OUR SOUL IS ESCAPED AS A BIRD

Today’s consideration brings us into the fifteen Psalms of Ascents which follow Psalm 119, perhaps recited by the peo­ple as they went up to Jerusalem for the great annual feasts. This is the fifth such psalm and the second attributed to David. These psalms are mainly taken up with praise to God for His deliverance of His people from their enemies and His bringing of them to His holy hill of Zion. This psalm is particu­larly focused on their rescue. David pictures Israel as in danger of being ‘swallowed up’; ‘overwhelmed’ by the ‘proud waters’; ‘prey’ delivered from ‘teeth’; and now ‘a bird out of the snare of the fowler’.

David proclaims that it is ‘our soul’ which has escaped. This catcher of birds wants more than just the body, as a typical fowler would, but he has designs on the eternal soul of his prey. All who are saved can relate to this. We realized that our never- dying soul was in great danger. Ensnared by the wicked one in his trap, we were helpless and hopeless, just as Israel, surrounded by foes. Like them and the helpless bird in the trap, we were powerless to escape. Notice, the bird is given no credit for its escape. It was not by its own efforts or cleverness that its soul was preserved. No, ‘the snare is broken’, proclaims the psalmist in the present tense. It can never be used to catch the soul again. How is it broken? Who did it? The answer is in the final verse, ‘Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth’. This is the Lord Jesus Himself. He, of course, is identified in John chapter 1 and Colossians chapter 1 as the Creator of all. The later passage goes on to tell us this ‘firstborn’ Creator is also the ‘firstborn from among the dead’. The Creator took on manhood ‘that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil’.

The only escape from the wicked one is through the name of this One who has ‘broken’ his snare and provided a means of escape. Well may we, like rescued Israel, now enjoy the ascent to fellowship with God, in contrast to being trapped in a snare, proclaim the song of a redeemed people and praise our Creator and Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.