Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 121

Whence. — Our version is certainly incorrect in following the Septuagint and Vulgate in making whence a relative. The Hebrew word is always interrogative; even in Joshua 2:4 it is indirectly interrogative. But the margin is hardly right in making the whole verse interrogative. Render: I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? The hills are those on which Jerusalem is built, the plural being understood, as in Psalm 87:1. (See Note.) This gaze of hope does not absolutely decide the standpoint of the poet.

He might have been like Ezekiel (Ezekiel 6:2) when commanded to turn towards the mountains of Israel in the distant plain of Mesopotamia; or he may have been near the end of the pilgrim journey, and actually under the sacred hills. But wherever he stands, this question is not one of doubt; he knows, as in Psalm 3:4 and Psalm 14:7, that help will come from God’s holy hill, out of Zion. He poses the question for the sake of the emphatic answer in the next verse.

Possibly, as suggested by the marginal rendering and reference, the poet may in his mind have been contrasting the confidence with which a worshipper of Jehovah might look up to the sacred city on the crest of the holy hill with the superstition and idolatry associated with so many hills and high places in Canaan.

If this is so, the best commentary on both the poetry and the religion of the psalm is found in Mr. Ruskin’s fascinating discourses on mountains in “Modern Painters.” These discourses explore their influence on the ancient, medieval, and modern mind, and the part they have played alike in the mythology of pagan times and the religion of the Christian world.

Furthermore, considering the Jewish perspective, one must also add the role their mountains played as a defensive barrier (Psalms 125:2), and as vantage points from which to watch for messengers of peace (Isaiah 52:7; Nahum 1:15).

“In the mountains did he feel his faith
.... and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects.”—WORDSWORTH.

My help cometh ... —Not as the superstition of the Canaanite said, from the sacred summits themselves, but from their Creator’s Lord. It is noticeable that the style, maker of heaven and earth, is a peculiarity of psalms which are certainly post-exile, and show how strongly the contrast with heathenism impressed the creative power of God on the Hebrew mind. When the idolater, pointing to his visible god, taunted the Israelite with having no god, the reply, that He made the heavens, and the earth, and all things, and that these were the proofs of His being, was most natural. (See Jeremiah 10:11.)

He will not.—The Septuagint and Vulgate rightly, “may He not suffer,” etc. The Hebrew cannot be a simple negative. That it is Israel which is addressed, the next verse seems to prove.

Slumber nor sleep. —This repetition, with the addition of a synonym, offers a very good instance of the step-like style supposed by many critics to give their name to these psalms. But it must be carefully noticed that there is no climax in the force of the two words, the first, if anything, being the stronger. It is used of the sleep of death (Psalms 76:5).

Your keeper. — Notice again how the prominent word is taken up from the preceding verse and amplified, and then again repeated, and again amplified in Psalms 121:7-8, where preserve is an unfortunate substitution by the Authorised Version.

Shade. — An image of protection, and one particularly attractive to people of the East. (See Numbers 14:9, margin; Psalms 91:1; Isaiah 25:4; Isaiah 32:2.)

Upon your right hand. — Some commentators combine this expression with the figure of the shadow, supposing the psalmist, in the phrase “right hand,” to allude to the south or sunny side. But this is prosaic. No doubt there is here, as so often, a confused combination of metaphors. We have several times encountered the figure of the right-hand comrade in war, a protection to the unshielded side (Psalms 16:8; Psalms 109:31, etc.).