Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 91:12
They shall bear thee up in [their] hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
12. Upon their hands shall they bear thee] Cp. the metaphor in Exo 19:4.
lest thou dash &c.] and stumble and fall. Cp. Pro 3:23.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
They shall bear thee up … – As if they took hold of thee, and held thee up, when about to fall.
Lest thou dash thy foot … – Lest you should stumble and fall. They will protect you so that you may walk safely.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 91:12
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Angels our guardians in trifles
The Scriptural representation brings down the ministration of angels to what appears trivial and insignificant, in place of confining it to some great crisis in the history of the righteous. And it is this fact which is so forcibly set before us by our text. For what contrast can be greater? We direct you to the examining whatsoever is told you in the Bible as to the nature and endowments of angels. You cannot come from such an examination but with minds fraught with a persuasion of the greatness and gloriousness of the Heavenly Hosts, impressed with a sense of the vastness of their capacities, the splendour of their excellence, the majesty of their strength. And then we set you to the considering what occupation can be worthy of creatures thus preeminently illustrious; not allowing you indeed to indulge the excursions of imagination, which might rapidly hurry you into the invisible world, and there place before you the thrones and dominions of those whom God is pleased to honour as His instruments in the government of the universe; but confining you to the single truth, that angels have offices to perform to the Church, and that every righteous man is a subject of their ministrations. I want a guardianship which will go with me to my everyday duties, which will be around me in my everyday trials, which shall attend me in the household, in the street, in my business, in my prayers, in my recreations; which I may be aware of as watchful where there is no apparent peril, and which I may be assured of as sufficient where there is the worst. And such a guardianship is revealed to me, when the hosts of heaven are affirmed to be employed on the protecting me against the most trifling accident. Oh! it might not do much towards cheering and elevating the poor and unknown of the flock, or towards the daily, hourly upholding of such as have higher places to fill, to be told of angels as encamping, as they encamped about Elisha, crowding the mountain with chariots of fire and horses of fire, when the King of Syria sent a great host to take the man of God. It cannot be often, if ever, that there is anything parallel to this peril of the prophet. But it just brings the celestial armies, in all their powerfulness, into the scenes of ordinary life–in other words, it gives to the doctrine of a Divine providence all that extensiveness, that individuality, that applicability to the most inconsiderable events, as well as that adequacy to the most important, which we require, if the doctrine is to be of worth and of efficacy, at all times, to all ranks, and in all cases–to be told that God has commissioned angels, the mightiest of His creatures, to bear us up in their hands, not lest we fall over a precipice, come beneath an avalanche, sink in a torrent, but lest at any time we hurt our foot against a stone. We are far, however, from being content with this view of the passage. There is indeed something that is exquisitely soothing and encouraging in the thought that angels, as ministering spirits, are so mindful of us that they look to the very pebbles which might cause us to trip;–how can we be other than safe if we do but trust in the Lord, when there is such care for our safety that the highest of created beings sedulously remove the least impediments, or watch that we surmount them? But this proceeds on the supposition that the hurting the foot against a stone is a trivial thing. We have spoken of the contrast in the text as though it were matter of surprise, that such an instrumentality as that of angels should be employed to so insignificant an end as that of preventing the hurting the foot against a stone. But is it an insignificant end? Is there, after all, any want of keeping between the agency and the act, so that there is even the appearance of angels being unworthily employed, employed on what is beneath them, when engaged in bearing us up, lest at any time we hurt the foot against a stone? Nay, the hurting the foot against a stone has often laid the foundation of fatal bodily disease: the injury which seemed too trifling to be worth notice has produced extreme sickness, and ended in death. Is it different in spiritual respects, in regard of the soul, to which the promise in our text must be specially applied? Not a jot. Or, if there be a difference, it is only that the peril to the soul from a slight injury is far greater than that to the body: the worst spiritual diseases might commonly be traced to inconsiderable beginnings. There is many a man who evinces, for a time, a steadfast attention to religion, walking with all care in the path of Gods commandments, using appointed means of grace, and avoiding occasions of sin, but who, after a while, in the expressive language of Scripture, leaves his first love, declines from spirituality, and is dead, though he may yet have a name to live. But how does it commonly happen that such a man falls away from the struggle for salvation, and mingles with the multitude that walk the broad road? Is it ordinarily through some one powerful and undisguised assault that he is turned from the faith, or over one huge obstacle that he falls to rise not again? Not so. It is almost invariably through little things that such a man destroys his soul. He fails to take notice of little things, and they accumulate into great. He concedes in little things, and thus gradually gives up much; he relaxes in little things, and thus in time loosens every bond. Because it is a little thing, he counts it of little moment; utterly forgetting that millions are made up of units, that immensity is constituted of atoms. Because it is only a stone, a pebble, against which his foot strikes, he makes light of the hindrance; not caring that he is contracting a habit of stumbling or not observing that, whenever he trips, there must be some diminution in the speed with which he runs the way of Gods commandments, and that, however slowly, these diminutions are certainly bringing him to a stand. Learn, from what angels are intent to do for you, what you should be earnest in endeavouring to do for yourselves. Those glorious, though invisible, beings bestow not their vigilance and carefulness on what is unworthy so lofty an instrumentality. They would not give such earnest heed to pebbles in the way, if it were not that pebbles are what men stumble over till precipitated into perdition, or what they mount upon till elevated into excellence. And if it might make you feel as though it were only at some great crisis, under some extraordinary temptation, or confronted by more than common enemies, that you had need for anxiety, effort, and prayer, to be told of angels as attending you to ward off the thunderbolt, or chain the tempest, oh, let it teach you how easy a thing it is to lose the soul, from what insignificant beginnings may fatal disease rise, with what unwearied earnestness you should avoid disobeying God in trifles, conforming to the world in trifles, relaxing in duty in trifles, to be told that angels, creatures of surpassing splendour and might, are commissioned to bear us up in their hands, not lest at any time we rush into the lions den, or fall from the mountain top, but lest at any time we hurt the foot against a stone. (H. Melvill, B.D.)
