Ps. 91.3-4 (the bird and the cherubim)

Truly / he will save you / from the fowler’s trap
and from the threat / of destruction
With his feathers / he will cover you
and under his wings / you will take refuge
his faithfulness will be / your shield of protection. 

There are several things that need to be noted in these verses. The first is the imagery of the bird. In the first verse, the psalmist tells the people Yhwh will save them “from the fowler’s trap”. The people are birds that have been caught, either by net or otherwise. As with almost every form of danger in the psalm, it is a hidden danger, a danger that arrives suddenly, unawares and unpredictably. It is an ‘immediate and total’ danger. The psalmist however carefully positions this image for what follows. In the next verse Yhwh is the bird that affords protection. It is an intriguing and profound juxtaposition of images. In the first image, the birds are innocent, defenseless and, once captured, utterly incapable of freeing themselves. In the second image, the bird is portrayed in a position of absolute strength. It apparently not only cannot be caught but it has the ability to defend its young with utter mastery and control. This image is, I believe, referred to again later in the psalm. In verses 11-12 the psalmist declares that Yhwh will send his angels to protect “you”. Up to this point the protecting has been performed by Yhwh without any reference to intermediaries. However, in our verse today, there is the likely reference to the ‘wings of Yhwh’ referring to the wings of cherubim located over the arc, within the Temple. As such, these ‘wings’ are, in fact, angelic wings—the wings of the cherubim. Of course, the angels in the Scripture often play the role of mediating the presence of Yhwh himself; the ‘angel of Yhwh’ is often simply referred to as “Yhwh”. The line between ‘where one stops and the other begins’ is not clear, nor does it seem to a concern to the sacred author. 

For our purposes what is important to see is that while the imagery of a ‘bird’ are present as referring to Yhwh, it is the more likely that it refers to the cherubim—those winged creatures of utterly terrifying stature and power. What the ‘fowler’ then realizes is that these defenseless birds are in fact protected by ‘birds’ of astounding strength, indeed by ‘birds’ that themselves carry and mediate the very presence of Yhwh, the ‘Most High’ and ‘Almighty’. 

Finally, the verse refers to Yhwh’s faithfulness as a ‘shield of protection’. As with the other images, this does portray Yhwh’s protection as, primarily, defensive. He “covers you”, “under his wings you find refuge” and he is, here, “a shield”. At this point there is no ‘offensive movement’ by Yhwh. Yet this ‘defensiveness’ is itself an enactment of Yhwh’s faithfulness. The fact that ‘no harm’ comes to his ‘birds’ is an enactment of his faithfulness as shield. This is the dominant note struck in the psalm, although not the only one. It provides, therefore, an important perspective on Yhwh and his authority as enacted for his people—that of ‘protection’ and ‘defense’. So often, especially in laments, it is the offensive, judgment act of Yhwh that is in focus.