This is the best known of the psalms for ascent — which the pil­grims probably sang as they made their way over the rough tracks leading up to Jerusalem to attend the great annual feasts. These words have over the years brought much comfort and help to believers in time of need. It’s often called ‘the travellers psalm’ or ‘the pilgrim’s psalm’. For example on the morn­ing of Nov. 17 1840, the Livingstone family got up at 5 o’clock. David read Psalms 121 and 135 and prayed. Then he and his father walked from Blantyre to Glasgow where they parted. Then the old man walked back with a lonely heart as his son made the long jour­ney to be a missionary and explorer in the dark continent of Africa. No doubt both were buoyed by the promises of this psalm.

The psalm has four sections or stanzas.

1. The Lord is our Strength (1-2)⤒🔗

It opens with a question, ‘I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?’ (1). What is it that prompts this question?

1. Are we to think of the pilgrims passing through a hazardous place, where the hills loomed and robbers lurked? This was bandit territory. It was dangerous and the hills posed a threat. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan when, ‘a man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers’. Perhaps this was the context of the question.
    
2. Or are we to think of the pil­grims travelling through the country­side, and perhaps seeing hill top shrines, evidence of idolatrous wor­ship? Is that where my help comes from, he asks?
    
3. Or did he see the hills as those far off hills of Zion — so far off that he acknowledges his need for strength to reach them?
    
4. Or did the very solidity and strength of the hills inspire him to look beyond them with the eyes of faith and see the One who is the Rock of our salvation. (‘Oh come let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation’ Ps. 95:1).

While we don’t know the precise circumstances which prompted the psalmist’s question, we can know that whatever our circumstances or problems are, the Lord is also our helper. We too are pilgrims en route to Mt. Zion. As Bunyan re­minds us, the journey to the celes­tial city is hazardous; there are dan­gers without and temptations within. We need help to arrive at our destination.

Where does my help come from? ‘My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth’ (2).

He is of course, the God who began all things; but he is also the God who maintains all things in existence (Isa. 42:5); in addition he controls all things in their op­eration (e.g. Isa. 40:26 and 54:16-17), and directs them to the end he has appointed (Isa. 65:17). In short he is always in full, detailed, executive management of the world he created. He leaves nothing to chance; nothing falls outside his care and atten­tion. Not a sparrow falls to the ground, nor is there a hair on the head of his children that he does not protect. He is God. What a context in which to set our prob­lems.Motyer

Because He is the maker of heaven and earth, there is no limit to His governance. There is a striking story told in 1 Kings 20:22-30 which illustrates the scope of the Lord’s power. The background is: the king of Syria (Ben­-Hadad) had already been de­feated twice by Ahab (King of Israel). Ben-Hadad returned a third time. He was encouraged by his advisors ,who apparently had ‘inside knowledge’ of Israel’s God. They told Ben-Hadad, ‘Their gods are gods of the hills, and so they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger then they’ (23). Sure enough, in the springtime Ben-Hadad mustered his great army to engage the Israelites on the plain. By comparison, the Is­raelites looked like ‘two little flocks of goats’. But the Lord gave the Israelites a remarkable victory that day, thus proving that God is not only Lord of the hills. He is the Lord of the valleys too. He is Lord over all the earth. He has no lim­its. He has no gaps. He has no blind spots. He has no weak­nesses. We do well to remember this because as Dale Ralph Davis remarks, we too can unwittingly embrace Syrian theology. Syrian theology believes that God is in­volved in the big things but doesn’t get His fingers dirty in the mucky details of our lives. It believes that God is involved in religious things but not in routine things. It believes that God is at work in the lives of ‘kosher’ folk but not in the lives of twisted hopeless folk. It is even heard in churches like our own, where there are few young couples and young children. It says, ‘We can’t expect God to change us. We are only an elderly congregation.’ What is this? It’s ‘God of the hills theology’ all over again. We ask again, where does our help come from? ‘My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven AND earth’.

