PSALM 91

Psalm 91: “Under His wings, you will find refuge”

I have been reading a book recently called Walking with God by Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins. It is a synoptic study of the entire Bible as a narrative. It tells the story of God’s plan to heal the wound of sin in mankind by calling a certain people to himself and making them a “priestly nation” (Ex 19:5) for all people in Christ Jesus. But in the same passage, in the preceding verse, God reminds Moses—and through him all the people of Israel—that he has “borne [them] on the wings of eagles and brought [them] to himself” (Ex 19:4).

This image of the wings of God became very important for Hebrew spirituality. Psalm 36:7 was used as an invocation at the beginning of Hebrew prayer: “O Lord, how precious is your Love. / My God, the sons of men / find refuge in the shelter of your wings” (Breviary translation). As Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins point out, “in later Jewish tradition the poetic line from Psalm 36 is used in prayer at the beginning of the morning as the prayer shawl is taken over one’s shoulders, imitating the outstretched wings of Yahweh that shadow and shelter his beloved. The image of divine wings giving shelter is also the overarching image in Psalm 91, which becomes the psalm for night prayer.” [1]

I have thought for a while that Psalm 91 is one of the most beautiful night prayer psalms (even though all of them are very beautiful), but this connection with the presence of God represented as eagle’s wings or the shadow of wings and the priestly dignity of God’s people is new for me. 

Exodus 19:4-6 seems to suggest that there is a direct correlation between the dignity of the priesthood (which here I understand  to mean simply the dignity of worshipping God in the liturgy, which Israel did not have before they arrived at the foot of Sinai) and the intimacy of God’s presence among his people.

So Psalm 91 begins (in the translation for the Divine Office):

The image here might seem strange. Isn’t shade and shadow an image of death? As the Canticle of Zechariah says, referring to the coming of Christ, 

And Jesus called himself the light of the world. So what is the “shade of the Almighty” in Psalm 91? I think the “shade” represents both the presence and the mercy of God. It represents his presence because of the symbolism employed in Ps 36:7, meaning this is not the “shade” of shadows that hides from the light but the “shade” of shelter which hides us from danger. In this way, the “shade of the Almighty” is the closeness of God, hovering over his beloved children protectively like an eagle protecting its brood. And as soon as we ask what God is protecting us from, we see how this shade is also an image of God’s mercy. He defends us from the consequences of our own sins against him! The metaphorical posture of the Lord, then, is a very intimate one, since he is both reminding us of his presence by his mercy and making himself vulnerable to us by holding us in the safety of his arms. Far from being the “shadow of death”, the “shade of the Almighty” is the merciful presence of God who is our refuge. Verse 7 of Psalm 36, then, which invokes this intimate shelter under the wings of the Lord is a prayer that invites the one praying to enter into and receive the presence of God, who is always near to us. Such a beautiful reminder of his closeness is very appropriate and useful at the beginning of prayer.

But let’s see if we can go a little deeper. Who more than anyone else “dwells in the shelter of the Most High and abides in the shade of the Almighty”? Jesus, of course! He more than anyone else has said with his whole heart, “My refuge, my stronghold, my God in whom I trust!” But this means that this prayer reveals a new depth when we consider what Jesus suffered. The “shade” of the Almighty is certainly the shadow of God’s presence which “overshadowed” Mary and made her the spouse of the Holy Spirit and the Mother of God; but it is also the shadow of the cross, when darkness fell on the face of the earth, overshadowing Mary again and giving her a new son by the Holy Spirit, the Apostle John, who represents the whole Church born out of the blood and water of Christ’s side. If ever there was a moment during his life on earth that Jesus was the closest to the Father, it was in the embrace of the cross.

In this way, I think we can catch a glimpse of an intimacy that is only barely hinted at in Exodus. At the foot of Mount Sinai, God revealed to Moses that he had borne Israel out of Egypt on eagle’s wings to make of them a priestly kingdom for all people. That promise was not fulfilled in its fullness until, at the foot of Mount Zion, the Son of God was wrapped in the dark embrace of the Father and sheltered all of humanity in his most vulnerable arms. The Church, the new Israel, was truly reborn out of the blood of the New Covenant as a “holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt 2:5). Therefore now “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pt 2:9). This priesthood is an invitation to join our High Priest in the shadow of his cross; the shade, not of death, but of the unimaginable intimacy that arises from perfect obedience.

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[1]  Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins, Walking with God (Ascension Publishing Group: Pennsylvania, 2010), p.96