1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will 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 He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at 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 on and for evermore.
What stood out for you in this passage? What do you think it means? How might you apply it to your life?
Psalm 121 is one of the pilgrimage songs, and its use as a pilgrimage song provides the key to its understanding. As the people of God made their pilgrimage to Zion to celebrate the festivals, this psalm would remind them that the Lord was with them every step of the way. The opening "mountains" might be a figure of speech for the location of Jerusalem, situated on a hill in the southern mountain range of Israel, where God inhabits his temple. Still, the mountains, in and of themselves, are not the source of salvation; salvation comes from the Lord, who dwells on the most important mountain: Zion.
