Psalm 91 gives us strength. It shows how the Lord is with us, lifting us up, restoring us, and blessing us when we have made Him our dwelling place, and given Him our whole trust. Every verse outlines how strongly and surely the Lord defends and upholds us, no matter what we encounter or what we are required to go through.

There are vivid images: the Lord covers us with the feathers of His wings. His truth is our shield and buckler so that we need fear nothing. The Lord gives His angels charge over us, to keep us in all our ways, to bear us up lest we dash our foot against a stone.

This psalm also shows us the inner mind and state of Jesus in His life on earth. It points out particularly the times of the Lord's absolute confidence that He was God, and that His divine nature would protect Him in temptations. He could trust that all outcomes would be victorious, even when in deep anguish and conflict. (See Arcana Caelestia 2288.)

On a smaller scale, it's the same for us. We have our changing states -- our influences from heaven and from hell which lift us or oppress us. This psalm is a good one to read when we are down, but it also expresses our confidence in the Lord's power to bring us out of the "valley of despond". It reminds us, during a spiritual crisis, that the Lord has pulled us through before, and the He will do so again. (See Arcana Caelestia 5280.)

In Verse 4 the imagery is of feathers and wings. This is reminiscent of a bird hatching and sitting on its brood. Spiritually, it shows us the protective nature of all spiritual truth. Feathers are made of firmly-hooked filaments, and a feathered wing keeps dry when water (here representing falsity) lands on it. This image also evokes the Lord's love covering us and His providence over everything. (See Arcana Caelestia 8764[6])

The great theme in this psalm is the "equation" that no evil will have power over us because we have made the Lord our dwelling place. To know this, to feel this, to assert this, and to think about this is always restorative. It is the ultimate answer to all doubt and trial, to come into the presence of God in ourselves. This principle is attested in almost every phrase of this psalm. (See Apocalypse Revealed 883)

In Verse 1 the imagery is of the angels who have charge over us. Angels truly are with us, and they work with us for our spiritual wellbeing. They also represent the truths from the Word which are in our mind and heart, 'to keep you in all your ways'. The lion and the cobra stand for fierce and sudden attacks from evil spirits which aim to bring us down. The Word's truths will render them harmless. (See Heaven and Hell 391)

Note that the end of the psalm mentions the assurance of 'a long life'. This is not in terms of age or years but in dwelling in the Lord, and in the permanence, the eternity, of this.

8995. 'If she is bad in the eyes of her master' means if the affection for truth springing from natural delight is not in agreement with spiritual truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'female slave', to whom the word 'bad' refers, as an affection springing from natural delight, dealt with in 8993, 8994, and from the meaning of 'bad', when it refers to that affection and its relationship with spiritual truth, as being not in agreement with, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'in the eyes of' as in the perception of, dealt with in 2789, 2829, 4083, 4339; and from the meaning of 'master' as spiritual truth, dealt with in 8981.

[2] The implications of all this must be stated. 'A female slave' is an affection for truth springing from the delights that belong to self-love and love of the world, as stated above in 8993, 8994; and this affection is able to be joined to spiritual truth. This may be recognized from the consideration that an affection for spiritual truth is an internal affection or one that resides in the internal man, whereas an affection for truth springing from natural delight resides in the external man. The internal affection that belongs to the spiritual man is joined unceasingly to the external affection that belongs to the natural man, yet in such a way that the internal affection for truth acts as master and the external affection as slave. For it is in keeping with Divine order that the spiritual man should be master over the natural man, 8961, 8967. When the spiritual man is master the person is looking upwards; this is represented by having the head in heaven. But when the natural man is master the person is looking downwards, which is represented by having the head in hell.

[3] To make this transparently clear something more must be stated. By the truths they learn and the good deeds they perform most people hope to acquire some gain from their country, or some important position. If these are regarded as the end in view, the natural man is the master and the spiritual man the slave. But if they are regarded not as the end, only as the means to the end, the spiritual man is the master and the natural man the slave, as accords exactly with the things stated in 7819, 7820. For when people consider gain or position as the means to an end and not the end itself, they are not considering gain or position but the end, which is useful service. A person for example who desires wealth, and acquires it for the sake of useful service which he loves above all things, does not delight in wealth for its own sake; he delights in it for the sake of useful service. The spirit of useful service itself constitutes spiritual life in a person, and the wealth merely serves him as means, see 6933-6938. From this one may also see what the natural man must be like if it is to be joined to the spiritual - it must regard gain and important positions, that is, wealth and eminence, as the means and not the end. What a person regards as the end constitutes the actual life within him, since he loves it more than all things. For what a person loves, that is his end in view.

[4] Anyone who does not know that a person's end in view, or what amounts to the same thing, his love, constitutes the person's spiritual life, consequently that a person is where his love is - in heaven if that love is heavenly, in hell if it is hellish - cannot grasp the situation in these matters. He may suppose that the delight belonging to natural kinds of love - self-love and love of the world - cannot be in agreement with spiritual truth and good. He may suppose this because he does not know that when a person is being regenerated he must be turned upside down, and that when he has been turned upside down he is positioned with his head in heaven, whereas before being turned upside down he was positioned with his head in hell. He was positioned with it in hell when he had the delights of self-love or love of the world as his end in view; but he is positioned with his head in heaven when he has those delights as the means to his end. For the person's end or love, and this alone, has life. The means to the end however have no life of their own but receive life from the end; therefore the means in relation to the final end are called intermediate ends, which have life in the measure that they look to the final end, which is the chief one. So it is that, when a person has been regenerated, consequently when he has loving the neighbour and loving the Lord as his end, he has loving self and the world as the means. When a person is like this, when he looks to the Lord, he rates himself and also the world as nothing. If he does rate himself as something, it is in order that he may be able to serve the Lord. Before this however his attitude had been the opposite. Then he had been full of self-regard and had rated the Lord as nothing; or if had rated Him as something, it had been in order that gain or position might consequently come his way.

[5] All this makes clear the nature of the arcanum concealed in these regulations regarding female slaves from among the daughters of Israel, that is to say, the regulations that although they were slaves they were, if 'good', betrothed to their master who had bought them, or to his son; but if they were 'bad' they were not betrothed but either redeemed or sold, according to the contents of these verses. Betrothing even female slaves, or having them as concubines, was permitted in the representative Church, particularly in the Jewish and Israelite, because a wife represented the affection for spiritual truth, whereas a female slave represented the affection for natural truth, so that a wife represented the internal aspect of the Church with a person, but a female slave the external aspect. The latter was represented by Hagar who was betrothed to Abraham, and also by the two female slaves betrothed to Jacob.

[6] All this now shows what is meant in the internal representative sense by the regulation that 'if she is bad' a female slave cannot be betrothed. That is to say, 'if she is bad' means if the affection springing from natural delight - 'a female slave' - is not in agreement with the spiritual man. This lack of agreement is brought about primarily because that affection wishes to be the master and is of a disposition and mind that cannot be bent towards a love of the Lord. Furthermore the agreement or disagreement of the affection springing from natural delight with the spiritual is determined by the essential nature of them both; but a division of them into their numerous categories would be too long and tedious. A female slave or servant-girl may also mean an affirmative means that serves to join together the external man and the internal man, see 3913, 3917, 3931.