A song for the road

Before you read

One of the Songs of Ascents, sung by pilgrims on the walk up to Jerusalem. The hills in the first line are not scenery. They were where the road was dangerous and where other altars stood, so the traveller looking up at them is asking a real question about where safety comes from. The psalm answers it and then keeps answering it, six more times.

Psalm 121

Read it aloud if you can. It was written to be sung on a road, not read in a chair.

Verse 1. [A Song of degrees.] I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. Verse 2. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. Verse 3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Verse 4. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Verse 5. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. Verse 6. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Verse 7. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. Verse 8. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Psalm 121KJV

Open in the Bible

One question

What are you currently looking to for help, and what would it mean to look somewhere else?

Nothing here is saved. It is a place to think, not a record.

To close

Keeper of my going out and my coming in, I have been looking in a lot of directions. Turn my eyes. Keep me on the road.