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Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the mountains:
from where shall come my help?
My help shall come from the Lord
who made heaven and earth.

May he never allow you to stumble!
Let him sleep not, your guard.
No, he sleeps not nor slumbers,
Israel’s guard.

The Lord is your guard and your shade;
at your right hand he stands.
By day the sun shall not smite you
nor the moon in the night.

The Lord will guard you from evil,
he will guard your soul.
The Lord will guard your going and coming
both now and for ever.

Commentary

This song, of unknown authorship, belongs to a group of psalms called the Songs of Ascent, or in popular language, the Book of Pilgrim Songs, which include Psalms 120-134. It is a prayer of quiet assurance of God’s love, and trust in Him, by a pilgrim setting out on a perilous journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the Lord’s festival.


I lift up my eyes to the mountains:
from where shall come my help?
My help shall come from the Lord
who made heaven and earth.

May he never allow you to stumble!
Let him sleep not, your guard.
No, he sleeps not nor slumbers,
Israel’s guard.

The Lord is your guard and your shade;
at your right hand he stands.
By day the sun shall not smite you
nor the moon in the night.

The Lord will guard you from evil,
he will guard your soul.
The Lord will guard your going and coming
both now and for ever.
                                            (vv. 1-8).

Setting out on this perilous journey through the mountains which were the domain of robbers, wild beasts and unknown terrors, the pilgrim looks about and anxiously enquires where he can look for help in the dread and insecurity that he will experience on the way. Suddenly he looks beyond the hills to the heavens and realizes that his beloved maker and master is Lord of the universe. It is the Lord Himself who is his security. The only person who can really help is He who transcends everything, the One who is over all yet within all. The mighty God thinks it is not beneath Him to reach down from Heaven to help His child in need. This knowledge releases all anxiety and doubt, so that the pilgrim can continue his journey joyfully and trustingly (vv. 1-2).

This poem reads like a dialogue between the pilgrim and perhaps his wife, who is staying at home, expressing her anxiety that nothing will happen to him on the trip. But the anxiety is immediately replaced by loving confidence in God who keeps eternal vigil over His children, and especially over His chosen people. Beyond this simple affirmation of faith is the wonderful thought that the creator-God is neither dormant nor passive towards His creatures. He is a living God who maintains a living relationship with His children, which has here-and –now practical results in our lives. Reflection on the history of Israel affirms that God, the good shepherd, really cares for His flock in a practical way. The lovely part of it is that this pilgrim knows how to reach out to this loving God and claim for himself the protection that he knows that God gives to the nation as a whole (vv. 3-4).

At last we reach the full assurance of triumphant faith. The statements are all positive now. There is no anxiety or doubt left. The Lord protects you and shades you from the terrible heat of the sun. He is there at your right hand in all situations and decision-making, so that no harm will come to you, day or night. The mention of the moon as a problem indicates a popular belief at the time that it was the source of some illnesses. God’s presence with the pilgrim was his protection from known and unknown dangers. With God on his side everything would turn out for the good (see Romans 8:31) (vv. 5-6).

Here the psalm breaks out from its concentration on the individual and the immediate to cover the whole of existence. God’s protection does not guarantee us a cushioned, carefree existence, but a well-armed one. Compare this with Psalm 23:4, which tells us that in going through the dark valley we are protected by God. In neither case are we told that God brings us by a route that has no dangers. As we read in John 17, we are not taken from the world as it is, but we are protected from the Evil One, and from all danger, when we allow God to be our protector. The encouraging promise here is that the Lord does protect your life. This is a many-sided reality, which includes both your physical life, but more importantly the inner life of the soul. Jesus clarified this promise when He said that not a hair of your head would perish (see Luke 21:18); He gave this assurance for the time of persecution, when we would need it most.

God’s protection covers not only the journeys we make in life, but more importantly the journey of life itself. In our perilous pilgrimage through life to find the Promised Land, or the place of rest in God, we face many known and unknown dangers. Some originate within ourselves, some from without, but God is with us all the way, so we have nothing to fear, for we shall reach our journey’s end safely in the New Jerusalem, where we shall celebrate the Lord’s festival for ever. Jesus promised to be with us on all the days that were coming, even to the very end (see Matthew 28:20), not only for the individual, but also for the Church on her pilgrim journey through history. The Lord is with her, and the gates of Hell will never prevail, even though the Church will have to go through many dark valleys before that great day of her reunion with her bridegroom, and the final Messianic banquet in heaven.

Whether for the individual or the Church as a whole, our greatest joy, and our greatest boast, is that the Lord is with us all the way, not because we deserve such a privilege, but because of His great loving-kindness.

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