Where Does Our Help Come From?

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence comes my help?” (Psalm 121:1)

This is an exclusive look. As the psalmist is in need of “help” he doesn’t look elsewhere – not to his own muscles or to his mind or to anyone else’s muscles or mind. He looks up to God, which is a posture of humility and dependence. The psalmist is asking the question not out of ignorance but out of assurance. The psalmist knows where “help” comes from; he has experienced it before and he will experience it again. He is not ignorant; he is assured.

Something needs to be said about him looking “to the hills.” Psalm 121 is a Psalm of Ascent, which are pilgrim psalms for the traveler who is headed to Jerusalem – the Holy City, because it is God’s home on earth. And to travel to Jerusalem is to ascend. If you ever get an opportunity to travel to Israel, you will joke about how everything seems to be uphill.

Jerusalem sits about 2800 feet above sea level. And to casually or slowly ascend as you went to Jerusalem as we will see in these Psalms of Ascent was not always a safe journey. There would be the potential of being attacked by dangerous wild animals; there was always the fear of being ambushed by robbers hiding in the cliffs or behind rocks.

Remember the Parable of the Good Samaritan? When parables were told by Jesus, He used something familiar to illustrate a spiritual truth. In this case, a journeyman was attacked on the Jerusalem/Jericho path and he says it “in passing” because it was a familiar or ordinary dilemma. People knew of this risk.

To look “to the hills” meant to look toward Divine safety. The “hills” would be synonymous with God’s city and God’s temple.

Some interpreters even believe that the pilgrims recited this psalm on their last night, within sight of Jerusalem and the Temple mount, since the next psalm speaks of the pilgrims being inside Jerusalem – “Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!” (Ps 122:2).  

Out help comes from above – not below and certainly not on the same plain that we dwell.