Psalm 124 is a Psalm of holy memory. It teaches the people of God to look back and say with sobriety and gratitude, if the Lord had not been with us, we would have been lost. The Psalm is not vague thanksgiving. It names devouring enemies, drowning waters, the snare of the fowlers, and then blesses the God who delivered. This is one of Scripture’s clearest prayers against spiritual self-congratulation, because the only explanation for survival is the Lord’s mercy.
Psalm 124 (LXX 123) - If It Had Not Been the Lord Who Was on Our Side
Psalm Metadata
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| NKJV / Masoretic numbering | Psalm 124 |
| Septuagint / Coptic numbering | Psalm 123 |
| Accepted author | A Song of Ascents. Of David. |
| Period in author’s life | Traditionally Davidic by superscription. No single event can be fixed with certainty, but the Psalm fits remembered rescue from overwhelming hostility and later pilgrim worship. |
| Christ prophecy status | Christological by deliverance pattern rather than a narrow prediction. The Psalm’s rescue through waters, broken snare, and preserved life opens naturally onto Christ’s saving work. |
| Coptic lectionary/service use | Verified: included in the Agpeya at Eleventh Hour (Vespers) and Midnight Prayer - Second Watch under printed Psalm 124. No additional annual, Pascha, or special-service row is verified in available lectionary references. |
| Numbering issue | This note embeds Brenton LXX Psalm 123 and continues the standard LXX/NKJV offset. |
Historical and Scriptural Context
Psalm 124 follows the humble plea of Psalm 123 with a communal act of remembered rescue. The eyes lifted for mercy now confess what would have happened without that mercy. The Songs of Ascents therefore continue to deepen. The pilgrim life is not only present dependence, but grateful recollection.
The Psalm also stands in a broad biblical river of salvation memory. Israel is repeatedly taught to remember what God prevented, the enemies who would have devoured, the waters that would have drowned, the slavery that would have defined them, and the traps that would have taken them. The Church inherits that same memory in Christ. Salvation is not only what we are given, but what we were spared.
Geographical Significance ⛰️
The Psalm’s imagery shifts from human violence to waters and snares. It is less about a single mapped place and more about the threatening environments through which God’s people pass. Still, the Song of Ascents setting matters. The pilgrim going up to Zion confesses that the road would have ended in destruction if the Lord had not intervened.
The Characters 👥
The Lord. The only reason Israel survives, blesses, and escapes.
Israel. The covenant people who are taught to remember their rescue together.
The hostile men. Those who rise up against God’s people and seek to devour them.
The waters and the snare. Images of chaos, entrapment, and forces too strong to defeat without divine help.
🕯️ Light from the Word
Psalm 123:1-2, if the Lord had not been among us
123:1 A Song of Degrees. If it had not been that the Lord was among us, let Israel now say;
123:2 if it had not been that the Lord was among us, when men rose up against us;
The Psalm begins with a counterfactual, not to speculate, but to teach gratitude. Think what would have happened without the Lord. That is the first lesson. Memory must become theological.
Augustine treats the whole Psalm as a song of ascent in the affections of the heart, and its first burden is to make the people confess that men would have prevailed if the Lord had not been with them. Theodoret reads the same opening as a school of humility, the rescued people are forbidden to tell the story as if their own cleverness carried them through.
St Athanasius says the Psalms give the Church words for the soul’s own prayer, and St Gregory of Nyssa teaches that psalmody trains the soul toward virtue and that the end of the life according to virtue is blessedness. Psalm 124 (LXX 123) is a Psalm of grateful deliverance that teaches the soul to remember rescue truthfully by fixing its gaze on the Lord who was with His people when destruction rose against them.
Christologically, this opening is fulfilled in the Church’s whole confession. If the Lord had not taken flesh, entered death, and stood with His people, the enemy would indeed have swallowed them. Salvation begins in divine nearness.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “If it had not been that the Lord was among us”; “let Israel now say.”
- Emphasize: gratitude begins by telling the truth about what God prevented.
- Avoid: narrating deliverance as though God merely assisted our own adequacy.
Psalm 123:3-5, swallowed alive and overwhelmed by waters
123:3 verily they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us:
123:4 verily the water would have drowned us, our soul would have gone under the torrent.
123:5 Yea, our soul would have gone under the overwhelming water.
The danger is described in extreme but fitting images, being swallowed alive and being carried away by a torrent. The Psalm is not mild because evil is not mild. Some crises do not merely inconvenience the soul. They seek to erase it.
Augustine pauses over the horror of the image and notes that the enemies would have “swallowed us up quick,” not merely killed, but consumed. Theodoret similarly understands the waters as overwhelming powers beyond ordinary human control. Together the images teach that apart from God, both violent hostility and chaotic trial can carry the people away.
