BackgroundThe second Davidic Ascent. A survivor's psalm, looking back on a deliverance from overwhelming enemies. Two extended images carry the psalm: a flood that would have swallowed Israel alive, and a fowler's snare that has been broken so the bird escapes. The psalm is structured to be sung antiphonally with the leader saying "if it had not been the LORD" and the congregation echoing. Many have read it against the backdrop of David's military deliverances, but the editors of the Ascents make it speak for any pilgrim who survived to make the trip up.
Psalm 124: Had It Not Been the LORD
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
By Bea Zalel
Psalm 124
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
- If the LORD had not been on our side— let Israel now declare—
- if the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us,
- when their anger flared against us, then they would have swallowed us alive,
- then the floods would have engulfed us, then the torrent would have overwhelmed us,
- then the raging waters would have swept us away.
- Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
- We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the net is torn, and we have slipped away.
- Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Theme
Psalm 124 is a survivor's testimony in conditional grammar: IF the LORD had not been on our side, THEN we would have been swallowed. The conditional is a theological device. It forces the worshiper to imagine the alternate timeline where the deliverance did not come. Only by walking through that imagined ruin does the worshiper feel the actual rescue.
The two central images are deliberately physical. A flash flood in a wadi can drown a traveling group in minutes; the Judean wilderness is famous for these. A fowler's snare is the small, hidden trap of nomadic life, broken at the last possible second. The psalm gives Israel a body's memory of escape: water around the chest, breath returning, a wing suddenly free.
The closing line is the pilgrim's confession: "Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth." That single sentence has functioned as a daily confession in synagogue and church for three thousand years. It pairs creator with rescuer; the same God who made heaven and earth is the God who pulled this particular pilgrim out of this particular flood. Every Ascents pilgrimage was, in one sense, a renewed claim on that line.
Discussion questions
- What is the rhetorical function of the conditional "if it had not been the LORD," and how does that grammar shape the worshiper's gratitude?
- How do the flood image and the fowler's-snare image complement each other, and what aspects of danger does each capture?
- Why is the antiphonal call "let Israel now say" theologically important for shaping a corporate rather than individual confession?
- How does this psalm function as a Davidic memory and also as a script for any later generation that survived its own deliverance?
- What does it mean that the psalm pairs CREATOR and HELPER in the closing confession, and how does that pairing answer modern doubts about whether the God of cosmology is also the God of rescue?
- How does the snare/escape imagery connect to Jesus's instruction to pray "deliver us from evil" in the Lord's Prayer?
- Why might a pilgrim community find it spiritually formative to sing a survivor's psalm on the way UP to a festival?
- How does Romans 8:31 ("if God is for us, who can be against us") engage the same conditional logic from the New Testament side?
- When you look back on your own life, what "if it had not been the LORD" testimony could you write, and what would singing it do for your present anxiety?
- How does this psalm guard a community against the temptation to attribute deliverance to luck, skill, or political power?
Read this psalm in another translation
The inline text above is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Open in a new tab to compare with a modern licensed translation: