READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS
PART LXXII
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Psalm 121
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Psalm 121 envisions a caravan of devout Jewish pilgrims approaching, camping out near, and departing from Jerusalem. The text includes a host of details a reader may easily miss in 2023. There is, for example, the traditional notion that the Moon caused insanity (verse 6). Verses 3 and 4 reject the idea that God sleeps or stands by idly. The reference to going and coming seems to mean going to and departing from Jerusalem. Yet, in Deuteronomy 31:2 and 2 Kings 11:8, “going and coming” is an idiom for one’s daily work. English, my native tongue, has inconsistent meanings, too. Languages are like that.
The soundtrack for Psalm 121 inside my cranium comes courtesy of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s great oratorio, Elijah: “Lift Thine Eyes,” followed by “He, Watching Over Israel.”
Psalm 121 is a traditional psalm of travelers. Reading the text as applying to the journey of life explains one part of traditional Lutheran baptismal liturgies and funerary rites. For example, in the Lutheran Service Book (2006), before the pastor baptizes the candidate, he says:
The Lord preserve your coming in and your going out from this time forth and even evermore.
–270
The proposition that God watches over the faithful during their journeys of life does not indicate protection from all perils. The historical record lists many persecutions, murders, genocides, martyrdoms, and other unpleasant ways to die, for example. I, as a Christian, also cite the execution of Jesus. And I have a mandate to take up my cross and follow him. Psalm 121 says that God keeps the lives of the faithful.
Psalm 121:7, depending on translation, says that God will guard the faithful from either all harm or all evil. Based on my survey of commentaries, “evil” is the better translation. God protecting the faithful from evil also fits with the harm that has befallen many of the faithful. One who is pious may suffer harm–even die for the faith–yet remain protected from evil, in the afterlife.
The journey of life will not always be easy and free from harm, but it is better with God as the shade at one’s right hand.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
FEBRUARY 15, 2023 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF THE NEW MARTYRS OF LIBYA, 2015
THE FEAST OF BEN SALMON, U.S. ROMAN CATHOLIC PACIFIST AND CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
THE FEAST OF HENRY B. WHIPPLE, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF MINNESOTA
THE FEAST OF JOHN TIETJEN, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER, ECUMENIST, AND BISHOP
THE FEAST OF MICHAEL PRAETORIUS, GERMAN LUTHERAN COMPOSER AND MUSICOLOGIST
THE FEAST OF THOMAS BRAY, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND MISSIONARY
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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