For the longest time, I looked at Psalm 121 in the wrong
way.
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills, from whence cometh my help.”
I usually pictured looking up at a mountain in the near
distance, with the sun rising above it, and everything colored brightly. Then,
in verse two, the author says that, despite how nice the mountain looks, his
help comes from God.
Part of this confusion probably stemmed from the fact that the King James Version does not phrase the second half of the verse as a question, when it in fact is asking from whence comes our help.
The cultural context of Psalm 121 is crucial to its
interpretation. The psalm is one of the 15 “Ascension Psalms”. These were sung
by pilgrims as they made their three annual trips to Jerusalem for feasts.
Despite the joyous occasion, the psalms are realistic about difficulties
encountered along the way.
Here’s what I discovered: these pilgrims weren’t looking at
the mountains with awe. They were looking at them with dread. The most
dangerous part of journeys back then (and maybe even now) were the mountains.
The catalyst to the story of “The Good Samaritan” parable was a man being
attacked by robbers on a mountain road. Pilgrims faced hazards from the
landscape, attackers that hid behind rocks, and wild animals. They rightfully
asked, “From whence comes my help?”
A couple of translations completely miss this point and
destroy the proper context of the chapter. The New Living Translation states:
“I look up to the mountains—does my
help come from there?”
The pilgrims weren’t asking if their help comes from the
mountains. They were asking where their help comes from because of the mountains.
And, shockingly, The Message also misses the point:
“I look up to the mountains; does
my strength come from mountains?”
For KING & COUNTRY, unfortunately, uses this quote at
the beginning of their otherwise-good song, “Shoulders”.
When viewed in the appropriate cultural context, a lot of
other phrases in Psalm 121 make sense:
“He will not suffer thy foot to be
moved,” because the terrain is treacherous.
“(T)he Lord is thy shade
upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by
night.” The pilgrims are exposed to the elements.

“The Lord shall preserve
thy going out and thy coming in,” since they are headed to a feast and then
back home.
I want to call special attention to verse five, which says
that “the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.” I had to cross-reference with
a couple of other verses, as it initially didn’t make total sense.
Isaiah says this of God in Isaiah 25:4:
“For thou hast been a strength to
the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast
of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.”
Regarding the right hand, Psalm 16:8:
“I have set
the Lord always before me: because
he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”

This is a way of saying that throughout the entire journey, God
is with the pilgrims.
So when they looked up to the mountains and felt fear, the
pilgrims were comforted with the fact that God was with them throughout the
journey and would protect them from the dangers the mountains presented.
This referred to the physical dangers of the pilgrims, but
it certainly is applicable to all the trials we face today. When we look ahead
at a tough circumstance, we should recognize that God will protect us every
step of the journey.
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