Under The Wings Of The Almighty

by T.W. Fullerton, Melbourne | Category: General | Aug 1971

We frequently find in the Scriptures the thought of taking refuge under the wings of the Almighty. How comforting to the people of God to have such a place to which they may resort in times of danger, stress and trouble. As the hen gathers her chickens under her wings so the Lord will gather His people and spread His protecting wings over them.

Alas, Israel ceased to avail themselves of the protection He offered them (Matt. 23:37). They sought other places of comfort and refuge, all of which failed them. They forgot how Jehovah sheltered them from judgement in Egypt and became their Saviour by spreading His wings over them when the destroyer passed through the land.

The story of the Passover is frequently and very properly used to illustrate the Gospel. The thought of the firstborn being sheltered beneath His wings is a truth brought before the writer many years ago and it has been exceedingly precious to him. Sometimes when using Exodus 12 to illustrate the Gospel the underlying lesson in that passage is overlooked. We quote here the words of a servant of Christ now departed to be with Him:

We all know the story, do we not? Well, we think we do - how God passed through the land in judgement, and how when He came to the blood-sprinkled door He passed over, instead of entering in to slay the firstborn. But what if we should find that this is not at all what the record teaches?

The verb, pasach, which occurs three times in Exodus 12, is used in three other passages of Scripture, namely, 2 Samuel 4:4; 1 Kings 18:21,26; and Isaiah 31:5. A careful study of these passages will confirm a first impression that the meaning usually given to the word is really foreign to it.

In Samuel 4:4 it is translated, "became lame", a rendering which its use in 1 Kings 18:26 may serve to explain. We read there that the prophets of Baal leaped about their altar. Their action was not, as has been grotesquely suggested "a religious dance"; it betokened the physical paroxysms of demon-possessed men. Having worked themselves into a state of religious frenzy they leaped up and down, round the altar.

The meaning of the word in the twenty-first verse may seem wholly apart from both these uses; but it is not so. "How long halt ye between two opinions?" The word "halt" is here used not in the sense of stopping dead, like a soldier at the word of command, but of hesitating to take the decisive step to the one side or the other. If the verb pasach meant to "pass over", it would express precisely what the prophet called upon the people to do, and what they ought to have done, but would not do. But a careful study of its use in the passage cited - going lame, halting, leaping - will show that the essential thought is the kind of action implied a bird fluttering over a nest would exactly illustrate it.

And now with the help of the clue thus gained, the last of these passages will shed a flood of new light on the Exodus story. "As birds flying, so will the LORD of Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will protect and deliver it, He will pass over and preserve it" (Isaiah 31:5). How does a mother bird - the word is in the feminine - protect her nest? Is it by passing over it in the sense of passing it by? Deut. 32:11 describes the Eagle "fluttering over her young". Though the word here used is different, the thought is identical. As a bird protects her nest, so does God preserve His people. He hides them under the shadow of His wings, "the wings of the Almighty". And thus it was that He preserved them on that awful night when the destroyer was abroad in the land of Egypt.

What is done by God's command, He is said to do Himself. Hence the language of Exodus 12:23 "the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians". But the words that follow make it clear that it was not the LORD Himself who executed the judgement - words indeed could not be clearer: "And when He seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you". The highest thought suggested by the conventional reading of the passage, is that He spared them; the truth is that He stood on guard, as it were, at every blood-sprinkled door. He became their saviour. Nothing short of this is the meaning of the Passover.

Israel learned to sing, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; and He is become my salvation" (Exod. 15:2; Isaiah 12:2). (Sir Robert Anderson)

"How calm the judgement hour shall pass

To all who do obey

The word of God, and trust the blood

And make that word their stay!"

T.W. Fullerton, Melbourne | Aug 1971
General