Daily Manna · Day 239 · August 27
Compassed with Favor
“For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.”
Fear tends to arrive from the direction you were not watching. You covered the front and it came round the side, through the phone, through a sentence somebody said in passing.
The picture in the verse answers exactly that, and it turns on which shield is meant. Hebrew has two words. One is the small round buckler 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 full body shield a soldier stood behind entirely. And the verb is compass: with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. Not held out in front. Around him, closing the angles, so that there is no side to come at.
Read who is being described. For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous. This is not a charm and it is not luck holding out; the psalm has spent eleven verses distinguishing two kinds of people.
So take the promise in its own shape. It never claims nothing will be thrown at you, and it was written by a man being plotted against. It says there is no unguarded side, because what surrounds you is not a device you have to aim in time. It is favour, and 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).