Morning Repost- Psalm 121: 1 A Song of degrees. I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help. 2 My help comes from Yahweh, which made heaven and earth. 3 He will not suffer your foot to be moved: He that keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 5 Yahweh is your keeper: Yahweh is your shade upon your right hand. 6 The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 Yahweh shall preserve you from all evil: He shall preserve your soul. 8 Yahweh shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.
“‘A Song of degrees,’ or of ascensions, in singing whereof there should be ascensions in our hearts. See Psalms 120:1.” (Trapp) It is “a song befitting the heart which believes and loves, on its way to the eternal Zion… Shall we describe the Psalm in few and simple words? It is the soul’s look, out from itself, and up to its all-sufficient God, under a sense of complete need, and with the prospect of a complete supply.” (C. J. Ellicott)
“The pilgrims' even-song as they caught the first sight of the hills (Psalms 121:1) round Jerusalem.” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown)—> “‘I will lift up my eyes to the hills,’ not to your mountains, human helps and carnal combinations, Jeremiah 3:23, much less to those mountains, wherein the heathens set and serve their idols, Deuteronomy 12:2, but to Zion and Moriah, where God’s sanctuary is.” (John Trapp)—“’from whence cometh my help.’ (1) See no riches but in grace, no health but in piety, no beauty but in holiness, no treasure but in heaven, no delight but in ‘the things above.’” (Anthony Farindon) “I require to remember that my, help cometh from the Lord, not only when seemingly there is no outward help from men or otherwise, but also and especially when all seems to go well with me,—when abundance of friends and help are at hand. For then, surely, I am most in danger of making an arm of flesh my trust, and thus reaping its curse; or else of saying to my soul, ‘Take thine ease,’ and finding the destruction which attends such folly.” (Alfred Edersheim)
“‘My help comes from Yahweh, which made heaven and earth.’ (2) And will rather unmake both again.” (John Trapp) Who is this? “There came a time when this earth was created in its present order. Sun, moon, and stars,-sea, land, and all their inhabitants, were called into being, and made out of chaos and confusion. And, last of all, man was formed out of the dust of the ground.And where was Christ then? Hear what the Scripture says: ‘All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.’ (John 1:3.) ‘By Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth.’ (Colos. 1:16.) ‘And Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands.’ (Heb. 1:10.) ‘When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon the face of the depth: when He established the clouds above: when He strengthened the foundations of the deep: when He gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment: when He appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him.’ (Prov. 8:27-30.) Can we wonder that the Lord Jesus, in His preaching, should continually draw lessons from the book of nature? When He spoke of the sheep, the fish, the ravens, the corn, the lilies, the fig-tree, the vine,-He spoke of things which He Himself had made.” (J. C. Ryle)
“‘He will not suffer your foot to be moved,’ if employed in duty to Him! “A man cannot ‘go’ without moving of his feet… The foot by a synechdoche is put for the whole body, and the body for the whole outward estate; so that, ‘He will not suffer thy foot to be moved,’ is, he will not suffer thee or thine to be moved or violently cast down.” (Joseph Caryl) “And the sliding of the foot is a frequent description of misfortune, for example, Psalm 38:16, Psalm 66:9, and a very natural one in mountainous Canaan, where a single slip of the foot was often attended with great danger. The language here naturally refers to complete, lasting [eternal] misfortune.” (E. W. Hengstenberg)— “‘He that keeps you will not slumber.’ (3) “The Hebrew negative [ 'al (Hebrew #408)] is here subjective, expressing the hope of the speaker-`I trust He will not suffer thy foot to be moved, (and that) He that keepeth thee will not slumber.’” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown)
“Behold,' faith arises- 'He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.’ (4) There is an allusion to Jacob, who slept at Bethel, and to whom the promise of God took this form, ‘And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou guest:’ Gen 28:15.” (Aben Ezra) “The Hebrew negative [lo' (Hebrew #3808)] is here different from that in Psalms 121:3, and is objective, asserting as a fact about to be manifested before the world (what in Psalms 121:3 was a hope) that ‘He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.’” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown)
“’Yahweh is your keeper: Yahweh is your shade upon your right hand.’ (5) That is, always present with thee; or, as the Jewish Arab renders it, ‘Nigher than thy shadow at, or from thy right hand.’” (Thomas Benton) “The right hand is the working hand; let them but turn to their duty, and they shall find God ready to give them success.” (Matthew Henry)
“Look away to Jesus, Look away from all! Then we need not stumble, Then we shall not fall. From each snare that lures, Foe or phantom grim. Safety this ensures, Look away to Him!” (Frances Ridley Havergal ) Jesus is Lord of all the earth. “His is a sleepless vigilance, as the history of Israel abundantly shows. The assurance of the believers is therefore expressed in a series of positive statements setting forth the fatherly care of their Lord.” (Paul E. Kretzmann) “His seven eyes [Zechariah 3:9] are ever open, yea, they run to and fro through the whole earth, Zechariah 4:10…” (John Trapp) as the Shepherd of Israel. “He says of Himself to the Father, ‘Those that Thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the Son of Perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.’…From what has been premised, it seems evident, that the keeper of the faithful is no other than Jesus. This the Psalmist has proved.” (Ambrose Serle)
“‘The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.’ (6) No time shall be hurtful, neither ‘day nor night,’ which includes all times.” (Joseph Caryl) “The Lord was his shadow, even as a broad banana tree, to defend him from the solar heat, or shelter him from the lunar cold, and the damps of night. By these extremes, the strength of armies is more wasted than by the sword. Such is the throne of grace to the saints. The sun shall not alight upon them, nor any heat, for the Lord is as the shadow of a great rock in a weary wilderness.” (Joseph Sutcliffe) “He sheweth that God’s providence not only watcheth over His church in general; but also over every member thereof." (Thomas Scott)
“Yahweh shall preserve you from all evil: He shall preserve your soul.’ (7) From the hurtful influences of nature that are round about him the promise extends in Psalms 121:7-8 in every direction. Jahve, says the poet to himself, will keep (guard) thee against all evil, of whatever kind it may be and whencesoever it may threaten; He will keep thy soul, and therefore thy life both inwardly and outwardly.” (Keil & Delitzsch) “It is apparent that while the psalm speaks of such blanket protection, the pilgrim must understand that everything that invades his or her life is under God’s watchful care and providence. The spirit of the psalm is to evoke trust in Yahweh, the Keeper of the pilgrim, and the Keeper of Israel, the Maker of heaven and earth. Often things that happen in the life of the pilgrim would not be his or her choice. But the psalm is not pointing in this direction. The direction is upward, toward God.” (David G. Barker)
Yahweh shall preserve your going out and your coming in (spiritually to Zion) from this time forth, and even forevermore.’ (8) “He has not led me so tenderly thus far to forsake me at the very gate of heaven.” (Adoniram Judson) Ultimately, “he looked to the last ‘going out,’ our exodus from earth, [Luke 9:31;, 2 Peter 1:15] or to that abundant entrance [2 Peter 1:11] into the true home which crowns the pilgrimage here; we cannot but read into his indefinite words their largest meaning, and rejoice that we have One who ’is able to keep that which we have committed to Him against that day.’” (Expositor's Bible Commentary)