Psalm 121:1-8 A Song of Ascents.
Today I’m going to depart from my normal approach and I’m going to go verse by verse and comment about this particular Psalm. Why? This short Psalm I believe lends itself to this approach and this particular Psalm was recently declared by a friend as “The most wonderful Psalm in the Bible”. Wow! What a statement. I’ll agree on the face it is pretty wonderful so I at least owe it to him to dig in and examine just how wonderful indeed. We’ll save the debate as to “Most” wonderful for another day. I also want to confess I’ll be consulting and using several commentaries to help me through the analysis.
Here we go …
(1) “I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come”?
Barnes notes that the expression of looking to the hills is a view toward where expected danger might come from with an equal wonder as to from where any aid might arrive.
(2) “My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth”.
This is a clear acknowledgement that any and all help I receive comes completely from God – The creator God who made heaven and earth by the power of His Word!
(3) “He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber”.
God is going to hold you up; keep you from slipping – as Barnes writes, He will keep you safe. And – He is always on guard. He’s not like those TV night watchmen that fall asleep and let the burglars sneak past; nothing get’s past God.
(4) “Behold, He who keeps Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep”.
Further assurance for the individual in the fact that God is in fact on guard for ALL of His People. Also a re-statement that our great God has the capacity to guard not only one of us without sleep nor slumber but ALL of us unceasingly
(5) “The LORD is your keeper; The LORD is your shade on your right hand”.
It is the Lord that preserves us – He defends us. Consider this in spiritual terms. Barnes notes that the phrase of shade on your right hand is the “Shadow” of something large and strong and being on the right indicates protection. So this is our big God casting a shadow of protection over us.
(6) ”The sun will not smite you by day, Nor the moon by night”.
This verse helps explain the previous regarding the shadow perhaps. The sun won’t be able to injure or “Smite” you. Barnes again notes that “’Sun Stroke’” was characterized as the burning of the brain” and God’s protection from verse 5 would not allow it. In addition there would be protection from the moon. What? Ever heard of a “Lunatic”. The word comes from “Lunacy” which is the disease of the moon. This dates back to mental illness that was blamed on the moon. Again thank you Mr. Barnes. So God will protect your health from disease by day and by night – at any and all times you will be protected.
(7) ”The LORD will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul”.
This is pretty clear – the Lord’s protection is from all evil and although the temporal protection is intimated in the Psalm it is clearly the spiritual protection that is of most significant importance. “The LORD will protect you from evil; He will keep your soul”.
(8) “The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in From this time forth and forever”.
The LORD will protect you coming and going from your home always. Essentially he’s saying that His protection goes with you everywhere and forever.
Now, that is in fact pretty wonderful after all. AMEN!
