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Perowne thinks that the figures of these verses remind of the earlier deliverance from Egypt. "The Egyptians did ' rise up' against them. Pharaoh and his chariots and his horsemen followed hard after them, and did seem as if about to swallow them up, when they were entangled in the wilderness. The waves of the Red Sea overwhelming their enemies might have suggested naturally the figure by which the might of those enemies was itself compared to swelling waters." An estimate of the tone of the psalm, however, leads us to recognize suddenness as the characteristic of the calamity indicated. The waters suggested are rather those of a sudden mountain flood raging down one of the dried wadies, carrying all before it, but passing as swiftly as it came - the "spate" or "scaith" of mountain districts. If the sea is to be thought of, it is as suddenly swept up by high tide and strong wind, and lunging furiously against the rocks, so long as the strength of the tide continues. We may therefore more hopefully look at the experiences of the returned exiles, and find that the calamity in the mind of the psalmist was the sudden, fanatical, and desperate outburst of enmity on the part of Sanballat and his associates. That was a temporary trouble, but it was very intense, and almost overbearing and overwhelming while it lasted.

I. JEHOVAH'S RESISTANCE MAY BE A PERMISSION. It need not be confounded with a prevention. God does not always save men by taking their enemies, or the schemes of their enemies, away. He does not turn back the floods. He lets them flow on just the same. He may not even remove the feeling and the fear which the floods produce. We should never lose the confidence that, if our enemies are in the floods, God is much more in the floods. They may seem to work our enemy's purpose; they really do work out God's purpose. Divine permissions are the signs of Divine wisdom and love. And this St. Paul had to learn.

II. JEHOVAH'S RESISTANCE MAY BE A PRESERVATION. Only the shakable, ill-founded things are swept down by the mountain spate. The house founded on the rock makes effective resistance. And that is what God did for the returned exiles - held them safe through that time of strain and storm. God in our circumstances we often find it very difficult to trace; God for us we may always see clearly; and that guarantees preservation. - R.T.

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KJV: If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us:

WEB: if it had not been Yahweh who was on our side, when men rose up against us;