Daily Manna · Day 239 · August 27
Compassed with Favour
“For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.”
Fear tends to come from the direction you were not watching. You covered the front, and it came round the side, through a phone call or through something somebody said in passing.
The picture in this verse answers exactly that, and it depends on which shield is meant. Hebrew has two words for a shield. One is the small round shield strapped to the arm, which covers whatever you point it at and leaves the rest of you open. The word here is the other one, the large shield a soldier could stand behind completely. And the verb is "compass," which means to surround: "with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield." God does not hold His favour out in front of you. It goes all the way around you, closing every angle, so there is no side left open.
Notice who is being described: "For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous." This is no lucky charm. The psalm has spent eleven verses showing the difference between two kinds of people, those who rebel against God and those who put their trust in Him.
So take the promise in its own shape. It never claims nothing will be thrown at you, because David wrote it while men were plotting against him. It says you have no unguarded side. What surrounds you is not a tool you must aim in time. It is God's favour, and His favour has no blind spot.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 239 is Train Up a Child (Proverbs 22:6).