Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 91:10

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

10. befall thee ] Lit., be let befall thee. Cp. Pro 12:21.

thy dwelling ] Lit., thy tent, a survival of the language of nomad life.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

There shall no evil befall thee – The Chaldee Paraphrase has, The Lord of the world answered and said, There shall no evil befall thee, etc. The sentiment, however, is that the psalmist could assure such an one, from his own personal experience, that he would be safe. He had himself made Yahweh his refuge, and he could speak with confidence of the safety of doing so. This, of course, is to be understood as a general truth, in accordance with what has been said above.

Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling – On the word rendered plague here nega – see Psa 38:12, note; Psa 39:11, note. It is not the same word which is used in Psa 91:6, and translated pestilence; and it does not refer to what is technically called the plague. It may denote anything that would be expressive of the divine displeasure, or that would be sent as a punishment. The word rendered dwelling here means a tent; and the idea is, that no such mark of displeasure would abide with him, or enter his tent as its home. Of course, this also must be understood as a general promise, or as meaning that religion would constitute a general ground of security.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 91:10

Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

Immunity from disease

That wealthy promise has not become exhausted by the lapse of time. Rather has the promise acquired a new and deeper significance, and it now embraces in its generous charge the interests of the soul. We move amid moral pestilences. Plague-stricken people are all about us–men and women afflicted with moral and spiritual diseases which carry the germs of perilous contagion. How are we to escape them? The Maser went into the very precincts of the plague, and yet was immune in the foul contagion. Disease demands prepared conditions. If the conditions are absent the contagion is impotent. What, then, was our Lords condition when he entered into fellowship with men and women who were smitten by the plague of sin? The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. How different it all was in the life of Judas Iscariot! The devil put it into the heart of Judas! The germs fell in the prepared conditions; they found a congenial lodgment, and they bore their issues in an evil life.

1. One of the primary pre-disposing conditions of disease is physical exhaustion. The natural forces are reduced. The energy is spent. The army is driven away from the walls, the gates are left undefended, and the enemy has an open way. Our physical defences are found in the natural resistances of the body. Let these be impoverished, and our security is gone. Let me change the analogy. In the life of the body we are only safe when our income exceeds our expenditure. How is it with the soul? The strength of the soul depends upon the quality of its resistances. If the soul is strong and powerful, the Pharisaic germ of hypocrisy or the microbe of actual vice will gain no foothold. But the soul can become faint. Its defences can be straitened, and the stronghold may then be easily taken at the first besiegement of sin. Now, how does a soul become exhausted? We can use our previous figure: the expenditure has exceeded the income. We have broken correspondencies with our resources. We have ignored the land of rest. Men easily capitulate to the evil one when, by neglect of prayer, they have reduced themselves to spiritual exhaustion.

2. Another of the predisposing conditions to disease is bad food. Diet is not altogether a matter of indifference when we are considering the advance of disease. Some foods are the friends of hostile microbes; they are the forerunners of disease; they prepare the way, arranging congenial conditions. How is it with the soul? Is diet of any moment? With what kind of food are we feeding the mind? Is it a food which predisposes the mind to offer hospitality to the foe? How about our reading? Let us subject ourselves to a rigorous self-investigation. Can we honestly expect our minds to be healthy with the kind of food we give them? Thoughts are foodstuff. Where, then, shall we gather them? He gave them bread from heaven to eat! The Lords bread will make us immune against disease. This is the bread, of which, if a man eat, he shall not die.

3. Another predisposing condition to disease is undisciplined emotion. The bacteriologist has told us that excessive grief and fretfulness open the doors to the invading army of disease. It is not so much some commanding emotional passion which exhausts the body; little frets can do it. We can lose a pound quite as effectually by dropping two hundred and forty pennies as by losing a sovereign. The great point to remember is, that all these dispositions lower the strength and quality of our physical defences. How is it with the soul? Undisciplined emotion is a condition against which we must be on our guard. How easily some people can be stirred into violent emotion! Now, all unharnessed emotion impoverishes the spiritual defences. The devil likes nothing better than to get our emotions well stirred, to make us satisfied with these pleasurable feelings, and then behind our satisfaction to carry on his nefarious work. Emotionalism is the forerunner of evil contagion, and provides conditions for the microbe which will end at last in the bondage of an eradical disease. Let me mention one other predisposing condition of moral and spiritual disease.

4. Our bacteriologists tell us that one of the greatest discoveries of the last generation has been the absolute necessity of scrupulous cleanliness in all surgical work. Our doctors are now vigilant to the last degree in closing every door against the entrance of dirt. Operations are performed with sterilized instruments under the most exacting conditions of cleanliness. The smallest remnant of uncleanliness affords a foothold for disease. How is it with the soul? Is there any need of the same scrupulousness? Are we as vigilant in maintaining the purity of our spirits as the surgeon is in maintaining the cleanliness of His work? Do we not rather treat small scruples lightly, and do we not laugh at the morally painstaking, and label them faddy or puritanical? We retain a dirty little prejudice, or some spirit of undue severity, or some little policy which we persuade ourselves cannot be called wrong, but only expedient; and these retained uncleannesses afford the occasion an opportunity to the enemy of our souls; and through the entrance thus obtained he leads all the forces of darkness and the strong black battalions of hell. If we are to defeat him we shall have to attend to the scruple. One grain of dirt can afford sustenance to a host of microbes. Now, let me recall the glorious promise with which I began. Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. It is possible for us to be in the world and yet not of it, to mix with sinners and yet be separate from them, to be perfectly pure and yet to go and be their minister and guest. Our only security is in God. In Him we have all-sufficient defences. (J. H. Jowett, M.A.)

Safety from disease

In 1854, when Mr. Spurgeon had scarcely been twelve months in London, there was raging there a fearful epidemic of Asiatic cholera. With all his youthful ardour he plunged at once into the work of relieving the sick and the suffering and the dying, and of burying the dead. Weary and worn with much work, he one day came back from a funeral service feeling as though he himself were a prey to the awful judgment and scourge of God. He was passing along a certain street, and he observed in the window of a shoemakers shop a paper wafered to a pane of glass, and on which were inscribed in large characters the 9th and 10th verses of the 91st psalm–Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. Mr. Spurgeon said, That was Gods message to me. I at once took heart, and from that moment I neither felt any fear of the cholera myself nor did I suffer any harm from repeated ministries upon the sick and the dying.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

To wit, so as to destroy thee, as the next verse limits and expounds it. For surely this promise is not made to all that dwell nigh to his children and servants, who may possibly be wicked men, and so strangers from Gods covenant and promises. How far this secures his own person, See Poole “Psa 91:7“.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

There shall no evil befall thee,…. The evil of sin cleaves to the best of saints, the evil of temptations besets them, and the evil of afflictions comes upon them, as chastisements from the Lord; for they must expect to receive evil, in this sense, as well as good, from his hands; but the evil of punishment never touches them; and therefore, when any public calamity befalls them in common with others, yet not as an evil of punishment; it is not an evil to them, it is for their good:

neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling; how should it, when they dwell in God, and have made him, the most High, their habitation u; Ps 91:1 otherwise it may come nigh their temporal dwellings;

[See comments on Ps 91:7] though it may not enter into them; and, should it, yet not as an evil, or by way of punishment; see Pr 3:33.

u “excelsum posuisti habitaculum tuum”, Pagninus, Montanus, De Dieu, Gejerus.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(10) Dwelling.Literally, tent: an instance in which the patriarchal life became stereotyped, so to speak, in the language. (See Note, Psa. 104:3.) Even we speak of pitching our tent.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

10. Come nigh thy dwelling The allusion is to Exo 12:23. Compare Isa 54:14

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Psa 91:10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

Ver. 10. There shall no evil befall the ] No devoratory evil, as Tertullian expresseth it; nothing that tendeth ad exitium, but only ad exercitium, and such as shall end in thy good.

Neither shall any plague ] What a wonderful separation made the Lord between the houses of the Israelites and the Egyptians, Exo 11:7 . See Job 5:1-27 , and take these places, as Psa 91:6 . For it may befall a saint to share in a common calamity; as the good corn and weeds are cut down together, but for a different end and purpose,

– Non te tua plurima, Pantheu,

Labentem texit pietas –

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)