Let us travel back in time. Imagine that you are taking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with its hills. It is the days of ancient Israel and you find yourself participating in a most sacred ritual along with hundreds of other Jewish men and women.
It is a beautiful journey, but also a harsh one. The travelers look forward to the time of worship ahead and what they have brought to offer to the Lord, but in the days and hours of silence, in the physical toil of traveling hundreds of miles, each and every person is confronted with their own thoughts, their own struggles and difficulties, their own insufficiencies and lacks. It is certainly a voyage of mixed emotions, both highs and lows.
Now, as you walk toward the city, feeling all of this within you, you hear a song break forth, whose words begin, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” (verse 1). In the spirit of the song, your eyes are drawn upward, toward the hills ahead, and you search back and forth, high and low. Immediately, your natural gaze becomes focused on one object and one object alone: the Temple of God. For it looms large on the hills ahead, asserting both its power and aid – not in the structure itself, but in He who resides in the temple.
This “song of ascent” that you hear is one intended for Israelites as they make the pilgrimage up to Jerusalem, and they were specifically written to assure the people of God on their journey and also to prepare the people for entering the Holy city. So how do you find yourself assured? The song continues, “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (verse 2). This is indeed the answer to the song’s opening question in Psalm 121:1. Moreover, you cannot miss the fact that the phrase “my help” is said right on the heels as the opening solution. The singer ushers a direct call and reminder that the one to whom you are going to worship is also the one who cares for your every need.
The singer then continues by focusing on who the Lord is. If you are to be assured by His ability to aid, then you must understand who He is. Who is the Lord? He is the one “who made” (verse 2). He is the Creator of heaven and earth, and thus also the creator of the hills toward which you walk; and, if the Lord has made these hills, He is surely able to protect your ascent up the hill toward His temple (“He will not let your foot be moved”; verse 3).
There is a shift in the second part of Psalm 121:3 with the singer now using consequentiality to explain why God’s people will not be moved. His reasoning is this: the LORD does not slumber. The writer elaborates on this image of God in verse 4. Not only will God not slumber, He will not sleep. This of course is a natural progression of one’s tiredness – one becomes drowsy before then falling asleep. The song uses this chronology to intensify the meaning of God’s ever-present watchfulness. Unlike city watch-guards, who might get drowsy and sleep on the job, God will not, He is not affected by these physical elements.
As the song is thus underway, your tired body and mind starts to find peace. For you know that even as you travel in this very moment, God is watching over you, guiding your steps and protecting you – both in the realities of life that you’ve left behind and for what is in store ahead.
