Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 121:5
The LORD [is] thy keeper: the LORD [is] thy shade upon thy right hand.
5. thy shade upon thy right hand ] ‘Shade’ seems simply to denote ‘protection’ generally, the idea of the metaphor being lost (Psa 91:1; Num 14:9); hence it can be joined with “upon thy right hand,” that being the usual position of the champion or protector (Psa 16:8; Psa 109:31). The phrase may however be a poetical abbreviation for Jehovah is thy shade, ( he is) on thy right hand.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5 8. The comforting thought that Jehovah is the guardian of Israel is developed and appropriated to each individual Israelite. Psa 121:5 ; Psa 121:7 may have been sung by one singer or group of singers, and Psa 121:6 ; Psa 121:8 as a response by another singer or group of singers: or perhaps Psa 121:5-6 by one, and Psa 121:7-8 by another.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord is thy keeper – Thy Preserver; thy Defender. He will keep time from danger; he will keep thee from sin; he will keep thee unto salvation.
The Lord is thy shade – The Lord is as a shadow: as the shadow of a rock, a house, or a tree, in the intense rays of the burning sun. See the notes at Isa 25:4.
Upon thy right hand – See Psa 16:8; Psa 109:31. Perhaps the particular allusion to the right hand here may be that that was the place of a protector. He would thus be at hand, or would be ready to interpose in defense of him whom he was to guard. It is possible, however, that the idea here may be derived from the fact that in Scripture the geographer is represented as looking to the east, and not toward the north, as with us. Hence, the south is always spoken of as the right, or at the right hand (compare the notes at Psa 89:12); and as the intense rays of the sun are from the south, the idea may be, that God would be as a shade in the direction from which those burning rays came.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 121:5-8
The Lord is thy keeper.
Divine protection
A celebrated traveller–after an absence of three years, during which he had walked across the continent of Africa from east to west, through vast regions never before trodden by the foot of the white man–recently received an enthusiastic welcome home. As he approached the quiet Kentish village where he had spent his boyish days, his first act, before entering his much-loved home, was to pass through the portals of the church where his aged father ministered, and, humbly kneeling, offer his devout thanksgiving to that God who had watched over and preserved him in all his wanderings. Among other appropriate Scriptures this psalm was read. It was a touching scene! Many hearts heaved with emotion, and many tears were shed, as the reader,, in trembling accents, uttered the words, The Lord is thy keeper, etc. It was a fitting acknowledgment of that Divine goodness which had safely conducted the weary, sun-burnt traveller through all the perils of his great and adventurous journey.
I. The Divine protection is ample and efficient.
1. It is ample. The Lord is thy shade. He surrounds His people, and guards them at every point of attack. The foe must be able to pierce the invulnerable, and conquer the invincible, before he can touch the feeblest saint who is sheltered by the wings of God.
2. It is efficient. Upon thy right hand. As the enemies of Gods people are ever standing at their right hand to frustrate all their efforts in well-doing, so Jehovah is at their right hand to encourage and sustain those efforts, and restrain their enemies.
II. The Divine protection shields from the most open assaults. The sun shall not smite thee by day. The worker in the dismal mine, the traveller by road, or rail, or sea, the toiler surrounded by the most destructive materials, is alike under the shadow of the Divine protection.
III. The Divine protection guards from the effects of the most secret treachery. Nor the moon by night. The Divine Sentinel never slumbers. He can never be outwitted by the cunning of the most malicious.
IV. The Divine protection is a defence against every evil. The Lord shall preserve thee from evil: He shall preserve thy soul. He protects from the evil of sin and of suffering. He turns away the evil that is feared, and alleviates and sanctifies the evil He permit.
V. The Divine protection is realized amid the active duties of life. The Lord shall preserve thy going out. The good man is directed in the beginning of his undertakings, and shielded by the Divine presence during their active prosecution (Deu 28:3-6). He is safe wherever his duties carry him–in the workshop, the street, the busy mart, on the restless sea, or in strange and distant countries.
VI. The Divine protection overshadows the rest and quietness of home. And thy coming in. Evening brings all home; and the weary one, after the toils and dangers of the day, enjoys the peace and rest of his home all the more because he knows he is encircled by the Divine guardianship. And when the shadows of lifes eventide gather round him, he fears not. The Lord will preserve his coming in–his tranquil entrance into the heavenly home!
