S25E1024 - Refuge, Not Rescue

Psalm 46:1-2 (NRSV)

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea.

Psalm 46 was likely written for a nation under siege—some scholars connect it to the night Jerusalem woke up to find an invading army gone, the threat dissolved overnight with no explanation the city had engineered for itself. The Hebrew word for refuge here is machaseh (mah-khah-SEH), a shelter, a place you flee to when there's nowhere else to go. Fo...