Sense and Nonsense about Angels and Demons by Kenneth D. Boa & Robert M. Bowman Jr

Author:Kenneth D. Boa & Robert M. Bowman Jr. [Boa, Kenneth D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Published: 2009-05-26T07:00:00+00:00

Angels Watching over — Me?

Now let’s look at Psalm 91 again. In its Old Testament, Israelite context, the psalm is speaking about the physical protection that an Israelite will enjoy if he or she trusts completely in the Lord (Ps. 91:1 – 10). The description is idealized, even hyperbolic,2 if one applies it to every Israelite. However, the psalmist never says that he is referring to all Israelites, and he even seems to distinguish himself (“I”) from the one to whom this complete protection will apply (the singular “you”). He describes the protected one in language that David often used of himself (e.g., compare Ps. 91:1 – 4 with 18:1 – 3), which suggests that the psalmist is here speaking of David or his future descendant, the Messiah. In a physical sense, David was protected from all sorts of dangers, including literal lions (1 Sam. 17:34 – 37). In another psalm, David expresses confidence in God’s deliverance from all dangers and the protection of the army of “the angel of the LORD” (Ps. 34:6 – 7).

In its original context in the Old Testament setting, then, Psalm 91 appears to speak most directly of David, and perhaps in a general or hyperbolic way of the protection God promised to the people of Israel if they would trust in him completely. That the psalmist also refers to or at least alludes to the Messiah is almost certain from verse 13, where he says, “You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down” (NASB).

The image of treading or trampling on a cobra or serpent is a clear allusion to the first messianic promise in the Bible. After Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of Satan in the garden of Eden, God told Satan — who had taken the form of a serpent (Gen. 3:1, 14) — that the woman’s “offspring” or descendant “will strike your head” (3:15). In Isaiah, prophetic visions of the future restoration of paradise through the Messiah picture a world without the serpent, or one in which the serpent is forced, as we might put it, to “eat dust” (Isa. 11:8; 65:25). Because of David’s prowess in defeating lions that attacked his father’s flock of sheep (1 Sam. 17:34 – 37), Isaiah also could picture the messianic paradise as one without any lions (Isa. 35:9) or where the lion had been completely tamed (11:6 – 7; 65:25).

We should read Psalm 91:13, then, as looking forward to the coming of Jesus the Messiah, through whom God is giving us victory over Satan and the rest of the forces of evil. In the New Testament, Jesus told his disciples that he had given them “authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you” (Luke 10:19 NASB). He is not talking here about physical serpents or physical injury, but about authority over “the spirits” (v. 20), enabling his followers to cast out demons (v.

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