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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
115:9-11 Let God's People Trust Him as Their Help and Shield. In response to the warning (v. 8), this section calls all the members of God's people (Israel, house of Aaron, you who fear the Lord; cf. 118:2-4) to trust in the Lord. The Lord alone is qualified to be their help and their shield (cf. 28:7; 33:20; Deut. 33:29).
115:10 The house of Aaron was the specific family within the tribe of Levi that supplied the priests (Ex. 28:1; Num. 16:8-11).
115:11 You who fear the Lord. By the time of the NT, Gentiles who adhered to the synagogue were called "God-fearers" (Acts 10:2; 13:16). Although the OT expected that Gentiles would come to "fear the Lord" (cf. 1 Kings 8:43), there is no evidence from either the OT or the Apocrypha (intertestamental books) that this term had taken on its specialized sense early enough for the psalm to use it. The term describes Israel as a community bound to the Lord by covenant, and perhaps especially designates those members with true piety. At the same time, the term is wide enough to include all who worship the Lord--even if they are neither from the house of Aaron nor from ethnic Israel--and once Gentiles in the Greco-Roman world began attending synagogue, they could see themselves addressed here.
