91:7 Though a thousand may fall beside you,
and a multitude on your right side,
it will not reach you.

The problem with this wonderful psalm is that it seems to promise too much.

What, in particular, are we to make of verse 7?

This verse has sometimes been taken as an absolute and unqualified promise of divine protection.

It is said that many soldiers in WWI recited this psalm daily.  Indeed, there is a story (probably apocryphal) that a Brigade commander gave a little card with this psalm printed on it to his men of the (you guessed it) 91st Brigade.  As the story goes, these men were involved in three of the bloodiest battles of the war, yet the brigade suffered no casualites.

My own father understood it that way when he was army soldier during WWII (and he did indeed return home safely).

More recently, I heard a (fine) preacher give an account of how she sent a card with this text on it to a mother whose son was leaving for missionary work in China.  Neither the mother nor the son knew that the SARS outbreak was about to happen.  But, when it did happen, the mother to it as a promise that her son would return home safely, even though thousands would die in the SARS outbreak.

I think that it is rather perilous to appropriate such Bible promises in this way.  Consider:

• Scripture was written for us, but not to us.
• How do people arrive at the impression that such as verse applies directly to themselves?  One venerable method is, of course, ‘opening the Bible at random’ and seeing what they come up with.  But I am afraid that this is mere superstition.
• This present life is precious, but is not to be valued above all else.  God is more concerned with our holiness than our health.
• What about those who believed this verse, but whose lives were not spared?  Did they lack faith?  Or will their faith now be weakened, or even destroyed?
• What about John the Baptist, whose life was not spared?  Or James, the first Christian martyr?  Or Jesus himself?

John Piper (Taste and See) notes three promises of this psalm:

A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not approach you. (verse 7)

No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent. (verse 10)

With a long life I will satisfy him. (verse 16)

Piper suggests that we may respond in one of three ways:

(a) Simply deny the truth of these promises;

(b) Say that those who die in battle, suffer plague, or die at an early age haven’t trusted the Lord as their refuge; they lack faith;

(c) Agree that God does indeed rule the flight arrows, the progress of disease, and the length of life, and that he can, accordingly give protection, health and life to whom he pleases.  But scriptural promises such as these come with an unspoke qualification: ‘No harm will come to you without my permission and design’.

Even the Psalms themselves declare that ‘many are the afflictions of the righteous’ (Psa 34:19).  The Lord does bring us out of them, but this may not be until the life to come.  In Rom 8:36 Paul quotes Psa 44:22 (‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered’) and then says, ‘But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us’.  Satan himself used this psalm to Jesus (Psa 91:11f; Lk 4:10f), but Jesus refused.  Satan quoted it as if it had no qualifications, but Jesus proved in his own life that it does have qualifications: he dies a cruel and painful at a young age ‘for the joy set before him’ beyond death.

Note Jesus’ paradoxical teaching: ‘They will put some of you to death.… Yet not a hair of your head will perish’ (Lk 21:16-18).  Paul concurs: ‘My God will supply all your needs’ sits alongside the testimony: ‘I have learned the secret of … going hungry … and suffering need. I can do all things [including hungering and suffering need] through Him who strengthens me’ (Phil 4:12f, 19).

Kidner comments:

‘This is, of course, a statement of exact, minute providence, not a charm against adversity. The no less sweeping promise of Romans 8:28 (‘… everything … for good with those who love him’) does not exclude ‘nakedness, or peril, or sword’ (8:35); cf. again the paradox of Luke 21:16, 18. What it does assure us is that nothing can touch God’s servant but by God’s leave; equally (8) that no rebel can escape his retribution.’

Boice interprets the death of thousands as punishment for their sin, a punishment from which the faithful will be protected:

‘In other words, it is not a promise that those who trust God will never die of disease or even in some military conflict, but that they will not suffer those or any other calamities as God’s judgment against them for their sin. Their sin has been atoned for by the blood of Jesus Christ.’

See also this, by Wyatt Graham