2. The Lord is our Security (3-4)←⤒🔗

Notice the psalmist has changed from the first person singular (‘my’) to the second person singular (‘your’). He is now commending to his friends the confidence he has in the Lord. He also introduces us to the key word of the psalm: ‘keeps’. It is used six times — see verses 3 and 4 and 5 and 7 (twice) and 8. (The ESV is the only trans­lation that consistently translates it as ‘keeps’. Other version use in addition, ‘watches’, ‘preserves’, ‘protects’ and ‘guards’). It high­lights the theme of the psalm. The Lord is our keeper. He keeps us in this world through all its difficulties and dangers. Jesus prayed, ‘I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one’. (This psalm is the answer to Psalm 120; the Lord will keep us as we live in godless Mesheck).

Note three aspects of the Lord’s keeping in these verses.

1. He will not let your foot be moved’ (3a)←↰⤒🔗

We can imagine the pilgrim having to carefully pick his steps. The roads were not sealed. There were stones and potholes; obstacles and cliffs. There was danger of slipping and stumbling; of accident and injury. But they will be kept safe. The Lord will enable them to reach their goal. The psalmist says elsewhere, ‘The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord up­holds his hand’ (Ps. 37:23-24). The Christian has been described as a passenger on board a great ship. He may slip on deck but can­not fall overboard (cf. Jude 24). The Lord is our eternal security: we can be confident that despite the risks, we too will reach our heavenly destination.

2. He watches over us 24/7←↰⤒🔗

He never lowers his guard. He never takes His eye off us. He never ‘nods off’. He never switches off. He’s never distracted. He’s not like Baal, whom Elijah taunted and ridiculed (1 Kings 18:27). The problem with the false gods is that they are never there when you need them. Not like the Lord. His care never ceases. He is ever wakeful. He is not callous or indifferent. Though there may be times when it appears to us that He is sleeping (cf. Ps. 44:23-24), be as­sured that He knows us, He loves us, and He cares for us at all times.

A student once burst into Dr. Witherspoon’s office at Princeton. He exclaimed, ‘Help me to thank God for His wonderful providence! My horse ran away, my buggy was dashed to pieces on the rocks and behold, I am unharmed!’ The good Doctor smiled. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘I know a providence a thousand times better than that. I have driven down that rocky road to Princeton hundreds of times and my horse never run away, and my buggy was never dashed to pieces’! We experience the Lord’s constant care not only in the mi­raculous, but also in the mundane and ‘ordinary’ events of life, though we are often oblivious to it.

3. His care extends to Israel (4)←↰⤒🔗

The promise is not merely to the individual, but to Israel. If the Lord brought his ancient people Israel out of Egypt and led them through the Red Sea, through the wilderness into the Promised Land — will He not also do the same today? Will He not guide and guard those whom He has redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and bring us at last to Glory?

3. The Lord is our Shade (5-6)←⤒🔗

There were dangers peculiar to the day and to the night. The heat of the overhead sun could cause sunstroke and dehydra­tion. The night brought its own fears — whether real or per­ceived. There was the fear of animals, the eerie noises of the night, the threat of cold, and of getting lost. The ancients also had a fear that the movement of the moon could affect their men­tal state. (Even today we refer to someone who is mad as a ‘lunatic’). Whatever the dangers were, perhaps the psalmist is telling us that the Lord will not only shade us by day and night — but will also protect us physically, mentally and spiritually? He will keep us sane. He will keep us under the shadow of His wings. Some of us know the benefit in summer of an awning over the window, or the shade of a large tree. The Lord doesn’t remove the fiery trials by day or the dark nights of the soul from our ex­perience — but He shades us so that we are not tempted beyond what we can bear cf. 1 Cor. 10:13. (See also Psalms 17:8, 23:4, 36: 7 and 91:1).

4. The Lord is our Saviour (7-8)←⤒🔗

A. Motyer compares this promise to a comprehensive insurance policy — guaranteed and under­written no less than by the One who made heaven and earth. He will keep you from ALL evil — from ALL our unseen spiritual enemies. He will keep watch over your going and coming (which pretty much covers the whole of life). He will do it for­ever. The Lord’s insurance policy has no expiry date. Because Christ has paid the premium, it’s valid for time and eternity. Even when we die we’re still covered. Paul could therefore say, ‘He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day’ (2 Tim. 1:12) and, ‘I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or de­mons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39). My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.