Gustave Doré’s engraving of David standing crowned and bowed as he mourns Absalom

Psalm 124

One of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, which St Athanasius said to pray when you can feel yourself climbing higher.

  • 8Verses
  • 1Situation

St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

When to pray it

In the 300s, St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to his friend Marcellinus about praying the Psalms. In it he matched psalms to what people go through. This is what he gave this one for.

You can feel yourself climbing: forgetting what's behind you and straining toward what's ahead.

When you sense yourself climbing higher in how you live, so that you can say with Paul, "forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead", you have the fifteen Songs of Ascents to say at every step forward.

Letter to Marcellinus

He gave all fifteen Songs of Ascents for this, Psalms 120 to 134.

8 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 124

Its own heading A song of ascents. Of David.

  1. 1If the LORD had not been on our side— let Israel now declare—
  2. 2if the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us,
  3. 3when their anger flared against us, then they would have swallowed us alive,
  4. 4then the floods would have engulfed us, then the torrent would have overwhelmed us,
  5. 5then the raging waters would have swept us away.
  6. 6Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
  7. 7We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; the net is torn, and we have slipped away.
  8. 8Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 124 is 123 in the Greek numbering Athanasius used, which Orthodox Bibles and some older Catholic ones still follow.

When life is good, and you want to thank Him and grow

Close to this

All 53 situations, in one guide.

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Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Athanasius’s advice is paraphrased from his Greek.