Psalm 91:4-6 - Not Harry Potter, but Jesus who kills the basilisk

AELW 11:218

4. He will overshadow you [he will teach you faith] with His pinions [teachers]; and under His wings you will trust [in both testaments you will be nourished through hope.(Luther - His truth will encompass you with a shield.)

5–6. You will not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day nor the trouble that stalks in darkness nor the invasion nor the noonday devil.

For all who do not confess Christ or who deny Him are liars, as Ps. 27:12 says: "Iniquity has lied against itself";²⁰ and Ps. 18:44: "Children that are strangers have lied to Me," that is, "They deny Me and My truth, and they do this because they love vanity." And so this lie is truly the pestilence or business that stalks in darkness. If they had only set up their own idea, they would then only be vain and have the arrow flying by day and would put away the truth of Christ undenied; they would not yet be liars, but wavering and careless. But now they deny and contradict and attempt to teach that it is a lie. Therefore they become liars in this very thing. And by this lie they all corrupt themselves. This is truly the basilisk that kills merely by its look.²¹ For the nighttime fear and the love of vanity and the teaching about it does not yet kill, although it makes people sick. Affirming a lie, however, kills immediately.

Psalm 91:3 - The worm of conscience

AELW page 213

 

Psalm 91, Verse 3

3. For he will deliver me from the snare of the hunters.

 

 

"...there is nothing to hinder understanding this text as referring to the enticers who through allurements hunt souls into their snare (that is, sin) [hence the apostle calls riches a snare of the devil, 1 Tim. 6:9.],⁹ and so they come into a sharp word, that is, the worm of conscience, which always bothers and bites the soul and makes it unhappy, so that remorse and unhappiness are truly present in it. Every bad conscience constantly hears this hard word. But it is the one which has fallen into the snare of sin that hears it; if it had not fallen, it would not hear it. Yet from this it is delivered by Christ alone."