Psalms 91:9 - Meaning and Application

Here are more promises that mean the same as the ones before them. They are very great, full of value, and sure for all God’s people.

The psalmist first assures believers, from his own experience, that God protects them. What he says is God’s word, and we can depend on it. Notice the kind of people who receive these promises. They are those who make the Most High their home (Psalm 91:9). They stay near to God, rest in him, and make his name both their temple and their strong tower. They live in love, and so they live in God.

It is our duty to feel at home in God. We should choose him, then live our whole life in him as our shelter. We should spend time with him, delight in him, and depend on him. Then it becomes our privilege to be at home in God. We will be welcome to him like a person in his own house, with no arrest from the law and no accusing voice from conscience. Then we will also be safe in him and kept in perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3).

To encourage us to make the Lord our home, the psalmist shares the comfort he found there himself. He is saying, in effect, “The one you make your home is my refuge. I have found him steady and faithful, and there is enough room and shelter in him for both of us.” In my Father’s house there are many rooms, so one person does not crowd out another.

The promises for all who make the Most High their home are these. First, whatever happens to them, nothing will truly harm them (Psalm 91:10). Trouble and suffering may come, but no real evil will come through them, because they come from God’s love and will be made holy for good. They may hurt for a time, but in the end they will see that nothing truly evil befell them. It is not pure evil, because some good is mixed in it, and good comes out of it. Their home will also be protected, so that no plague will come near it, nothing to injure them or their household.

Second, the angels of light will serve them (Psalm 91:11, 12). This is a precious promise. It brings great honor and comfort to God’s people, even though the devil misused it when he tempted Christ (Matthew 4:6). God, who rules the angels and gives them their orders, will command his angels concerning you. This is not only for the church as a whole, but for each believer. The angels keep God’s charge, and this is the charge they receive from him.

This shows how deeply God cares for his saints, because even the angels are assigned to them. The promise says they will keep you in all your ways. That has a limit: it means as long as you stay in the way of duty. Those who leave that way step outside God’s protection. The devil left out that part when he quoted the promise, because it worked against him. Still, the promise is wide in scope. It covers all your ways, even where danger does not seem near, and also where danger is greatest. Wherever believers go, the angels are charged with them, like servants attending the children of the house.

The angels also care for God’s people in line with this charge. They will lift you up in their hands. That shows both their power and their tenderness. They are able to keep believers out of harm’s way, and they do it with the care of a nurse carrying a little child. It shows that we are weak and they are helpful. Their service is humble and kind. They watch over the feet of the saints so they do not strike their foot against a stone, stumble, and fall into sin or trouble.

Third, the powers of darkness will be defeated by them (Psalm 91:13). You will tread on the lion and the adder. The devil is called a roaring lion, the old serpent, and the red dragon. So the apostle seems to refer to this promise when he says, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20). Christ has broken the serpent’s head and stripped our spiritual enemies of their power (Colossians 2:15). Through him we are more than conquerors. It is as if Christ calls us, as Joshua called the captains of Israel, to put our feet on the necks of defeated enemies.

Some think this promise was fully fulfilled in Christ, who showed miraculous power over all creation by healing the sick, casting out demons, and giving his disciples the power to take up serpents (Mark 16:18). It can also apply to God’s providence, by which we are kept from harmful wild creatures. The wild beasts of the field will be at peace with you (Job 5:23), and people even learn ways to tame them (James 3:7).

The psalmist then brings in God himself speaking words of comfort to his saints and telling them what mercy he has prepared for them (Psalm 91:14-16). Some take this as words spoken to the angels, explaining why they are given this charge over the saints. It would be as if God said, “Take care of them, because they are dear to me, and I care deeply for them.” Again, we should notice who these promises belong to. They are described in three ways.

First, they are people who know God’s name. We cannot fully know his nature, but he has made himself known by his name, and we must learn that. Second, they are those who set their love on him. Anyone who truly knows him will love him, make him the one worthy object of love, pour out love toward him with joy, and hold fast to him with a settled heart, refusing to turn to any rival. Third, they are those who call on him, keeping up a steady conversation with him by prayer and bringing every hard case to him.

God’s promises to such people are these. He will deliver them in due time from trouble, “I will deliver him” (Psalm 91:14, 15). That points to a double rescue, in life and in death, a rescue while in trouble and a rescue out of trouble. If God measures our troubles to our strength, keeps us from sinning against him in our troubles, and makes death the release from all our troubles, then this promise is fulfilled. See (Psalm 34:19; 2 Timothy 3:11; 2 Timothy 4:18).

He will also be with them in trouble (Psalm 91:15). If he does not end their suffering at once, he will still give them his loving presence in it. He will notice their grief, know their souls in hardship, visit them through his Word and Spirit, stand with them, support and comfort them, and make their trials useful to them. That change in the heart, and that steady help, is the surest sign that he is with them in trouble.

He will answer their prayers. “He shall call upon me,” and God says, “I will pour out the spirit of prayer on him,” and then I will answer. He answers by promises (Psalm 85:8), by providence, bringing help at the right time, and by grace, strengthening them in their inner life (Psalm 138:3). He answered Paul the apostle with grace that was enough for him (2 Corinthians 12:9).

He will also lift them up and give them honor. “I will set him on high,” out of the reach of trouble, above the storm, on a rock above the waves (Isaiah 33:16). By God’s grace they learn to look down on worldly things with holy distance, and to look up to the things of the next life with holy desire and concern. In that way they are set on high. “I will honor him.” Those are truly honored whom God honors by bringing them into covenant, that is, a binding relationship of grace, and fellowship with himself, and by preparing them for his kingdom and glory (John 12:26).

They will also have enough life in this world (Psalm 91:16). “With long life will I satisfy him” means, first, they will live long enough. They will stay in this world until they have finished the work God gave them and are ready for heaven, and that is long enough. Who would want to live one day longer than God has work to do, either through him or in him? It also means they will feel it is enough. God’s grace will loosen their hold on this world and make them willing to leave it.

A person may die young and still die full of days, satisfied with life. A wicked, worldly person is never satisfied, even with long life, but keeps saying, “Give, give.” The person whose treasure and heart are in another world soon has enough of this one. He would not wish to live forever here.

Above all, they will have eternal life in the world to come. That is the crown of this blessed promise: “I will show him my salvation.” Some take this to mean he will show him the Messiah, and good old Simeon was satisfied with long life when he could say, “My eyes have seen your salvation.” The Old Testament believers had no greater joy than to see Christ’s day, even if only from far away.

More likely, the word points to the better country, the heavenly one, which the patriarchs longed for and sought. God will show him that country and bring him into that blessed state. Its joy is found so much in seeing God face to face, instead of only seeing him dimly, as through a glass. In the meantime, God gives believers a glimpse of it here. Some think all these promises point first to Christ, and found their full result in his resurrection and exaltation.