The Release Of The Caged Bird
The Release Of The Caged Bird
Psalm 124:6-8
6Blessed be the LORD,
who did not let their teeth tear us apart!
7We escaped like a bird from a hunter’s trap.
The trap is broken, and we are free!
8Our help is from the LORD,
who made the heavens and the earth.
In the British Museum there’s a piece of stone with an ancient message that dates back to 691 B.C. Sennacherib’s Prism tells how he captured forty-six towns of the tiny nation of Judah and trapped their king in the capital city “like a bird in a cage.”
But the prism doesn’t tell the rest of the story. Yes, the Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem, and King Hezekiah was caged like a bird. But then Hezekiah prayed.
The Bible says that the angel of the Lord came and decimated the Assyrian army. The Greek historian Herodotus reports that a plague of field mice gnawed the bowstrings of the Assyrian soldiers. Other historians say that the field mice may have done more than gnaw bowstrings; they may have started a bubonic plague among the soldiers. Still others say an insurrection arose against Sennacherib, forcing him to withdraw. Whatever the actions of the “angel of the Lord” were, the Assyrian troops were gone by morning, and the “caged bird” could sing again.
Often David was surrounded by enemy forces as well, and God made a way of escape for him. That’s why he could sing, “We escaped like a bird from a hunter’s trap. The trap is broken, and we are free!” (verse 7).
That’s a song you should be able to sing, too. The Bible tells us that it is only by God’s mercy that we could “escape from the Devil’s trap” (2 Timothy 2:26).
He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood availed for me.
CHARLES WESLEY
Bible Networking
Hezekiah was also trapped like a caged bird (see verse 7) under the onslaught of Sennacherib. Read 2 Kings 19:19, 35-36 to see how God set that bird free.
Notable Quotable
“All the help of Omnipotence is pledged on the side of the weakest of the saints. Lean back upon it and be strong.”
F. B. MEYER
From the book
