Set Free from the Hunter's Snare

Praying during the Lenten season with the Liturgy of the Hours (the Catholic version of The Book of Common Prayer) you frequently encounter this Antiphon and Responsory:

God himself will me free from the hunter's snare.

The image comes from places like Psalm 124:

“If the Lord had not been on our side”—
let Israel say this!—

if the Lord had not been on our side,
when men attacked us,

they would have swallowed us alive,
when their anger raged against us.

The water would have overpowered us;
the current would have overwhelmed us.

The raging water
would have overwhelmed us.

The Lord deserves praise,
for he did not hand us over as prey to their teeth.

We escaped with our lives, like a bird from a hunter’s snare.
The snare broke, and we escaped.

Our deliverer is the Lord,
the Creator of heaven and earth.

This is wonderful Christus Victor imagery for the Lenten season. Salvation here isn't about avoiding the punishment of a wrathful God. Our saving God is, rather, wholly benevolent and kind, the One who finds us terrified, helpless and trapped in the hunter's snare. Salvation is God untangling us and setting us free. Emancipation. Liberation.

Set free from the hunter's snare.

(BTW. you need a hunter for this image to work. So if you don't know who the hunter is, may I suggest a book to read?)