Psalm 121

A Song of Ascents

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

The psalmist asks and answers his own question in these two verses. As he looks around him on his journey, he looks up for help. Perhaps in the hills he saw the shrines to pagan gods. It was common to go to a high place to get closer to the divine, and so he noted that others were looking there for help. Perhaps in the hills he saw evidence of God’s eternal power. God was older than the hills for he formed them, and they remain unchanged generation after generation. The rivers could rage and fields flood and reshape the landscape, but mountains remain solid and secure. Perhaps he was looking above the hills to the One who reigns in the heavens and who stoops down to look on the earth. I’ve heard all three interpretations, and they all have merit. There are three places you can look for help outside yourself - other gods/worldviews, nature itself (the hills), or the God who made everything. This is the answer to the rhetorical question. Other gods and worldviews will always disappoint because they are not rooted in reality. Nature itself is strong and enduring, but it literally doesn’t care about you. This leaves the best option as YHWH himself, the creator God, the One who made the heavens and the earth. He is the ultimate source of help. Living in Meshech (Psalm 120), the psalmist recognizes that he is out of step with culture, living among warring people as a man of peace. In order to survive and thrive, he needs help, and so he looks around him and above him, considering his options, and finds YHWH, creator of everything, willing to step into his life and resource him. The remainder of the psalm is a description of the ways that YHWH provides help. 

3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

If the key repeated word in verses 1-2 is “help”, the key repeated words in these two verses are “slumber” and “keep. The One who keeps (watches over) Israel never sleeps. We’ve never known what it is like to live without sleep. Every creature on earth finds some way to sleep. Sleeping is necessary for life, giving the body the opportunity to repair and restore itself while using minimal energy. We will spend about one-third of our lives in this state. If I live to be ninety I will have spent 30 years sleeping. It seems like a waste of time, but of course, our lives are better for it. While we can’t imagine what it’s like to never sleep, this is exactly how God operates. He has never slept nor will he ever. He is eternally awake and present. This is in contrast to the pagan gods whom Elijah suggested might be asleep when they didn’t answer the prayers of their priests (1 Kings 18:27). You can go to sleep knowing that God is always watching over you. And during your waking hours, he’s preventing you from being shaken. “He will not let your foot be moved.” The word “move” is literally the word for carrying something with poles. It’s pretty hard to carry something with poles without it shaking in the process, hence the metaphor of a slipping or shaking foot. On your journey, God promises to watch over you in such a way that you will not slip and fall. All of the resources will be available to you if you will simply ask him for help. I take this promise to mean that your faith will not slip even when trials and tragedies come. Life is hard and obstacles will be thrown in your way. But God is always watching and strengthening you if you will receive his help. 

5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.

6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

For the third time in the psalm, YHWH is described as your “keeper”. This is a significant aspect of the help that he provides, the daily sustaining power to continue moving forward on your journey. He guards you from losing your faith. He protects you from discouragement. He is your shade on your right hand. The right hand was the hand of favor, the location of your best friend, “your right hand man”. YHWH is always there with shade, relief from the suns that beats down, refreshment and rest for your soul. For this reason, the sun will not harm you by day or the moon by night. It’s easy to see how the sun could harm by day the traveler who is making his way through the wilderness. Heat and thirst can be deadly. But how does YHWH protect you from the moon? A couple of explanations have been offered. First, the moon then and now is associated with lunacy in popular culture. In the nighttime our imaginations can run wild. As our visual senses are limited, our other senses kick in and we hear things amplified by our frantic brains and our fears become nightmares. Perhaps this is what YHWH protects us from -- knowing that he is watching over us, we can sleep peacefully without fear of things that “go bump in the night”. Second, the moon served as a night light, providing some measure of safety from attack, particularly when it was full. However, at the new moon, the only light came from the stars and a cloudy night could be pitch black. Even then, YHWH is awake and watching, so you can sleep securely. Many people struggle with anxiety by day and insomnia by night. Trusting in YHWH provides help with both. 

7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

It’s safe to say that the key word in this psalm is “keep”, occurring six times in eight verses. The name YHWH occurs five times as well, creating a kind of unity that is accented in these final two verses. There are three aspects of YHWH’s keeping in these two verses. First, He will keep you from all evil. I presume that this includes both external sources of evil that intend to harm you (perhaps even the “Evil One” as in the Lord’s prayer) as well as the evil that can come from within, our broken human hearts that left to themselves tend to self-destruction. The LORD will guard me from evil within and without. Second, he will keep your life, (literally, nephesh, soul). This word has a range of meaning, but its root is “throat.” It can mean “breath” or “inmost being” (Psalm 103:1.2). The promise here is that YHWH will save your soul, give you breath for as long as he wills and protect your soul from damage and destruction, ultimately and eternally. Finally, YHWH will keep “your going out” and “your coming in.” In other words, the LORD is watching over your daily activities constantly. The LORD is present in everything you do. Like Psalm 139 says, there is no escaping his presence. You can’t shake him, you can’t hide from him. This can bring us great comfort. But some may ask, where was God when…that drunk driver crossed the centerline? When that cancer grew inside of me without my knowledge? When my friend betrayed me? When I was an innocent child and was abused? Is God really with us? Does He really keep us from falling, from sunstroke, from nightmares and insomnia, from evil itself? The reality is that we may experience all of these things in this life, but God ultimately delivers us from them all and is ultimately with us through them all. If you doubt, just look to the cross. Jesus suffered with us. According to Psalm 22, YHWH looked away and appeared to slumber while Jesus suffered with us. We are never alone in our suffering. God knows and he will keep us through our suffering.