The Bible

 

Psalms 121

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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.

3 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.

5 Jehovah is thy keeper: Jehovah is thy shade upon thy right hand.

6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night.

7 Jehovah will keep thee from all evil; He will keep thy soul.

8 Jehovah will keep thy going out and thy coming in From this time forth and for evermore.

   

Commentary

 

Exploring the Meaning of Psalms 121

By Julian Duckworth

Psalm 121 opens with this much-loved line, 'I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help.' The whole psalm assures us of the Lord's continual help; He helps, holds us safe, keeps us, shades us, and preserves us.

Natural images and sensations are used to describe spiritual ones: our eyes and feet, sleep, shade, hills, sun, and moon. They remind us of the correspondences between the natural and spiritual planes of life, helping to express these higher ideas in familiar words.

Spiritually, our eyes represent our understanding. Hills are high places; we look up to them, and we can see long distances from their summits. When we lift up our eyes to the hills, we're consciously trying to elevate our minds to new levels of understanding. Note that here, we're not told to look up to majestic mountains, since they can sometimes be too far, too remote, from our daily life. We just need to look up to nearby hills, to raise our minds above our normal ways of thinking. In the Bible, hills represent good that comes from charity. That kind of good -- a love towards our neighbours - also turns us toward the Lord, who then can more readily deepen and infill that neighbourliness. (Apocalypse Explained 374[5])

Our feet are in contact with the ground, and they hold us up. They represent our natural life. The 'foot not to be moved' is our life's intention, to be standing firm with the Lord's support. (Heaven and Hell 96, 97)

To say that the Lord never sleeps is to state the obvious, as Divine influx must be perpetual to maintain all things. This an important reminder for us, though, because sometimes we feel that the Lord is not with us. However, the Lord is, in fact, always with us and is actually closer to us at such times. (See True Christian Religion 774)

Next, we see that the Lord's presence is active. He is our keeper and our shade. He continually knows what our state is, and provides and protects accordingly. He even withholds spiritual things from us at times, so that we don't spoil them. (See Arcana Caelestia 59[2], and 959 at the end.)

The word 'shade' gives us a good feeling that the Lord is over us, keeping us safe. It can also mean that we occasionally require shade — that is, less sight and clearness — for our own sake. (See Apocalypse Explained 401[34])

The sun and moon often represent the Lord's love and His truth. In this psalm, though, they are used in the opposite sense. They stand for our evil love of self and the false ideas that reinforce it - and those will harm us - unless we accept the Lord's power to constrain them.

At the end of this psalm the word 'preserve' is used three times to express holiness. The repetition is important. It represents our need for preservation in every conceivable way — from now to eternity - throughout our "going out and coming in" - the changing states in our lives. (See Arcana Caelestia 1050)

The Bible

 

Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.

5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." There was evening and there was morning, one day.

6 God said, "Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."

7 God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

8 God called the expanse "sky." There was evening and there was morning, a second day.

9 God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;" and it was so.

10 God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering together of the waters he called "seas." God saw that it was good.

11 God said, "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth;" and it was so.

12 The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

14 God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;

15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;" and it was so.

16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,

18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.

19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

20 God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky."

21 God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.

22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

24 God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;" and it was so.

25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.

26 God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

27 God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

29 God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.

30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;" and it was so.

31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.