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)

1050. 'And with every living soul in all flesh' means the entire human race. This is clear from the meaning of 'living soul in all flesh'. Every individual is called 'a living soul' from that which is living within him. No one can possibly live, let alone as a human being, if he does not have something living within him, that is, if he does not have some measure of 'innocence, charity, and mercy, or from these something of a similar or comparable nature. This measure of innocence, charity, and mercy a person receives from the Lord when he is an infant and during childhood, as becomes clear from the state of infants and also from that of childhood. What a person receives at that time is preserved within him, and the things that are preserved are in the Word called 'remnants', which are the Lord's alone with a person. These remnants that are being preserved are what make it possible for someone when he becomes adult to be a human being. Regarding these remnants, see what appears in 468, 530, 560-563, 576.

[2] That the states of innocence, charity, and mercy that have been his in infancy and in childhood years enable a person to be human is quite clear from the fact that man is not born as animals are, ready to perform any of life's activities, but has to learn how to do every single one. The things he learns to do then become through the performance of them habitual and so to speak natural to him. Man is not even able to walk, or to talk, until he learns how to do so; and the same applies to everything else. Through usage these activities become so to speak natural to him. The situation is the same with regard to the states of innocence, charity, and mercy with which likewise he is endowed from infancy. But for these states man would be far inferior to any animal. These states however are not states that man acquires by learning but ones which he receives as a free gift from the Lord, and which the Lord preserves within him. These, together with truths of faith, are what are also called remnants and are the Lord's alone. To the extent that a person in adult life destroys these states, he becomes a dead man. When a person is being regenerated these states are the principal agents of regeneration, and he is brought into these states, for, as stated already, the Lord works by means of remnants.

[3] These remnants present with everybody are what are here called 'the living soul in all flesh'. That 'all flesh' means everybody and so the entire human race becomes clear from the meaning of 'flesh' in many places in the Word - see what has been shown in 574 - as in Matthew,

Unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. Matthew 24:22; Mark 13:20.

In John,

Jesus said, Father, glorify Your Son, as You have given Him power over all flesh. John 17:1-2.

In Isaiah,

The glory of Jehovah will be revealed, and all flesh will see it. Isaiah 40:5.

In the same prophet,

All flesh will know that I am Jehovah your Saviour. Isaiah 49:26.