Angel guardianship
A little boy asked his mother to let him lead his little sister out on the green grass. She had just begun to run alone, and could not step over anything that lay in the way. His mother told him he might lead out the little girl, but charged him not to let her fall. I found them at play, very happy in the field. I said, You seem very happy, George? Is this your sister? Yes, sir. Can she walk alone? Yes, sir, on smooth ground. And how did she get over these stones which lie between us and the house? Oh, sir, mother charged me to be careful that she did not fall, and so I put my hands under her arms, and lifted her up when she came to a stone, so that she need not hit her little foot against it. That is right, George. And I want to tell you one thing. You now see how to understand that beautiful text, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. God charges His angels to lead and lift good people over difficulties, just as you have lifted little Ann over these stones. Do you understand it now? Oh, yes, sir, and I never shall forget it while I live. Can one child thus take care of another, and cannot God take care of those who put their trust in Him? Surely He can; and there is not a child among you here to-day, over whom He is not ready to give His holy angels charge. (Christian Herald.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. They shall bear thee up in their hands] Take the same care of thee as a nurse does of a weak and tender child; lead thee,-teach thee to walk,-lift thee up out of the way of danger, “lest thou shouldst dash thy foot against a stone,” receive any kind of injury, or be prevented from pursuing thy path with safety and comfort.
Let us remember that it is GOD, whose these angels are; HE gives them charge-from HIM they receive their commission, – to HIM they are responsible for their charge. From God thou art to expect them; and for their help he alone is to receive the praise. It is expressly said, He shall give his angels charge; to show that they are not to be prayed to nor praised; but GOD alone, whose servants they are. See Clarke on Mt 4:6.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Shall bear thee up in their hands; sustain or uphold thee in thy goings, as we do a child or a weakly man, especially in uneven or dangerous paths. Or, shall carry thee aloft, as upon eagles wings, when it shall be needful for thee.
Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone; so as to hurt thy foot, or to cause thee to fall.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
They shall bear thee up in their hands,…. Which denotes the strength and power of angels to carry the saints in their hands; their tender care of them, such as a parent or nurse have of children; the helpless condition of the people of God, who are like infants, and need to be dealt with after this manner; the condescension of angels to take such an office on them, in submission to the will of God; the constant view they have of the saints, being always in their hands, and so in sight: thus they bear them, up in life, and at death carry their souls to Abraham’s bosom:
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone; lest they fall into sin, or into any calamity and distress; lest the least hurt or mischief befall them, or the least injury be done them; see Pr 3:23. The Targum interprets it of the evil concupiscence, or corruption of nature, which is like a stone; see Eze 36:26.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
12 They shall bear thee upon their hands. He gives us a still higher idea of the guardianship of the angels, informing us, that they not only watch lest any evil should befall us, and are on the alert to extend assistance, but bear up our steps with their hands, so as to prevent us from stumbling in our course. Were we to judge indeed by mere appearances, the children of God are far from being thus borne up aloft in their career; often they labor and pant with exertion, occasionally they stagger and fall, and it is with a struggle that they advance in their course; but as in the midst of all this weakness it is only by the singular help of God that they are preserved every moment from falling and from being destroyed, we need not wonder that the Psalmist should speak in such exalted terms of the assistance which they receive through the ministrations of angels. Never, besides, could we surmount the serious obstacles which Satan opposes to our prayers, unless God should bear us up in the manner here described. Let any one combine together the two considerations which have been mentioned, — our own utter weakness on the one hand, and on the other the roughness, the difficulties, the thorns which beset our way, the stupidity besides which characterises our hearts, and the subtlety of the evil one in laying snares for our destruction, — and he will see that the language of the Psalmist is not that of hyperbole, that we could not proceed one step did not the angels bear us up in their hands in a manner beyond the ordinary course of nature. That we frequently stumble is owing to our own fault in departing from him who is our head and leader. And though God suffers us to stumble and fall in this manner that he may convince us how weak we are in ourselves, yet, inasmuch as he does not permit us to be crushed or altogether overwhelmed, it is virtually even then as if he put his hand under us and bore us up.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(12) In their hands.Literally, on, as a nurse a child. There is a Spanish proverb, expressive of great love and solicitude: They carry him on the palms of their hands.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 91:12 They shall bear thee up in [their] hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Ver. 12. They shall bear thee up in their hands ] See Trapp on “ Mat 4:6 “ Be sensible of the many good offices done us by the blessed angels, not once looking for our thanks.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
bear thee up. Compare Psa 94:18.
in = on,
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
They: Isa 46:3, Isa 63:9
lest: Psa 37:24, Job 5:23, Pro 3:23
Reciprocal: 1Sa 2:9 – will keep Psa 34:20 – General Psa 71:3 – thou hast Psa 121:3 – will not Pro 4:12 – thou shalt Mat 4:6 – He shall Luk 4:10 – He Luk 16:22 – was carried Luk 22:43 – an Act 27:31 – Except Heb 1:14 – minister