John Calvin Commentary Psalms 91:14

"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." — Psalms 91:14 (ASV)

Because he hath trusted in me, I will deliver him. It may prevent any feeling of disgust or weariness with the Psalmist's repetition and elaboration on his present subject to remember that, as I have already observed, he is influenced in this by a due consideration of our weakness, since we are always indisposed when danger approaches to exercise due reliance on the providence of God.

With this view, he now introduces God himself as speaking and confirming by his own voice what had already been asserted. And here it is noticeable that God, in declaring from heaven that we will be safe under the wings of his protection, speaks of nothing as necessary on the part of his people but hope or trust.

For the Hebrew verb חשק , chashak, which signifies to desire, or love, or, as we commonly express it, to find our delight in any object, means here to rest with a sweet confidence in God and rejoice in his favor. He promises to extend assistance to us if we seek him sincerely.

The language implies that we must be continually surrounded by death and destruction in this world, unless his hand is stretched out for our preservation. Occasionally he assists even unbelievers, but it is only to his believing people that his help is granted, in the sense of his being their Savior to the true extent of that term, and their Savior to the end.

Their knowing the name of God is spoken of in connection with their trust and expectation; and very properly so, for why do men vainly cast their eyes around them to every quarter in the hour of danger, if not because they are ignorant of the power of God?

They cannot indeed be said to know God at all, but delude themselves with a vague apprehension of something which is not God, a mere dead idol substituted for him in their imaginations. Since it is a true knowledge of God which begets confidence in him and leads us to call upon him, and since none can seek him sincerely but those who have apprehended the promises and given due honor to his name, the Psalmist with great propriety and truth represents this knowledge as the spring or fountain of trust.

That the doctrine which he teaches was necessary we may learn from the senseless and erroneous manner in which the Papists speak of faith. While they inculcate an implicit adherence to God, they bury the word which opens up the only access men can have to him. The expression to exalt or lift up on high means nothing more than to keep in a state of safety or security; but the reason for this metaphor is that God preserves his people in an extraordinary manner, raising them, as it were, to some high and impregnable fortress.