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Psalm 91 · a question people ask

Psalm 91 has no title. Who wrote it, and who is speaking?

In the text

The psalm has no title, so it names no writer, and no New Testament verse names one: where the Gospels give its words, they come after "for it is written" (Matthew 4:6, Luke 4:10). These notes don't name a writer either. What the psalm does show is its voices. One voice says I: "I will say of the LORD" (91:2). Then the psalm speaks to you: "For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler" (91:3), and "Because you have made the LORD your refuge" (91:9). It doesn't say who the you is. In the last three verses the voice changes again, and the WEB puts them in quotation marks. The one speaking says, "he has known my name" (91:14), "He will call on me, and I will answer him" (91:15), and "show him my salvation" (91:16): the one who is called on and answers is God.

The verses

“I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.” For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence.”
Psalm 91:2-3 · World English Bible
“Because you have made the LORD your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place,”
Psalm 91:9 · World English Bible
““Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him. I will satisfy him with long life, and show him my salvation.””
Psalm 91:14-16 · World English Bible
“and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you don’t dash your foot against a stone.’””
Matthew 4:6 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 91

Psalm 91: The shadow of the Almighty

Psalm 91 names God four ways in its first two verses, says deliver three times with three different Hebrew verbs (91:3, 91:14, 91:15), and ends with God himself speaking. Its lines about angels (91:11-12) are quoted in the Gospels by the devil, to Jesus, who answered, "You shall not test the Lord, your God" (Matthew 4:7).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions