Psalm 121:8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even for ever more. It has been remarked by a learned Bible scholar that part of the common complaints which are often brought against our English Bible is really owing to the likes and dislikes as to the usage of words in which we English people allow ourselves. It is constantly complained of that where, in the original Scriptures, the sacred writers employ only one word, our translators have put for that one word, two, three, four, five, or even several more different English words, thus conveying to our minds several ideas, where it was the intention of the Scriptures to convey only one. No doubt our translators did their best to find synonyms - words, that is, which though, different in sound, have the same sense - still the senses so given are only similar, and may not be seen by ordinary readers to be so similar as it was thought they were. Hence such difference of rendering is often misleading, and rather a hiding than a setting forth of the Scripture's true meaning. Now, in this beautiful psalm we have a notable instance of such different rendering. We do not see that the sense is obscured in this instance, but we think the emphasis and force are lessened. The one prominent word in the psalm is "keep:" the whole psalm is about the Lord God's sure keeping of his people, and that this might be impressed on the mind, the writer six times over in the last five verses of the psalm repeats this word "keep." Now in the three former verses out of these five our version adheres to the word "keep," but in the last two it changes over to the less forcible word "preserve." Our English dislike of using the same word repeatedly accounts for this change, and causes the loss of impressiveness which the repeated reverberations of the one emphatic word "keep" were intended to produce. But to pass on to what is of more importance, the truth itself of God's sure keeping, let us - I. TAKE THE PROMISE LITERALLY. 1. It referred to Israel's journeyings from Babylon to Judah, or from wherever their abode might be, up to the great festivals. Now, even in this literal sense, the promise was no mean one. For those olden days were not days of settled law and order, in which life and property were secure, and evil-doers could scarce hope to escape punishment. But the very reverse was the truth. Might stood for right, and hence the "going out and coming in" of Israel in those days was ever attended with much peril. 2. And for ourselves the promise holds good. God has made our journeyings safe by means of what we call the inventions of science and the resources of civilization. They are but God's instruments for our good. And when some terrible catastrophe occurs, as from time to time is the case, still, if we be of God's Israel, we are kept: "He shall preserve thy soul." Our real self is not harmed, the Lord is our Keeper, as he said. II. AS APPLYING TO THE WHOLE OF OUR ACTIVE LIFE. Such is a frequent meaning of the expression, "going out and coming in" (see Deuteronomy 28:6, 19; Deuteronomy 23:20; Joshua 1:7; 1 Samuel 29:6). The general conduct and occupation of a man in his varied affairs are what is meant in all these passages. And how we need to be kept amid our daily work and business! How "the cares of this world" need to be guarded against, and "the deceitfulness of riches" also! How business life tends to absorb all time, all thought, all energy, so that scarce any are left for God! Hence blessed are they who are in God's holy keeping in all the goings out and comings in of daily life! III. TO OUR EXPERIENCES OF SORROW AND OF GLADNESS. "Going out" was a synonym for sorrow; "coming in," for gladness and joy. For Israel was a people that had known what it was to go out to drear and dreadful exile, and that more than once. Hence whilst the idea of "going out" suggested only what was sad, that of "coming in," the return from exile, was full of joy. "The redeemed of the Lord shall come with joy and singing," etc. And in the New Jerusalem, one of its sweetest promises was that its people should "go no more out forever." Sorrow has its snares, and so has joy. We need to be kept of God. IV. TO THE MORNING AND EVENING OF LIFE. "Man goeth forth to his work and to his labor until the evening;" then he cometh in for rest. And if we truly desire it, the Lord will keep our going out and our coming in, in this sense also. "Our help cometh from the Lord." - S.C. Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. |
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