Psalms 91:6: “[Nor] for the pestilence [that] walketh in darkness; [nor] for the destruction [that] wasteth at noonday.”
On top of everything else, we do not have to fear the destruction that wasteth at noonday. I am not sure what that it is but it sounds bad and I am glad we don’t need to be afraid of it. Different translation translates this in many and various ways. One translations says disasters that strikes at midday, another says destruction that lays waste at noon, the pestilence that ravages at noon, the calamity that destroys at noon, the disease that comes at noon, epidemics that strike at noon or the spirit that devastates at noontime.
It seems every modern translation has its own idea as to what we are not to fear at noon. My question is what makes noon so special? Also, some translations say this is a disease other say it is destruction that comes at noon.
The word for destruction or disease that is used in the Hebrew is a rare Hebrew word qatab. It is used for both destruction and pestilence. In extra Biblical literature it is used to express the idea of dying very suddenly, and for heat stroke. Sudden death was not uncommon in ancient times. Heat stroke would bring on sudden death, drinking toxic water could bring on sudden death. Attack by wild animals or bandits would bring sudden death. Interesting that the word shud is also used with qatab. That word also means destruction and ruin. So the verse is talking about sudden death and ruin or destruction. When we hear the phrase sudden death and destruction we think of a natural disaster that destroys property and lives. I really believe that this passage is referring to natural disasters. You really don’t see a storm coming at night as you do at noon. The sky gets really black when a storm comes. At night the sky is already black. We have all sensed the ominous feeling when right at midday the sky becomes black, street lights turn on automobiles turn the headlights on in midday and you know a big storm is coming.
This series I am doing on Psalm 91 was prompted because of all the hype on the internet regarding the culminating events that the doomsayers are predicting for the month of September. I have met people, Christians, who are terrified over what might happen this month. I can’t help but believe that Psalms 91 was written for such an occasion as this. People are preparing, hording supplies even getting weapons. It’s a free country do what you want, but how many of these Christians are preparing themselves spiritually? If there is any message in Psalms 91 it is this, with the threat of qatab and shud, sudden death and destruction the only sure way to be safe is to be in the center of God’s will.
This is just not for September, however, sudden death and destruction is always on our minds, the news media makes sure we know that. A shooter enters a school or movie theater and it is all over national news instantly. The odds are many thousand to one that your school or movie theater will have a shooter enter, but in the back of your mind, you are always thinking, “maybe.”
I had a student who was an Army Airborne Ranger. He told how in jump school his instructor assured the members of his class that the parachute always opens properly 99.9% of the time. Yet, when my student stood at the door of the plane for his first jump he said he could not help but wonder: “Am I that 1/10 of one percent?
The Apostle Paul did not live a life of fear, yet if anyone had anything to fear it was Paul. The old boy had a price on his head, he was arrested, shipwrecked, tortured, bitten by poisonous snakes and when he sat in the prison at his lowest point the Lord came to him and said: “Get ready Paul, it’s going to get worse.” Yet this is the old boy who said: “For me to live is Christ to die is to gain.” Philippians 1:21. He describe his fearlessness in Romans 8:35-39: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The Apostle Paul feared only one thing, begin separated from the Love of God in Christ Jesus His Lord and he was convinced that nothing no qatab or shud would separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Tomorrow is September 23 a red letter day for the conspiracy theorist. I know one thing for certain that will happen tomorrow, all the websites, You Tube videos and books predicting major qatab and shud will become obsolete after tomorrow. By the end of the month some bestselling books will see a sudden drop in sales. All these doomsayers who have made millions of dollars in speaking engagements and books sales will be driving their candy apple red Porsche’s into their gated mansions saying: “How about that, I was wrong.”
If anything else should actually happen, then I am just hanging my hat with the Apostle Paul in saying that I fear only one thing, that is being separated from the Love of God in Christ Jesus and not qatab (sudden death) or shud (destruction) will separate me from that, in fact it will only bring me closer to the Love of God in Christ Jesus. So I say, bring it on and I will be as disappointed as the doomsayers if nothing happens, only for different reasons.
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