Here the psalmist further magnifies the great deliverance God had lately wrought for them.

I.That their hearts might be the more enlarged in thankfulness to him (Psa 124:6): Blessed be the Lord. God is the author of all our deliverances, and therefore he must have the glory of them. We rob him of his due if we do not return thanks to him. And we are the more obliged to praise him because we had such a narrow escape. We were delivered, 1. Like a lamb out of the very jaws of a beast of prey: God has not given us as a prey to their teeth, intimating that they had no power over God's people but what was given them from above. They could not be a prey to their teeth unless God gave them up, and therefore they were rescued, because God would not suffer them to be ruined. 2. Like a bird, a little bird (the word signifies a sparrow), out of the snare of the fowler. The enemies are very subtle and spiteful; they lay snares for God's people, to bring them into sin and trouble, and to hold them there. Sometimes they seem to have prevailed so far as to gain their point. God's people are taken in the snare, and are as unable to help themselves out as any weak and silly bird is; and then is God's time to appear for their relief, when all other friends fail; then God breaks the snare, and turns the counsel of the enemies into foolishness: The snare is broken and so we are delivered. Isaac was saved when he lay ready to be sacrificed. Jehovah-jireh - in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

II.That their hearts, and the hearts of others, might be the more encouraged to trust in God in the like dangers (Psa 124:8): Our help is in the name of the Lord. David had directed us (Psa 121:2) to depend upon God for help as to our personal concerns - My help is in the name of the Lord; here as to the concerns of the public - Our help is so. It is a comfort to all that lay the interests of God's Israel near their hearts that Israel's God is the same that made the world, and therefore will have a church in the world, and can secure that church in times of the greatest danger and distress. In him therefore let the church's friends put their confidence, and they shall not be put to confusion.

Our help is in the name of the Lord,.... This is the conclusion the church draws from the scene of Providence in her favour; this is the instruction she learns from hence, that her help is in the Lord only, and not in any creature; and that it is right to put her trust and confidence in the Lord for it, and only to expect it from him whose name is in himself; and is a strong tower to flee unto for safety, Pro 18:10. The Targum is,

"in the name of the Word of the Lord;''

in the Messiah; in whom the name of the Lord is, his nature and perfections; and in whom help is found, being laid upon him, Exo 23:21;

who made heaven and earth; and therefore must be able to help his people, and to do more for them than they are able to ask or think: for what is it he cannot do that made the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them? see Psa 121:1.

Next: Psalms Chapter 125