Psalms 91:6 [Nor] for the pestilence [that] walketh in darkness; [nor] for the destruction [that] wasteth at noonday.
Ver. 6. Nor for the pestilence] Called before terror, and arrow, as some conceive, Hippocrates calleth it το θειον, the divine disease, because sent more immediately from God, as an evil messenger. Not but that a good man may die of the plague, as did Oecolampadius, and many others; Hezekiah is thought to have had it, so had reverend Beza (his family was four different times visited herewith), who was much comforted under that and other heavy afflictions by this sweet psalm, which, therefore, he hugged and held most dear all the days of his life, as himself witnesseth in his argument and use of this psalm.
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday] For the noonday devil (so the Vulgate rendereth it after the Septuagint), as, for pestilence walking in darkness, one old English manuscript hath goblin. The Chaldee here expounds it, the company of devils. As in the next verse, "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand," &c. R Solomon expoundeth, A thousand devils shall pitch their tents on thy right hand and on thy left; but shall not hurt thee, because the good angels shall guard thee against them. But it is better to understand all (as before) of the pestilence, though I doubt not but the devil, that old man slayer, hath a hand in this and other common calamities, yet not without the Lord's overruling power limiting him.