But for the Lord.
The psalm is a contemplation of the distress that must have come upon God's people but for the Lord's timely help.
I. IT IS THE LANGUAGE OF ISRAEL'S GRATITUDE. We cannot tell what were the exact circumstances which are referred to; but many times in Israel's history had there been the threatening of overwhelming calamity. In the old times, in Egypt, in the wilderness, in Judah and Jerusalem, as during the invasion of Sennacherib, when they were carried off to captivity, and during that captivity (see the Book of Esther), Israel had abundant cause for such grateful acknowledgments as we find here. But the special circumstances we do not and cannot know; and this is well, for now we are left free to make application of them to any out of the many like circumstances which from time to time recur in the histories of nations, Churches, and individual souls.
II. IT IS THAT OF REDEEMED HUMANITY. Mankind everywhere, as well as the redeemed in heaven, might well render praise like this. For the whole human race was in dire peril. When men turned out so ill, as they did and still do, so that the Lord repented that he had made man, wherefore should God have preserved any of them alive? Their guilt, their wickedness, their subjection to the spirit of evil,—these were ready to swallow the race of man up quick. The might and malice of the devil were eager for the work. Why should it not have been? And the alone answer is—the love of God (John 3:16). And still today we often all but despair of humanity; the whole world, save a minute fraction, yet lieth in wickedness, dead in trespasses and sins, rushing ruinwards with headlong speed. But yet the race is spared, for the Lord is on our side. This is the gospel of man. God would not have created us had it not been true.
III. IT MAY WELL BE THAT OF THE CHURCH OF GOD. For often and often in her history has it seemed as if there were but a step betwixt her and death. See that boat on the Lake of Galilee in the midnight storm: it contains the whole of the disciples and Jesus, and he asleep. One wave more, and they would all go to the bottom, swallowed up quick, the proud waters had gone over their soul (Psalms 124:3). But that wave never came. And so has it been again and again with the Church of God. Persecution for three long centuries did its worst; false doctrine has many times, from the earlier centuries down to the present, threatened to submerge the faith we held; worse still, corruption, vile and loathsome, has fastened on the life of the Church, so that religion has been hateful in men's esteem, as it was in the pre-Reformation ages. But the heart of the Church has remained sound amid all; the Lord was on her side, and so she has escaped as a bird, etc. (Psalms 124:7).
IV. NATIONS, TOO, MAY ADOPT THIS LANGUAGE. See the times of the Armada: how fearful the peril seemed then! And so in the days of the French Revolution, when the colossal power of Napoleon threatened the life of every independent nation.
V. AND HOW OFTEN INDIVIDUAL BELIEVERS HAVE HAD CAUSE THUS TO SPEAK! In regard to the power of temptation, they have been all but gone, their feet well-nigh slipped. But the Lord was on their side. So in regard to the malice of enemies, and the cruel power of disaster and distress.
CONCLUSION. If the Lord has been thus on our side—as he has—we will, by his grace, be evermore on his.—S.C.