Psalm 124:8

Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Who made.—See Note on Psalm 121:2.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

124:6-8 God is the Author of all our deliverances, and he must have the glory. The enemies lay snares for God's people, to bring them into sin and trouble, and to hold them there. Sometimes they seem to prevail; but in the Lord let us put our trust, and we shall not be put to confusion. The believer will ascribe all the honour of his salvation, to the power, mercy, and truth of God, and look back with wonder and thanksgiving on the way in which the Lord has led him. Let us rejoice that our help for the time to come is in him who made heaven and earth.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Our help is in the name of the Lord - In the Lord; in the great Yahweh. See Psalm 121:2.

Who made heaven and earth - The great Creator; the true God. Our deliverances have led us up to him. They are such as can be ascribed to him alone. They could not have come from ourselves; from our fellow-men; from angels; from any or all created beings. Often in life, when delivered from danger, we may feel this; we always may feel this, and should feel this, when we think of the redemption of our souls. That is a work which we of ourselves could never have performed; which could not have been done for us by our fellow-men; which no angel could have accomplished; which all creation combined could not have worked out; which could have been effected by no one but by him who "made heaven and earth;" by him who created all things. See Colossians 1:13-17.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. (Compare Ps 121:2).

name—in the usual sense (Ps 5:11; 20:1). He thus places over against the great danger the omnipotent God, and drowns, as it were in an anthem, the wickedness of the whole world and of hell, just as a great fire consumes a little drop of water [Luther].

The Treasury of David

8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

"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. He is immensely great in his creating work; he has not fashioned a few little things alone, but all heaven and the whole round earth are the works of his hands. When we worship the Creator let us increase our trust in our Comforter. Did he create all that we see, and can he not preserve us from evils which we cannot see? Blessed be his name, he that has fashioned us will watch over us; yea, he has done so, and rendered us help in the moment of jeopardy. He is our help and our shield, even he alone. He will to the end break every snare. He made heaven for us, and he will keep us for heaven; he made the earth, and he will succour us upon it until the hour cometh for our departure. Every work of his hand preaches to us the duty and the delight of reposing upon him only. All nature cries, "Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength." "Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

The following versification of the sense rather than the words of this Psalm is presented to the reader with much diffidence: -

Had not the Lord, my soul may cry,

Had not the Lord been on my side;

Had he not brought deliverance nigh,

Then must my helpless soul have died.

Had not the Lord been on my side,

My soul had been by Satan slain;

And Tophet, opening large and wide,

Would not have gaped for me in vain.

Lo, floods of wrath, and floods of hell,

In fierce impetuous torrents roll;

Had not the Lord defended well,

continued...

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Our help is in the name of the Lord,.... This is the conclusion the church draws from the scene of Providence in her favour; this is the instruction she learns from hence, that her help is in the Lord only, and not in any creature; and that it is right to put her trust and confidence in the Lord for it, and only to expect it from him whose name is in himself; and is a strong tower to flee unto for safety, Proverbs 18:10. The Targum is,

"in the name of the Word of the Lord;''

in the Messiah; in whom the name of the Lord is, his nature and perfections; and in whom help is found, being laid upon him, Exodus 23:21;

who made heaven and earth; and therefore must be able to help his people, and to do more for them than they are able to ask or think: for what is it he cannot do that made the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them? see Psalm 121:1.

Geneva Study Bible

Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. Cp. Psalm 121:2.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Our help is in the Name of the Lord. "Our help is," and has always been, "in the Name" - i.e. in the manifested might - "of the Lord." It is he that has been "on our side," that has "helped" us, saved us, and delivered us. Who made heaven and earth (comp. Psalm 121:2; Psalm 134:3).



Psalm 124:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After the fact of the divine succour has been expressed, in Psalm 124:6 follows the thanksgiving for it, and in Psalm 124:7 the joyful shout of the rescued one. In Psalm 124:6 the enemies are conceived of as beasts of prey on account of their bloodthirstiness, just as the worldly empires are in the Book of Daniel; in Psalm 124:7 as "fowlers" on account of their cunning. According to the punctuation it is not to be rendered: Our soul is like a bird that is escaped, in which case it would have been accented בפשׁנו כצפור, but: our soul (subject with Rebia magnum) is as a bird (כּצפור as in Hosea 11:11; Proverbs 23:32; Job 14:2, instead of the syntactically more usual כּצּפור) escaped out of the snare of him who lays snares (יוקשׁ, elsewhere יקושׁ, יקוּשׁ, a fowler, Psalm 91:3). נשׁבר (with ā beside Rebia) is 3rd:praet.: the snare was burst, and we - we became free. In Psalm 124:8 (cf. Psalm 121:2; Psalm 134:3) the universal, and here pertinent thought, viz., the help of Israel is in the name of Jahve, the Creator of the world, i.e., in Him who is manifest as such and is continually verifying Himself, forms the epiphonematic close. Whether the power of the world seeks to make the church of Jahve like to itself or to annihilate it, it is not a disavowal of its God, but a faithful confession, stedfast even to death, that leads to its deliverance.