Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Psalms · About this commentary
I Lift Up My Eyes to the Hills
Psalms 121:1-8
1 A Song of Ascents. I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? · WEB
A traveler looks at the hill country ahead and asks a question that is not rhetorical.
I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? Psalms 121:1.
The verse is usually read as though the hills were the answer. They are not; they are the problem. A pilgrim on the road to Jerusalem is looking at high country he has to cross — bandit territory, with shrines to other gods on the tops — and asking where help is going to come from.
My help comes from Yahweh, who made heaven and earth Psalms 121:2.
The answer is given in the next line and it is deliberately larger than the hills. Not the God of a particular high place but the one who made the whole arrangement.
He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber Psalms 121:3.
The pronoun changes here from my to your, and stays there. Someone else is now speaking — a companion on the road, or a blessing pronounced at the gate as pilgrims set out.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep Psalms 121:4.
Stated twice for emphasis, and the reference is unavoidable: on Carmel, the prophets of Baal were told their god might be asleep 1 Kings 18:27. Israel's keeper does not have that failing, and a traveler sleeping rough at night is exactly the person who needs to know it.
Yahweh is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night Psalms 121:5–6.
Shade is the traveler's one need in that climate. The moon's harm belonged to the beliefs of the age about night air and madness, and the psalm simply covers both hours without arguing about the mechanism.
The word keep occurs six times in eight verses. It is the psalm's whole subject.
Yahweh will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and forever more Psalms 121:8.
The last verse covers the outward journey and the return, which is what a pilgrim wanted to hear — and then extends past both.
settled What this mark means