Psalm 121
The Faithfulness of God

Gaining Stronger Faith in God

and

comfort from God

through reading Psalm 121.

As I share about

this psalm,

I will use the New King James Version.

The verse by verse

commentary

starts after

the music.

Note that we have historical information

about this psalm

after

the verse by verse commentary.

MUSIC

Psalm 121 Music

-

Two  Psalm 121 Scripture songs

Beautiful music

to accompany God's Words

Another Psalm 121 Scripture song -

note that

we are not sure who wrote this psalm

Reading God’s word

builds confidence and faith

in the supernatural abilities of God

and

in the loving intentions

that God has toward each of us.

Verse 1

Psalm 121 verse 1 says,

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills –

from whence comes my help?”

The idea of “Looking up” has great meaning.

To begin with -

think about the image of looking down.

Writers use the idea of looking down

to convey sadness, or discouragement, or depression.

This verse instructs us

to

look up

– to be encouraged –

to be expectant for God to help us.

I love Psalm 3:3 which says,

“But you, O Lord, are a shield for me,

My glory and the One who lifts up my head.”

Psalm 3:3 has the same idea as the

first verse of Psalm 121.

I’ve seen television shows portray a person who is sad, and we - the viewers - know that person is sad, because the person is looking down at the ground. Next, we see another person walking over to gently take the sad person’s chin and tenderly lift it.

The Lord wants to tenderly lift our head up.

He wants us to reject all the negative thoughts that are trying to dominate our life, and he wants us to focus on him – the one who is our ever - present help.

Verse 2

Verse 2 says,

“My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth.”

In this verse, God wants to remind us about the power of God.

It was God who made the beauty and the complexity of the earth, and it is God who made the vast and spectacular heavens.

When we compare our problems to our God – the comparison should increase our confidence in God’s ability to help us.

Verse 3 a

Verse 3 a says,

“He will not allow your foot to be moved.”

Here I see a picture of a person

who has made a commitment and a stand for God

and this verse assures that person

that God will secure his foothold.

There are several other psalms

that talk about surefootedness

such as Psalm 17:5

in which the psalmist says

to God,

“Uphold my steps in Your paths,

that my footsteps may not slip.”

Does God steady our footsteps

no matter what path we choose to walk?

Under what circumstances

does God steady our feet?

To answer those questions,

let's look at several verses in the Bible

that can help us

gain understanding.

I’ll highlight Psalm 26:12 a

that says,

“My foot stands in an even place.”

When you look up the phrase “even place”

in Strong’s Hebrew concordance,

it contains the idea of

a righteous place.

So here God is helping us understand

that choosing

to pursue righteousness

in our life

helps us keep from stumbling.

Psalm 1:1-2 says:

“Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

nor stands in the path of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord

and in his law

he meditates day and night.”

So we see that the person spoken of in Psalm 1

has positioned himself in the righteous paths of God.

My point is that

God helps us with surefootedness

as

we walk on HIS PATHS.

Verse 3 b - 4

Verses 3 b - 4

“He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, He who keeps Israel

shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

So many times when we are facing

difficult circumstances,

we stumble because we doubt that

God is keeping constant watch over our situation.

~

The enemy of our soul wants to tell us

that God is really busy,

and

therefore he is not paying close attention.

But...

the Bible tells us that he is totally focused on us.

God focuses on each of us

as though there were no other people.

~

Because he is God,

he can totally focus on you,

and totally focus on me,

and

totally focus on everybody on the earth.

When I used to teach little preschoolers,

I would frequently tell them

that God will not make any more people

than he can keep up with!

I also reminded the children that Psalm 139 tells us that God knows when we sit down and when we stand up. He knows our thoughts. He knows what we will say BEFORE we say it.

God is not too busy!

So when God tells us that

“He who keeps you will not slumber” –

he is just giving us a word picture

to solidify in our mind

that he will never take his eyes off of us

or our situation.

It makes me feel good

to remind myself

that I have all the intellect of God

working for me every day.

Verse 5

I’ll continue with verse 5 –

“ The Lord is your keeper;

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.”

Wow, the Lord is your shade at your right hand!

Where I live, summer temperatures

sometimes go above 100 degrees –

this verse is a picture

of the relief that God gives us

from the extreme heat of our daily experiences.

Verse 6

Verse 6 says,

“The sun shall not strike you by day,

nor the moon by night.”

Here we see a poetic way of saying

that God can protect you

from things that could happen to you during the day

and things that could happen to you during the night.

Verse 7

Verse 7 says,

“The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;

He shall preserve your soul.”

God tells us that he is our Protector.

He specifically highlights protecting our soul.

Our Soul

Our soul is made up of

our mind, our will, and our emotions.

So God is saying that his will

is to

preserve our mind, our will, and our emotions

from evil.

-

Of course implied in that verse

is that

we will submit to him.

I am reminded of  James 4:7  which says:

“Submit to God.

Resist the devil

and he will flee from you.”

Check out our James 4:7 POWER Page

Verse 8

Psalm 121 verse 8 says,

“The Lord shall preserve

your going out and your coming in

from this time forth, and even forevermore.”

The Hebrew word translated “preserve”

in verse 8

is used 6 times in this psalm.

Three times in the New King James version,

it is translated

“preserve,”

two times it is translated “keeps,”

and once it is translated “keeper.”

Obviously God wanted to emphasize

that word to us.

From Strong’s Hebrew Concordance,

we find that the definition of this Hebrew word

gives us the idea

of God

keeping, guarding, observing, watching,

and preserving us.

In this psalm,

God sends a message

of assurance

that he is working on our behalf.

~
He wants to build our faith

about his love and protection.

More Information on Psalm 121

Psalm 121 is a psalm intended

to help the Jews (and us)

build faith and trust

in the God of all salvation.

The Lord gave US this psalm

to increase

OUR Faith

about the assurance of God’s help

even though our enemies

(and challenging circumstances)

may be around about us.

All 150 psalms were at one time

put to music and sung to God

by Jewish worshippers.

Psalm 121 is called a Song of Ascent.

There are 15 Psalms of Ascent.

They are Psalms 120 – 134.

Psalm 120 is the first psalm of ascent.

The topic of that psalm

is the distress that the

Jewish people felt

as their enemies were threatening them.

What is a Psalm of Ascent ?

The word “ascent” means to go up in elevation.

Jerusalem is higher in elevation
than the surrounding area.

Most experts agree that
these were the
Psalms
that the
biblical Jewish worshippers
sang
as they journeyed up in elevation
to the town of Jerusalem.

The Bible tells us that

three times a year,

all the Jewish males

who lived outside of Jerusalem

were required to journey to Jerusalem.

Women and children were welcome,

but men were required.

These psalms were especially important

as

songs to sing for the journey

up to Jerusalem for these three feast times.

The three times a year occurred on

Passover, Pentecost, and the third feast was

the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Book of Psalms

God wrote the book of Psalms

to minister to our mind and to our emotions.

Psalms is a poetic book.

God’s poetry frequently uses word pictures

to help give understanding

and

stir our emotions in the right direction.

For all our Psalm pages click: Here

To see what other Bible studies we have available,

go to Bible Devotions.

Back to the top of Psalm 121