The Pulpit Commentary on Psalms 91:2

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Many names for God.

Finding various names is a common device of love. The names seem to express the many sidedness of our relationship. It must be specially true of God that we stand in various relations to him, and are helped by a variety of terms and names, which express those relations. There are four names given to God in Psalms 91:1, Psalms 91:2. God the Concealer is the "inaccessibly High One." God the Shadower is the "invincibly Almighty One." God the Covenant maker is "Jehovah, the Lord." And God personally appropriated is "my God." Or it has been put in this way:

1. We commune with him reverently, for he is the Most High.

2. We rest in him as the Almighty.

3. We rejoice in him as Jehovah, or Lord.

4. We trust in him as El, the mighty God.

Perowne's suggestion is more directly in harmony with the psalm. "God is 'Most High,' far above all the rage and malice of enemies; 'Almighty,' so that none can stand before his power; 'Jehovah,' the God of covenant and grace, who has revealed himself to his people; and it is of such a God that the psalmist says, in holy confidence, 'He is "my God," in whom I trust.'" Trying to find the thoughts which one so circumstanced as Moses would attach to the terms, we may say—

I. THE "MOST HIGH" IS ABOVE ALL EARTHLY CHANGES. Unaffected by them in such sense as can weaken his relations to them. We cannot interfere in disputes and difficulties without prejudice. Often we cannot keep calm to form good judgment. God can.

II. THE "ALMIGHTY" IS ABLE TO DEAL WITH ALL EARTHLY CONDITIONS. They can never be so complicated that he cannot unravel them; never so desperate that he cannot master them. "With God all things are possible." If God does not interfere in a case, the reason must be that he will not, because he can if he please.

III. THE "LORD, JEHOVAH" IS UNDER PLEDGE TO INTERFERE FOR HIS PEOPLE'S GOOD. The name "Jehovah" was taken as the sign and seal of the covenant, as the rainbow was taken as the sign of the nature covenant. God, as Jehovah, may be thought of as the "Faithful Promiser."

IV. THE TERM "MY GOD" IMPLIES THAT GOD HAS BEEN, IN ACTUAL EXPERIENCE, WHAT THE PSALMIST FELT CONFIDENT THAT HE WAS. It is an important advance to be able to say, "I know not only what God is, I know also what he has been to me."—R.T.

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