My Refuge and My Fortress, Psalm 91:2 Wall Art

A citadel above the valley

The fortress fills the upper left of the picture: square towers with notched battlements, thick walls in warm sand tones and a single arched wooden gate. It sits on a crag of pale limestone softened by olive-green shrubs and a few dark cypresses. A narrow road with low retaining walls zigzags up the rock face to the door, the only way in.

To the right the ground drops into a wide valley where a river winds between blue ridges. Pink clouds drift across a gold evening sky, the sun is almost down, and an eagle with a white head glides above it all. The words are set over the scene: “He is my refuge and my fortress.” with Psalm 91:2 in smaller type.

What does Psalm 91:2 mean?

The full line opens with “I will say of the LORD” and, after the printed words, closes with a short personal pledge to trust the God it has just named. The psalm begins by describing, in the third person, whoever lives in the shelter of the Most High. In verse 2 the voice switches to “I”, as if the reader has decided to step inside.

The two nouns are not the same thing. A refuge is somewhere you run to in a storm or a raid, a cave or a cleft in the rock. A fortress is built, walled and held. The Hebrew word for fortress, metsudah, is the root of Masada, the rock stronghold above the Dead Sea, so the psalm's first listeners would have pictured exactly this kind of height.

The rest of the psalm widens the image: God covers the believer with his feathers like a bird over its young, and angels keep them in all their ways. Many people know it as the Soldier's Psalm, printed on pocket cards for men and women in uniform, and it is also prayed in Compline, the Church's night prayer before sleep.

Where to hang it, and for whom

This is one of the few verse prints with no human figure at all, which suits a study, a man's office or a den. It is often given to a father, a veteran, a first responder, or a young man leaving home for the first time.

It is also chosen in times of loss, for families who need a picture of solid ground, and some parents give it at a baptism as a prayer that the child will always have a stronghold.