Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 121:6
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
6. The metaphor is naturally suggested by ‘shade’ in Psa 121:5. Sunstroke is of course common and dangerous in the East (2Ki 4:19; Isa 49:10); and the belief in ‘moonstroke’ as and is widely spread.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The sun shall not smite thee by day – The Septuagint renders this, shall not burn thee – sungkausei. So the Latin Vulgate. The Hebrew word means to smite, to strike, as with a rod or staff, or with the plague or pestilence; and then, to kill, to slay. The allusion here is to what is now called a sun-stroke – the effect of the burning sun on the brain. Such effects of the sun are often fatal now, as doubtless they were in the time of the psalmist.
Nor the moon by night – The psalmist here refers to some prevalent opinion about the influence of the moon, as endangering life or health. Some have supposed that he refers to the sudden cold which follows the intense heat of the day in Oriental countries, and which, because the moon rules the night, as the sun does the day, is either poetically or literally attributed to the moon. Lackmann and Michaelis suppose that there is some allusion to the influence of the moon in producing various kinds of disease, and especially lunacy – an idea which gave origin to that name. Compare the notes at Mat 4:24. See Mat 17:15; Mar 9:17; Luk 9:39. Knapp supposes the idea is, that from the moons not giving a clear and full light like the sun, travelers trusting to its guidance may be led into rivers or quagmires. Macrobius refers to a custom among the Orientals of covering the faces of children when asleep, from some imagined effect of the moon on the health of the child. Andersen (Orient. Reise-Beschreib. i. 8) refers to an effect, which he says is common, and which he had often seen, of sleeping in the moon-beams, of making the neck stiff, so that it could not be turned from side to side as before. See Rosenmuller, Morgenland, in loc. Others have supposed that the allusion is to the effect of the moon, and of sleeping under the open air, in producing ophthalmia – a disease very common in the East – an effect guarded against by covering the face. The influence of the moon, in producing madness or disease – the general influence of it on health – is often referred to. Thus Shakespeare says:
The moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
Midsummer Nights Dream, ii. 2.
It is the very error of the moon;
She comes more near the earth than she was wont,
And makes men mad.
Othello, v. 2.
Some of these things are evidently purely imaginary. The true idea seems to be that there were effects to be dreaded from the sudden changes from the heat of day to the cold of night, and that these effects were attributed to the moon. See Gen 31:40. The meaning is, that God would be a Protector alike in the dangers of the day and of the night.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 6. The sun shall not smite thee by day] Thus expressed by the Chaldee: “The morning spectres shall not smite thee by day, during the government of the sun; nor the nocturnal spectres by night, during the government of the moon.” I believe the psalmist simply means, they shall not be injured by heat nor cold; by a sun-stroke by day, nor a frost-bite by night.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The sun shall not smite thee with excessive heat,
nor the moon with that cold and moisture which comes into the air by it and with it. Intemperate heats and colds are the two springs of many diseases. He alludes both to the conditions of soldiers or travellers, who are exposed to the open air by day and by night, and also to the cloudy pillar which defended the Israelites both by day and by night. The sense is, He shall protect thee from all evils both by day and night.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6-8. God keeps His people at alltimes and in all perils.
nor the moon bynightpoetically represents the dangers of the night, overwhich the moon presides (Ge 1:16).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The sun shall not smite thee by day,…. With its rays, which it shoots forth like darts, and which fly swiftly, and pierce and hurt: hence Apollo, the same with the sun, is represented with a bow and arrows o; so the rays of the sun seem to be called in Hab 2:11;
nor the moon by night; this clause should be supplied, as a learned man p observes, thus, “neither shall the moon cool thee by night”; for that has no warmth in it, and cannot smite with heat, as the sun does: for even, as he observes, its rays focused by a magnifying glass will not communicate the least degree of sensible heat to bodies objected thereunto; yet some say q the moon is not only moist, but heats bodies as the sun. And Isaac Vossius r observes, that there can be no light, which, separately considered, does not contain some heat at least: and Macrobius s speaks of the lunar heat; and Plutarch t ascribes heat and inflammation to it, and asserts it to be fire. It is said u that some men of good credit, in a voyage to Guinea, strongly affirmed, that, in the night season, they felt a sensible heat to come from the beams of the moon. The Septuagint version is, “the sun shall not burn thee by day, nor the moon by night”. And burning may be ascribed to the cold frosty air in a moonlight night, as to the north wind, as in the Apocrypha:
“20 When the cold north wind bloweth, and the water is congealed into ice, it abideth upon every gathering together of water, and clotheth the water as with a breastplate. 21 It devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and consumeth the grass as fire.” (Sirach 43)
see Ge 31:40; and our English poet w expresses a sentiment to this effect; yet not what affects the bodies of men, but plants, trees, c. and this not owing to the moon, but to the air. However, these clauses are not to be understood literally for good men may be smitten and hurt by the heat of the one and the cold of the other, as Jacob and Jonah, Ge 31:40; but mystically, of persecuting antichristian tyrants, which are sometimes signified by the sun and moon, as both in Rome Pagan and Papal, Re 6:12; and of persecution and tribulation itself, Mt 13:6; and is sometimes applied to the perfect state of the saints, either in the New Jerusalem, or ultimate glory, when there will be nothing more of this kind, Re 7:15. And there are some periods in the present state, when those entirely cease; nor are the saints ever really hurt by them, they being always for their good; or, however, not so as to affect their eternal happiness. The Targum is,
“in the day, when the sun rules, the morning spirits shall not smite thee; nor the nocturnal ones in the night, when the moon rules.”
o Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 17. p Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. p. 976, 977. q Suidas in voce ; so Theodoret. r De Motu Marium & Vent. c. 6. Vid. Senecae Nat. Quaest. l. 5. c. 9. s Saturnal. l. 7. c. 16. t De Facie Lunae, in tom. 2. p. 933. u The Second Voyage in Eden’s Travels, p. 350. 2. w “—-The parching air—-Burns frore (frosty) and cold performs the effect of fire”. Milton’s Paradise Lost, l. 2. v. 594.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
6. The sun shall not smite thee by day. By these forms of expression the Psalmist magnifies the advantages which result to us from our having God present with us; and, by the figure synecdoche, under one particular, he declares in general that the faithful shall be safe from all adversities, defended as they are by Divine power. The language is metaphorical, the cold of night and the heat of day denoting all kind of inconveniences. The sense then is, that although God’s people may be subject in common with others to the miseries of human life, yet his shadow is always at their side to shield them from thereby receiving any harm. The Prophet does not, however, promise the faithful a condition of such felicity and comfort as implies an exemption from all trouble; he only, for the purpose of assuaging their sorrows, sets before them this consolation — that being interested in the Divine layout, they shall be secure from all deadly harm; a point which he unfolds more distinctly in the following verses, where he tells us that God will so keep his own people from all evils, as to maintain their life in safety. The statement in the text before us is indeed general, but he afterwards specifies the chief parts of human life.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(6) Smite thee.The mention of shade leads to the amplification of the figure. The evil effects of sunstroke are too well known to need comment. They are often mentioned in the Bible (2Ki. 4:18; 2Ki. 4:20; Jonah 4; Jdt. 8:3).
Nor the moon by night.Possibly there is allusion to the belief, so common in old times, of the harmful influence of the moons lighta belief still recalled in the word lunacy. It is a fact that temporary blindness is often caused by moonlight. (See authorities referred to by Ewald and Delitzsch.) Others, again, think that the injurious cold of the night is here placed in antithesis to the heat of the noonday sun (comp. Gen. 31:40; Jer. 36:30), the impression that intense cold burns being common in the East, as indeed everywhere. Tennyson speaks of the moon being keen with frost. But it is also possible that the generally harmful effects of night air are intended.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
6. Sun shall not smite, etc. It is well known that a sunstroke in the East is a common liability, sometimes producing instant death to man and beast. Probably 2Ki 4:18-20, was an instance. The moonbeams, also, are known to affect the human system injuriously. Hence the word lunatics, applied to those who are supposed to be injured by the influence of the moon. The dangers common to the travellers are kept before the mind throughout the psalm.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 121:6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
Ver. 6. The sun shall not smite thee by day ] So choice and chary is God of his children, that he will have no creature to hurt them (parching heat by day or pinching cold by night), but both north and south must blow good to them, Son 4:16 , and all creatures must cater for them, Hos 2:21-22 , yet ever with exception of the cross, if need be, 1Pe 1:6 . But let the pope be the sun and the emperor the moon (as the canonists called them), yet the sun shall not smite the Church by day nor the moon by night. Luther was at the same time excommunicated by the pope and proscribed by the emperor; yet died he in his bed.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 121:6
Psa 121:6
“The sun shall not smite thee by day,
Nor the moon by night.”
The simple meaning of this is that the soul under God’s protection is protected alike, “from the dangers of the day and of the night. God’s protection should not be understood merely as protection from sunstroke and from being moonstruck.
This mention of dangers from the moon at night is doubtless related to the almost “universal superstition, as Dummelow called it, that moonlight can be dangerous. This writer has no information about such “danger,” but it cannot be denied that for countless generations the human family has accepted the proposition that, under certain circumstances, moonlight can be dangerous. Our word lunacy, meaning insanity, comes from the word lunar, `pertaining to the moon.’
There are well-attested traditions that such alleged lunar damage to men is a reality; but we find nothing in our text here which confirms any such thing. There is entirely too much that men do not know to justify the common designation of such ancient traditions as “merely superstition.”
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 121:6. For the undesirable effect of the sun and the relief therefrom, see comments on the preceding verse. There is no actual harm or discomfort that can come from the moon, so the expression is used to complete the sum of protection that may be had from the Lord. In other words, it is an accommodative form of saying to include all extremes. It is somewhat like saying that God will care for one under all circumstances, whether cold or hot, wet or dry, day or night.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
the sun: Psa 91:5-10, Isa 49:10, Rev 7:16
Reciprocal: Psa 91:6 – pestilence Isa 4:6 – tabernacle Jon 4:8 – and the sun
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
121:6 The sun shall not {c} smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
(c) Neither heat nor cold, nor any inconvenience will be able to destroy God’s Church, even though for a time they may molest it.