properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
escaped
נִמְלְטָה֮nim.le.Tah
H4422
properly · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
bird
כְּצִפּ֥וֹרke.tzi.Por
H6833
a little bird (as hopping) · preposition + noun, common both genders singular absolute
snare
מִפַּ֪חmi.Pach
H6341
a (metallic) sheet (as pounded thin) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
fowlers
י֫וֹקְשִׁ֥יםyok.Shim
H3369
to ensnare (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
snare
הַפַּ֥חha.Pach
H6341
a (metallic) sheet (as pounded thin) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
broken
נִשְׁבָּ֗רnish.Bar
H7665
to burst (literally or figuratively) · verb, niphal active participle, masculine singular absolute
escaped
נִמְלָֽטְנוּnim.La.te.nu
H4422
properly · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 91:3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
Proverbs 6:5 Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
2 Timothy 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
Psalms 25:15 Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
1 Samuel 25:29 Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God;…
1 Samuel 23:26-27 And Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain: and David made haste to get away for fear of…
2 Samuel 17:21-22 And it came to pass, after they were departed, that they came up out of the well, and went and told king David, and said unto David, Arise,…
Jeremiah 18:22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snare…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 124:6–end
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…
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers,.... The people of God are like little birds, being harmless and innocent, singing forth the praises of God for his goodness to them; as also because weak and unable to resist their foes; and worthless in themselves, like sparrows, as the word (i) here used signifies; and are fearful and timorous, and flee at the least apprehension of danger, Psalm 102:7. Satan, and wicked men under his influence, are like fowlers who lay snares for them, to draw them into sin, into immorality and error, in order to bring them to ruin and destruction; hence we read of the snare of the devil and of wicked men, 1 Timothy 3:7, 2 Timothy 2:26; and who…
Psalm 124:6-8
6. Blessed be Jehovah! who gave us not for a prey to their teeth [79] 7. Our soul has been rescued as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare has been broken, and we have been delivered [80] 8. Our help is in the name of Jehovah, who made heaven and earth.
6. Blessed be Jehovah! The Psalmist now exhorts the godly to a grateful acknowledgment of the divine goodness, and as it were puts words into their mouth. Here also he shows by another similitude, that it would have been all over with them had not God succoured them; affirming that they were delivered not otherwise than if some one had plucked the prey from the teeth of a wild and cruel beast. Of the same import is…
The Church Fathers
It is the same with David. Where the soul is supported with spiritual wings, he has chosen to describe the soul as a bird, as he has said in one place, "My soul has escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers"; and again, In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, "Flee like a bird to the mountain." Thus the soul has its wings by which it can raise itself free from the earth. But this movement of the wings is not of something constructed of feathers but a continuing series of good works, like those of the Lord of whom it is well said, "And in the shadow of your wings I shall take refuge." In the first place, the hands of our Lord fixed on the cross were extended like something in flight, and, second, the actions of God are like a refreshing shadow of eternal salvation that can regulate the conflagration raging in our world.
"Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers" [Psalm 124:7]. Because the Lord was in the soul itself, therefore hath that soul escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. Why like a bird? Because it had fallen heedlessly, like a bird; and it could say afterwards, God will forgive me. Unstable bird, rather set thy feet firm upon the rock: go not into the trap. Thou wilt be taken, consumed, crushed. Let the Lord be in thee, and He will deliver thee from greater threats, from the snare of the fowlers. As if thou wert to see a bird about to fall into a snare, thou makest a greater noise that it may fly away from the net; so also, when perhaps some even of the Martyrs were stretching out their neck after the enjoyment of this life, the Lord, who was in them, made the noise of hell, and the bird was delivered from the snare of the fowlers. The snare was the sweetness of this life: they were not entangled in the snare, and were slain; by their slaughter the net was broken; no longer did the sweetness of this life remain, that they might again be entangled by it, but it was crushed. Was the bird also crushed? Far be it! for it was not in the snare: "The snare is broken, and we are delivered."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bird — Birds are divided in the Mosaic law into two classes, (1) the clean (Lev. 1:14-17; 5:7-10; 14:4-7), which were offered in sacrifice; and (2) the unclean (Lev. 11:13-20). When offered in sacrifice,…
Fowler — The arts of, referred to Ps. 91:3; 124:7; Prov. 6:5; Jer. 5:26; Hos. 9:8; Ezek. 17:20; Eccl. 9:12. Birds of all kinds abound in Palestine, and the capture of these for the table and for other uses…
Birds · Illustrative: (Snaring,) of designs of the wicked — Illustrative: (Snaring,) of designs of the wicked
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
After the fact of the divine succour has been expressed, in Psa 124:6 follows the thanksgiving for it, and in Psa 124:7 the joyful shout of the rescued one. In Psa 124:6 the enemies are conceived of as beasts of prey on account of their bloodthirstiness, just as the worldly empires are in the Book of Daniel; in Psa 124:7 as "fowlers" on account of their cunning. According to the punctuation it is not to be rendered: Our soul is like a bird that is escaped, in which case it would have been accented בפשׁנו כצפור, but: our soul (subject with Rebia magnum) is as a bird (כּצפור as in Hos 11:11; Pro 23:32; Job 14:2, instead of the syntactically more usual כּצּפור) escaped out of the snare of him w…
The enemies of God’s people, like lions or bears who tear their prey with their teeth (see 57:4; Prov 28:15), had their mouths shut by the Lord (Dan 6:22).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 124:7
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers. Our soul is like a bird for many reasons; but in this case the point of likeness is weakness, folly, and the ease with which it is enticed into the snare. Fowlers have many methods of taking small birds, and Satan has many methods of entrapping souls. Some are decoyed by evil companions, others are enticed by the love of dainties; hunger drives many into the trap, and fright impels numbers to fly into the net. Fowlers know their birds, and how to take them; but the birds see not the snare so as to avoid it, and they cannot bre…
