The Name

"Now I know that the Lord saveth His anointed;
he will hear him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.
"Some trust in chariots, some in horses,
but we will remember the name of the Lord our God."
Psalms 20:6-7

I was stopped when I read this again (for the 100th time!) I like it a ton, but it finally hit me: the psalmist is not comparing the strength and might of the Lord God with the strength and might of the tools of this world. He is comparing the NAME of the Lord with the tools of this world.

“We will remember the NAME of the Lord,..”

Just the mere mention of God’s name should stop chariots and horses. Trust, confidence and that overwhelming sense of victory should arise at the slightest reference to that name. For the author of this psalm anyway, he had a reckless confidence in just the name of God.

I imagine him on a battlefield with the enemy bearing down with all of their war machines; arrows in hand with the bows stretching taunt, horses frothing and breathing in step with their pounding hooves. Trumpets blasting the sound of the charge barely drown out the din of war elephants sounding the alarm. Chanting from the foot soldiers adds to the calamity.

Then, this one guy, a poet-warrior leaning on a rock watching all of this effort straightens himself and says “Jehova.”

The animals all stop instantly. The war elephants settle and the charging horses slow to a trot and stop. The archers look back and forth at each other and loosen their bows. Generals look at the animals in total confusion, then their eyes drift across the field to this lone warrior-poet-king.

The pagan priest, knife in hand over a lamb, stops cold to see what the newly awkward silence is. He looks over his shoulder away from his false altar. All that can be heard is the bleating of the lamb.

That is the name of the Lord.