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Psalms 124

The song opens twice with the same hinge — "If it had not been the LORD who was on our side" — and invites Israel to repeat it aloud. From that condition it runs through what would have happened: being swallowed alive, drowned under a flood of proud waters.

Parallel reading
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Psalms 124 (WEB)
  1. 1

    If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, let Israel now say,

  2. 2

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

  3. 3

    then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us,

  4. 4

    then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul.

  5. 5

    Then the proud waters would have gone over our soul.

  6. 6

    Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as a prey to their teeth.

  7. 7

    Our soul has escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare. The snare is broken, and we have escaped.

  8. 8

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

Two pictures of a near miss

Danger arrives in two figures. First a torrent that would have gone over their very soul; then a hunter's trap, with the people as a bird that slips free because "the snare is broken." The psalm closes by relocating all that rescue into a name — help is in the LORD's name, the one who made heaven and earth.

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