575_The Lord our keeper (Psalm 121) Psalm 121 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. There is an old Eastern tale of a poor woman who went before the Sultan to seek justice. A thief had entered her humble home and taken what little she owned. When the Sultan asked how such a thing had happened, she answered honestly, “I fell asleep.” Surprised, the Sultan pressed further, “And why did you fall asleep?” Her reply was simple, yet startling: “I fell asleep because I believed that you were awake.” Her confidence in the Sultan’s watchfulness moved him so deeply that he ordered her losses to be restored. There is something profoundly human in her answer—a weary soul resting because she believes someone greater is awake, alert, and attentive. And there is something profoundly spiritual in its truth, something the psalmist himself echoes as pilgrims journey toward Jerusalem singing Psalm 121: The Lord is our Keeper. This psalm is the second in the collection known as the Songs of Ascents—fifteen psalms sung by worshipers who traveled to Jerusalem three times a year for the great feasts of the Lord. The first psalm in this group pictures the pilgrim just setting out, leaving behind the noise, conflict, and weariness of distant lands. Now, in Psalm 121, the pilgrim is fully on the road, surrounded by rising hills, uneven paths, open skies, and the vulnerabilities of wilderness travel. But as he walks, he sings—almost to steady his heart—“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” The hills were familiar landmarks. Jerusalem itself sits on elevated ground. Many pagan temples and shrines were also built high on mountains, and Israel, sadly, had often been drawn into worship on those “high places.” So the pilgrim looks at the hills—religious sites, symbols, structures—and asks a question that almost answers itself: Is my help found in any of these? He knows the answer is no. The hills may be sacred, the temple may be holy, but all these are created things—stones shaped by human hands, shadows of a reality far greater. God Himself makes this clear through the prophet Isaiah: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What is the house you would build for me? All these things my hand has made.” You cannot confine the Maker within the thing made. You cannot rest your hope on symbols when you can cling to the One they signify. So the psalmist