This opens toward the Exodus and toward baptismal theology. The waters that might have drowned become, in God’s hand, the place where Pharaoh is judged and His people pass through. The Church therefore learns to speak of deliverance in Paschal terms. The same element that overwhelms one kingdom becomes the road of life for another.
Spiritually, the Psalm gives language to moments when temptation, humiliation, fear, or pressure feel too large to survive. Scripture does not call that exaggeration. It calls it a place where the Lord must act.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “swallowed us up alive”; “the torrent”; “the overwhelming water.”
- Emphasize: the reality of overwhelming danger and the need for divine rescue.
- Avoid: shrinking the imagery into minor inconvenience or generic positivity.
Psalm 123:6-8, the broken snare and the help in the Lord’s name
123:6 Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us for a prey to their teeth.
123:7 Our soul has been delivered as a sparrow from the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are delivered.
123:8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The Psalm ends in blessing, not because danger was unreal, but because deliverance was real. The prey escaped. The snare broke. Help came from the name of the Lord.
Augustine’s comment here is spiritually piercing. He warns that all the sweetness of this present life can become a snare, and says, “we must not be enthralled by it, so that when the net is broken, thou mayest then rejoice and say, ‘The snare is broken, and we are delivered.’” That widens the Psalm beyond persecution alone. The enemy is not always open violence. Sometimes it is entanglement.
Theodoret stresses that the confession of help returns the whole story to God. The maker of heaven and earth is not a tribal patron or a local power. He is the Creator, and therefore the only adequate refuge.
Christologically, the broken snare reaches a climax in the Resurrection. Death set the trap, but Christ shattered it from within. The bird escapes because the snare breaks. The soul lives because the tomb does not hold the Lord.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “the snare is broken”; “Our help is in the name of the Lord.”
- Emphasize: rescue from both obvious threats and subtle entanglements.
- Avoid: treating freedom as self-generated or merely psychological.
The Church’s Voice in Worship 📖
Printed Psalm 124 is verifiably included in the Agpeya at the Eleventh Hour (Vespers) and in the Midnight Prayer’s Second Watch. That placement is spiritually fitting. The Church ends the day blessing God that the snare was broken, and she keeps night watch confessing that only the Lord preserved her from devouring enemies and overwhelming waters. No additional annual, Pascha, or special-service row is verified in the available lectionary references, so the note keeps its wider Paschal and baptismal resonances as theological interpretation rather than as further fixed local assignments.
Iconography Connection 🖼️
Psalm 124 belongs well with icons of the Exodus crossing, the Anastasis, martyrs preserved in trial, and the saints escaping the snares of demons. Its imagery is kinetic, teeth, waters, nets, and then sudden freedom.
Spiritual Fruit 🍇
- Remember what God prevented, not only what He gave. Gratitude deepens when the soul learns to say, without Him I would have been lost.
- Name your dangers truthfully. Some torrents are external, others are inward habits and entanglements.
- Watch for sweet snares. Not every threat looks violent; some arrive as comfort that slowly captures the will.
- Return every rescue to God. The Psalm forbids spiritual autobiography that erases providence.
- Read your deliverances Paschally. Christ breaks snares, not only in doctrine, but in lived repentance and freedom.
Teacher's Notes
- Timing: 10 minutes for the opening confession, 12 minutes for the devouring enemies and waters, 15 minutes for the broken snare and the Lord’s name, 10 minutes for application.
- Where to linger: Augustine on the snare and the sweetness of this present life.
- Key phrase to say slowly: “The snare is broken, and we are delivered.”
- Pastoral warning: do not flatten the Psalm into political survival alone. Its deeper logic is spiritual deliverance.
Glossary
- Song of Ascents: A pilgrim Psalm associated with going up to Jerusalem and with spiritual ascent.
- Snare of the fowlers: A trap image for hidden entanglement, temptation, or destruction.
- Paschal: Pertaining to Passover and its Christian fulfillment in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.
- Providence: The Lord’s active and wise care over His people.
Translation and Source Notes
Embedded Scripture is Brenton’s English Septuagint, Psalm 123. The Psalm’s images of flood and snare are especially fruitful for Orthodox spiritual reading because they hold together dramatic rescue and daily ascetical vigilance.
Sources
Primary sources: Brenton Septuagint, Psalm 123; Exodus 14; Romans 8:31-39; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Colossians 2:13-15.
Patristic sources: St Augustine, Exposition on Psalm CXXIV in NPNF1, volume 8; Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms; St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus; St Gregory of Nyssa on psalmody, virtue, and blessedness.
Coptic Orthodox / liturgical sources: Coptic Orthodox lectionary lectionary references, bible_chapter_lectionary_index.csv, and bible_chapter_lectionary_occurrences.csv, verifying printed Psalm 124 in the Agpeya at Eleventh Hour (Vespers) and Midnight Prayer - Second Watch under the Agpeya’s standard English numbering.