I. (121:1–2) From Where Does My Help Come? The person on pilgrimage to Jerusalem will “lift up” his “eyes to the hills”—possibly as a place to be feared, or else to the hills around Jerusalem, (cf. 125:2)—and wonder, “From where does my help come?” The reply shows that the question, which originally applied to help to finish the journey, can be generalized to cover all the believer’s life. The “help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth,” and therefore no other power can hinder it.

Psalm 121:2 says that the Lord “made heaven and earth.” Biblical authors cite this idea, based on Genesis 2:4; Exodus 20:11, to stress that the God of Israel has universal and unbounded power (2 Kings 19:15; 2 Chron. 2:12; Neh. 9:6; Pss. 115:15; 124:8; 134:3; 146:6; Jer. 32:17; Acts 4:24; 14:15; 17:24; Rev. 14:7).

II. (121:3–8) The Lord Will Keep You at All Times. These verses are dominated by the word “keep” (Hb. shamar, “to keep, guard, watch over, attend to carefully”): the Lord who “keeps Israel” (the corporate entity; v. 4) also “keeps you” (the particular member; vv. 3, 5). This means that “he will not let your foot be moved” (i.e., slip as you walk; cf. 38:16; 66:9), nor will he let you suffer from the dangers of day and night.

When Psalm 121:7 speaks of “all evil” and verse 8 of “your going out and your coming in” (cf. Deut. 28:6), this signals that the psalm takes the safe journey to Jerusalem as a parable for all of one’s life. “The Lord is your keeper” at all times, and he “will neither slumber nor sleep” ever. Not only is God all-powerful (Ps. 121:2); he is ever-watchful (v. 4). This is the confidence the faithful are to enjoy, “from this time forth and forevermore.”

Some have seen the statement in verse 4 that the Lord “will neither slumber nor sleep” as contradictory to the prayers in other psalms that invite the Lord to “awake and rouse yourself” (e.g., 35:23; 44:23). For example, one scholar says, “These verses describe God as actually sleeping and should not be viewed simply as ‘vestiges of the ancient near eastern motif of the sleeping deity.’”726 But consideration of the Psalter’s purpose will show this reading to be misguided. The psalms are hymnody, which means, first, that they are poetic and vivid in their expression; the contradiction would require a determined literalism that does not suit a song. Second, the different kinds of song perform different functions. Psalm 121 is a song of confidence, and verse 4 gives the general reassurance of the Lord’s unceasing care in all life’s experiences; Psalms 35 and 44, meanwhile, are laments, whose task is to supply the faithful with words when the actual situation they face makes it look like the general doctrine is false—the very fact that they are sung in worship means they help the congregation to accept that the doctrine is still true and to ask that God make it visible.