What Does Psalms 121:1 Mean?

(1) **Whence.**—Our version is certainly incorrect in following the LXX. and Vulg. 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 mine eyes to the hills. Whence comes my help? *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 bidden to turn “towards the mountains of Israel” in the distant plain of Mesopotamia; or he may have been close on 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; Psalm 14:7, that help will come from God’s holy hill “out of Zion.” He puts 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 that superstition and idolatry which was associated with so many hills and high places in Canaan. If this is so, the best commentary, both on the poetry and the religion of the psalm, is to be found in Mr. Ruskin’s fascinating discourses on mountains in “Modern Painters,” their influence on the ancient, mediaeval, and modern mind, and the part they have played alike in the mythology of the pagan times and the religion of the Christian world. There must also be added, in connection with the feeling of the Jew, the part his mountains played as a barrier of defence (Psalm 125:2), and as heights of observation from which to watch for the 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.