“ Whence Our Help?” Dr. Dennis Kinlaw ~ 1964
The author of Psalm 121 was in need of help … “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence shall my help come?” The depth of need is clear. He wanted a place where his foot would not be moved (vs 3). He needed someone who could keep him night and day (vss 3-4). He needed help by day, lest the sun should smite him. Night evidently brought no relief, for the moon seemed to hold terrors of its own (vs 6). He wanted help which could protect him in his going out and in his coming in. He wanted protection from all evil. Perhaps a true understanding of this Psalm is found only by remembering the kind of world in which the psalmist lived. It was one that did not share Israel’s understanding of the nature,
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The Connection
FALL 2021
transcendence, or glory of the one true God. Israel’s neighbors were victims of the darkness that comes when the light of revelation has not broken in. The result was that the pagan neighbors of the writer worshipped only that which they could see and experience in their unenlightened human search. Thus, they capitalized the word “Earth” and called it their “mother.” Heaven and its bodies, the sun and the moon became deities to be feared, worshipped, and [prayed to]. Those were the deities that Abraham’s fathers worshipped from the “other side of the flood.” When we remember that the “high places” were the sites used for such worship, we can understand that this Psalm is not an ode to nature.
