The Psalm — King James Version
1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
3. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
4. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
8. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
9. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
10. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
11. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
12. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
13. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
14. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
15. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
16. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.
Who wrote it
Unlike Psalm 23, which carries a Davidic superscription in the KJV, Psalm 91 is anonymous. Rabbinic tradition (Midrash Tehillim) grouped it with Psalm 90 — which is explicitly "A Prayer of Moses the man of God" — and read the two as Moses's paired meditation on mortality and mercy: Psalm 90 on the shortness of human life, Psalm 91 on the shelter that outlasts it. A number of Christian commentators through the ages have followed this attribution, hearing in the "secret place" and "the shadow of the Almighty" an echo of Moses hidden in the cleft of the rock (Exodus 33:22). The Psalm's authorship is not certain; its Spirit-carried voice is. What is beyond debate is that the household has been sheltering under its verses for two thousand years and more.
Historical and geographical context
The dangers named in Psalm 91 are the dangers a household in the ancient Near East knew by name: the fowler's snare set for game or for men, the pestilence that walked in darkness, the arrow that flew at midday, the lion and the adder on the country roadway. These are not metaphors written from a study. They are the household's real fears, called out one at a time in the presence of God. The "secret place of the most High" would have summoned, in a first hearer, the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem Temple — the innermost chamber where the LORD's presence dwelt — but also any sheltered nook where an anxious traveller unrolled a mat for the night. The Psalm's world is a Judean world of stones and roads and unlit hillsides. Its promise addresses every human night that has come since.
The three voices
Psalm 91 is unusual in the Psalter for shifting speakers three times in sixteen verses. Verse 1 is a general statement about the one who dwells in the secret place. Verse 2 is the psalmist's own testimony — "I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge." Verses 3-13 shift into direct address — "thou shalt not be afraid" — the psalmist speaking to a second person: perhaps a child at bedtime, perhaps a fellow pilgrim on the road, perhaps the household at Compline. Verses 14-16 shift a third time, into the voice of God Himself: "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him." The Psalm ends not with the psalmist's promise but with God's. In sixteen verses the listener has been carried from a doctrine, through personal testimony, through pastoral address, into the direct voice of God — and the last words the ear hears are the LORD's own.
Christ in the Psalm
Christ Himself heard Psalm 91 quoted in the wilderness during His temptation. Verses 11-12 — "For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone" — are quoted verbatim by the tempter in Matthew 4:6 (KJV) and Luke 4:10-11. Christ does not deny the Psalm. He refuses to test the Father with it. The Church has long read that scene as Christ standing under the Psalm's shelter Himself — the beloved Son who did not need to prove the Father's care, because He knew it.
Verse 13 — "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet" — has been read by Christian tradition since the Church Fathers as the promise fulfilled in Christ's victory over the serpent, first named at the Fall (Genesis 3:15) and pictured beneath Mary's foot in centuries of Christian iconography. The one who trod on the adder is the one who bore His people's terror at night, that they might sleep.
In Christian tradition
Psalm 91 is the psalm of Christian Compline — the household's night prayer. In the Rule of St. Benedict (c. AD 530), Psalm 91 is appointed for every Compline of the week; for nearly fifteen centuries the last psalm most monastic hearts heard before sleep was this psalm. The Byzantine East preserves it in its own night office with equal weight. The Western Latin traditions and the Eastern traditions read it side by side: whatever the language, whatever the century, the last verses of the day for many Christians have been "He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble."
In pastoral care the Psalm has been prayed at the bedside of the sick, over travellers before a long journey, and by soldiers before an engagement. Chaplaincies of every side in every modern war have printed and distributed it. It has been sewn into pockets, laid under pillows, whispered over cradles. It is not a psalm that belongs to any single side of history. It is a psalm that has been prayed by every side that feared the night.
The Church has also, in its more careful reading, held the Psalm's promise alongside the Cross. The shelter under the shadow of the Almighty is not exemption from suffering. Christ Himself, who quoted verse 11 in the wilderness, walked into the shadow of death Himself; the psalmist's protection is finally the promise of the LORD's presence within trouble, not always the absence of trouble. Verse 15 does not read "he shall never see trouble." It reads "I will be with him in trouble." That is the Psalm's honest word.
Iconography and setting
Christian art has often paired Psalm 91 with the image of Christ's temptation in the wilderness — Duccio's Temptation on the Mountain (c. 1308-1311), the Cranach woodcuts of the 1520s — letting the Matthew scene do the visual work of the Psalm. Illuminated psalters of the Middle Ages sometimes framed Psalm 91 with wing-motifs recalling verse 4 ("He shall cover thee with his feathers"); the Utrecht Psalter (c. 830) illustrates the Psalm with the LORD as a large winged figure sheltering smaller human figures beneath outstretched arms. The image lives on in modern Christian hymnody. "On Eagle's Wings" (Michael Joncas, 1979) is the Psalm's most-loved contemporary setting in English, sung in Catholic and Protestant assemblies alike; it takes the wing image of verse 4 and the promise of verse 14 into a household refrain.
How the household prays it
Psalm 91 is the household's Compline. On an ordinary evening the eldest daughter reads verses 1 through 8 in a small voice, the father reads verses 9 through 13, and the mother reads verses 14 through 16 as the voice of God — the last words the household hears before the beeswax candle is put out. In hard weeks the whole Psalm is prayed together, one verse each, twice around the circle. On a night when a household member is travelling or sick, the family gathers by the leaded-glass window of the Chapel and reads the whole Psalm through, one verse each. On a night when a household member has died, verse 15 is read aloud, then verse 16, then the silence.
Household application
Name three shelters the LORD has been for you in the last year — three moments where you were kept and did not know it at the time.
Then name one fear you are carrying to bed tonight. Read verse 4 aloud with a member of your household, or if you are alone, aloud to yourself.
Related Scripture
- Psalm 46 (KJV) "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."
- Isaiah 40:31 (KJV) "they shall mount up with wings as eagles" — the companion image of divine shelter.
- Matthew 4:6 (KJV) Psalm 91:11-12 quoted at Christ's temptation.
- Luke 13:34 (KJV) "as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings" — Christ echoing Psalm 91:4.
- Romans 8:38-39 (KJV) "nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God" — the New Testament's protection promise.
Related rooms
- PRAY · The Chapel — where the household prays Psalm 91 as its Compline.
- A Library of Prayers — the household prayer book.
- In Memoriam — those we have prayed Psalm 91 over on their last night.
- The Hymnal — for "On Eagle's Wings" and the metrical settings.
Elsewhere in the Atlas
- Psalm 23 — the shepherd psalm; the household's companion refuge.
- Psalm 46 — the sister refuge psalm, "a very present help in trouble."
- Matthew 6 — the Sermon on the Mount, on the Father's care.
- Return to the atrium — the Atlas's main room.