I Lift Up My Eyes to the Hills Psalm 121 January 12, 2014 At first glance, Psalm 121 seems like a nature Psalm I lift up my eyes to the hills And I have used it a few times for the funerals of people who loved the outdoors and tried to help people move from the creation to the creator. But that was not the Psalmist s main point. In the Ancient Near East, the mountains and high places and hills were the homes of the gods. And it was similar though not identical for the Israelites. Their God didn t LIVE in the hills, but He had MET them there. Remember the story of Moses going up on Mt. Sinai to receive the law from God? And, perhaps more to the point for this Psalm, Jerusalem was on Mt. Zion and the Temple in particular was there. If you wanted to meet with God in ancient Israel, you had to go UP to Jerusalem, UP to the Temple which was the dwelling place of God. Of course, the Israelites understood that God was not CONFINED to the Temple that He was everywhere but there was something special about the Temple. He was there in a way that He wasn t other places. And so when Solomon dedicated the Temple, he prayed, The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built. And then he goes on to ask that God would hear the prayers that His people prayed toward this place, because God s Name was there. So when the author of this Psalm says, I lift up my eyes to the hills, he is mainly thinking of Mt. Zion and Jerusalem and the Temple, because that s where His help would come from. Psalm 118 is the second of 15 Psalms that are labeled, A Song of Ascents. And I could list two or three of the guesses that scholars have offered as to why they re called that. For myself, I m quite sure that this Psalm, like so many in this final book within Psalms, was written during or shortly after the Exile in Babylon. 1
Remember our discussion of that a couple of weeks ago? Because Judah continued to ignore the Prophets and rebel against God, He allowed the Babylonians to carry off a great number of the Judeans into exile for a total of 70 years. And so I can imagine those people of God there in Babylon, dreaming of their homeland, turning back to the God of their fathers, and longing to see Mt. Zion again, and praying for the opportunity to rebuild the Temple and once again enjoy God s presence in God s place there in Jerusalem. And then, years later after they had returned to the land, I imagine that pilgrims would sing these Songs of Ascents as they walked up the steep road to Mt. Zion. I never really understood going UP to Jerusalem until I toured the city in 1988, and our tour bus driver kept shifting into lower and still lower gears as we drove up the narrow road to the old city. Toward the end, the engine was ROARING away and we were just crawling up that steep drive! And so, first the returning EXILES and then the PILGRIMS would sing this song as they came to Mt. Zion and walked up the Hill of God. So, as you read through this Psalm, try and put yourself in the shoes of those exiles: Longing to be back home in Jerusalem and yet realizing that God could be with you even in exile in a pagan, enemy culture. By the way, isn t that who WE are today? We used to sing, This world is not my home And Peter calls us aliens and strangers in the world [1 Peter 2:11]. We are exiles and pilgrims people on the road to the New Jerusalem that God has awaiting us and so Psalm 121 is OUR Psalm! As we look at the Psalm, we can see that the author establishes the principle of WHO GOD IS in vs. 1 2, and then applies that principle to US in vs. 3 7. I say that because beginning in vs. 3 and continuing in every verse after that except for vs. 4 he actually uses the word, you and your over and over again. So we could say that in vs. 1 2 he tells us who God is, and in vs. 3 7 he tells us what God does for us. So WHO is this God He is singing about? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. 2
1. He s the LORD. And if you remember from some of the earlier Psalms, LORD there is printed in SMALL CAPS which reminds us that this is God s PERSONAL name. This is the LORD who promised Abraham that He would be His God and would bless Abraham and His descendants and make him a blessing to the nations. This is the LORD who doesn t forget His promises or His people who doesn t walk out on His people in the tough times even when those tough times are caused by His people s sins! 2. He s also the Maker of heaven and earth. And this is typical of how the doctrine of creation is used throughout the Bible. The issue here is not HOW God created the heavens and the earth but THAT He created it. The pagans also looked to the hills for their gods, but the God of Israel CREATED those hills along with everything else! So, if I find myself in trouble, I know that the One who is coming to my aid is not some third-rate god who has nothing better to do No the Maker of heaven and earth is my Helper! That s not too shabby, is it? 3. And that brings us to the third description of who God is: He is my Help MY Helper! Think about that for a second: the Maker of heaven and earth is My help! During most of my summers in high school and college, I worked in construction, either building houses or one summer building a high-rise office building near the White House. My title for most of those jobs (if you could even call it a title ) was carpenter s helper. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with construction, translated into English carpenter s helper means slave! I did whatever the carpenter s didn t want to do! And whatever they TOLD me to do! So I was thinking about that the other day when I read these words, My help comes from the Lord. 3
Isn t that what Paul was getting at when he wrote the Philippians, Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus: Who, being in very nature God made himself nothing, taking the nature of a servant. [Philippians 2] The Psalmist here talks about what Jesus DID: He elevates the gift of helping others, as Paul calls it in 1 Corinthians 12 to a divine level, doesn t he? When I help someone in need maybe even someone the world would consider beneath me I am only doing for them what GOD has done and is doing for ME! So that s the PRINCIPLE: My Helper [notice how personal that is!] is the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. So, how does that principle work out in PRACTICE in real life. 1. He doesn t let my foot slip and He doesn t fall asleep. (vs. 3 4) Keep in mind that this was probably originally sung by exiles working their way home from Babylon and later by pilgrims traveling up to Jerusalem. Very practical when you re walking on a rocky road! The bigger issue, I think, is that our Helper, God, doesn t doze off or fall into a deep sleep when He s supposed to be guarding us! Human guards will sometimes do that, won t they? And pagan gods were certainly portrayed that way. Remember when Elijah was confronting the prophets of Baal on Mr. Carmel when Baal was supposed to being sending fire down to consume the sacrifices? He embarrassed them, didn t he? Maybe he s SLEEPING and must be awakened! [1 Kings 18:27] But our God, Psalm 121 reminds us, doesn t get bored with life and doze off. 2. He watches over us like a solder on sentry duty day and night [vs. 5 6] He s our SHADE during the day [vs. 5] I would never have appreciated that statement if I hadn t experienced the equatorial penetrating sun in Sudan. 4
It was, I think, on my second trip there, and it was someone around 110 [I m not sure. I asked one of the elders, a man who had been educated in England, what the temperature was, and he told me, When it gets this hot, Bob, we prefer not to know! But standing in the open courtyard of the church, it felt like someone was poking needles into my skin! I remember just standing by the building to pick up a touch of shade from the overhand of the roof! The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. He could simply being saying, God will protect you day and night, but the pagans, of course, thought the sun and the moon WERE gods. So, I wonder if he s not saying, in the spirit of Paul in Romans 8, Neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Whatever the forces out there may be, we don t have to be afraid, because the Maker of heaven and earth is on our side! And that s pretty much how the Psalm ends with a blessing in vs. 7 8: The LORD will keep you from all harm he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. And you need to understand that this is not some whistling in the dark Whenever I feel afraid, I whistle a happy tune kind of naïve positive-thinking kind of statement. Derek Kidner remarks that it does not imply a cushioned life but a well-armed one. Remember, this is being sung by people who have experienced the terror of exile in a hostile land. And yet they ve come to appreciate that both their coming and their GOING have occurred under the Lord s watch and He knows what He s doing! A great summary of this Psalm might be that old spiritual, He s got the whole world in His hands, and particularly the verse that says, He s got YOU and ME brother in His hands. He s got you and me SISTER in His hands He s got the whole world in His hands! I lift up my eyes to the hills where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth! Rev. Robert Smallman Bible Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church in America) 1605 Highway G Merrill, WI 54452 www.biblepreschurch.org 5