:
The psalms describe the general condition of the saints in the last days. Some of it cannot apply to Christ personally at all, as in Psalm 118:10-11. Some passages apply to the righteous in general. Others may be applied to Christ, and some are applied to Him with prophetic purpose and exactness.
Summary
- Surrounded — the doubled line fits a real siege. Enemies close in from north, south and west at once.
- Small — the ones speaking are "a feeble people". The nations are bees and burning thorns, loud and fierce but soon out.
- Name — the psalmist cuts them off only "in the name of the LORD". The power is His, and verses 13-17 credit the victory to His right hand.
- Deeper — three layers: nations outside, an enemy thrusting at the soul, and God's own chastening behind both. That chastening never hands His people over to death.
- Trust — the confidence of verse 11 grows out of verse 8, where trust in man has finally collapsed. That lesson is for us too.