ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Psalms 121.1-2

Book: Psalms · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

1. A Song of Ascents. I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: From whence shall my help come? 2. My help cometh from Jehovah, Who made heaven and earth.

  1. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4. Behold, he that keepeth Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalms 121:1-4, ASV)
WEB

1. A Song of Ascents. I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? 2. My help comes from Yahweh, who made heaven and earth.

  1. He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. 4. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalms 121:1-4, WEB)
KJV

1. A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. I will: or, Shall I lift up mine eyes to the hills? whence should my help come? 2. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

  1. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalms 121:1-4, KJV)
YLT

1. A Song of the Ascents. I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, Whence doth my help come? 2. My help [is] from Jehovah, maker of heaven and earth,

  1. He suffereth not thy foot to be moved, Thy preserver slumbereth not. 4. Lo, He slumbereth not, nor sleepeth, He who is preserving Israel. (Psalms 121:1-4, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: the psalmist, unnamed
  • Audience: pilgrims travelling up to Jerusalem for the festivals
  • Location: the ascent to Jerusalem
  • Time period: uncertain; the Songs of Ascents were collected for pilgrim use, probably post-exilic in their present arrangement

Theological reading

I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains. From whence shall my help come? My help cometh from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

The punctuation of verse 1 changes the psalm, and translations differ. Read as a statement, the pilgrim looks to the hills and finds help there. Read as a question, which the Hebrew allows and most modern versions adopt, the hills are the problem rather than the answer: they are the bandit country the traveller must cross, and they are where the high places of rival cults stood. On that reading verse 2 is a correction. Help does not come from the hills; it comes from the one who made them.

The second reading fits the psalm's structure better. Psalm 121 is one of the fifteen Songs of Ascents (120 to 134), sung by pilgrims on the road, and a road song naturally begins with the hazard of the road.

The governing word is shamar, to keep, guard or watch over, which occurs six times in eight verses and holds the psalm together. God is the keeper who does not slumber (v. 4), the shade at the right hand (v. 5), the protection from sun and moon (v. 6), and the keeper of the going out and coming in from this time forth and for evermore (v. 8). The movement is from a specific journey to the whole of life.

The title maker of heaven and earth is not decorative. The psalmist grounds a promise of personal protection in the doctrine of creation, so the help is guaranteed by the same power that made the terrain the traveller is afraid of.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

No Strong's-tagged lexicon entry is curated for the key terms of this verse; the lexicon covers roughly 100 contested terms, not every word. See Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.