Psalm 121

Psalm 121 is one of the Songs of Degrees (Psalms 120 to 134), and like the others it belongs to the pilgrim road. It has two voices. In verses 1-2 the traveler speaks: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills”. From verse 3 another voice answers, perhaps a companion, a priest, or the traveler’s own faith, and speaks to him directly: “he that keepeth thee will not slumber.”

The first line is often misread, as if help came from the hills. In Hebrew the second half is a question: I lift my eyes to the hills; where does my help come from? The hills were where the road grew hardest and dangers hid, and some readers also think of the shrines to other gods on the high places. The answer comes at once, and it is not the hills: “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” The one to trust is the one who made the hills.

Then the psalm repeats one word. The Hebrew verb for keep sounds six times in the last six verses: the Lord will not let your foot slip, keeps Israel without sleeping, is your keeper and your shade, keeps you from all evil, and keeps your going out and your coming in. Sun and moon stand for the dangers of day and night: heatstroke on the open road, the cold and fear of the dark. Nothing on the journey falls outside His watch.

People pray Psalm 121 before a flight or a long drive, on moving day, when a son or daughter leaves for college or the military, and at the door in the morning. Some families read it together before every trip. It is a promise of being watched over, not a guarantee that every journey will go as planned: pilgrims sang it on roads they knew were dangerous. Its last line reaches beyond any single trip: “from this time forth, and even for evermore.”