VII. The Divine protection is unremitting. From this time forth and even for evermore. Lessons–
1. Offer grateful praise for the protection of the past.
2. Fear not the most furious assaults of the enemy.
3. Put all your confidence in the Divine Protector. (G. Barlow.)
The Lord our Keeper
I. The keeper.
1. Those who are redeemed need to be kept (Exo 23:20).
2. He who is our Redeemer is also our Keeper (Psa 121:5; 1Sa 2:9; Isa 42:6; Joh 17:11).
(1) He keeps us in His power (1Pe 1:5).
(2) He keeps us by His peace (Php 4:7).
II. The keeping.
1. As in a tower (Pro 18:20; Psa 18:2).
2. As in a bank (2Ti 1:12).
3. As in a sheepfold (Psa 23:1; Psa 80:1).
4. As behind a shield (Psa 84:11).
(1) Safe (Psa 31:20; Psa 121:5-8; Jud 1:24).
(2) Holy (Joh 17:11; Joh 17:15; 1Th 5:23-24).
(3) Happy (Isa 26:3; Psa 32:7).
(4) Ceaseless (Isa 27:3; Psa 121:3).
III. The kept.
1. They renounce their own keeping (Pro 3:26; Psa 127:1).
2. They commit themselves to be kept (1Pe 4:19; Psa 31:5).
3. They trust Him to meet them (2Ti 1:12; Psa 31:23). (E. H. Hopkins.)
Kept by God
1. The Lord is my Watchman! I remember that in the days of my boy-hood when my father was away from home, it was sometimes my duty to lock up the house. I used to try every door and every window, but never went to bed with a feeling of peace. I never gained an assurance that everything was safe. I feared that some door remained unlocked, or, if I were sure about the doors, some window would haunt me through the night and disturb my rest. But when my father was the watchman, and had gone round the house and seen to the doors and windows, I laid me down in peace and slept. I could trust his vigilance and his care, and the trust was the parent of restful contentment. The Lord is thy Watchman. Our Father does not leave us to our own self-discovery; He tries the doors and windows of my being. He knows the state of the locks. He knows every room in my personality, and just what are the chances of each room being burglariously entered and despoiled. Our Father especially watches over our safety in the seasons of the night. When sorrow is in the home, when death is at the gate, when calamity blackens the sky, the heavenly Watchman is always near. He keepeth watch over His flock by night.
2. He is not only my Watchman, He is my Defence.
(1) Now let us remember that our Father is sometimes compelled to provide defences for us in ways that are not agreeable or welcome. Defences may sometimes seem the agents of cruelty. The cruelty, however, is only apparent. There is no cruelty in the act of a father who places barbed wire fencing round the edge of the precipice. There is no unkindliness when we put the barbed wire round the mouth of a perilous well. The thorny hedge may keep us from the more dangerous ditch. Have we not sometimes heard people speak in this wise: Ah, well, his present illness is no doubt saving him from a greater one. Only the other day I heard a doctor say, speaking of a certain patient: His fever was his salvation. In the feverish fire something was consumed that might have been productive of a more perilous disease. And our Father sometimes sends the fire into our life in order that He might keep us from something infinitely worse. The fire in the forest wards off the wild beasts; and in the fire which God sometimes permits to dwell in our life many things are seared away, and many things are destroyed. In the fire of tribulation superciliousness is destroyed, and so is callousness and every form of pride. The Lord is our Keeper, and in apparent cruelty He pours out the treasures of His heart.
(2) Now let us mark the thoroughness of our Fathers keeping. He shall keep thee as the apple of the eye. How wonderful is the figure I The delicate, sensitive organ, the eye, is protected by the bony framework like an encircling cave. The exquisite instrument is enthroned, as it were, in walls of rock. And just as the eye is protected with these strong encircling ramparts, so my Father will protect me. He is able to keep you from falling. It is an exquisite figure; the mother is training her little one to walk, and while in great timidity and uncertainty it moves from step to step, the mothers arms almost encircle it, and most surely prevent it from falling. And I, too, am learning to walk, am learning to walk as a child of light; and my feet are so uncertain, and my resolution is so Wavering, that I need the encircling care of the everlasting arms. The Lord is thy keeper, and He is able to keep you from falling. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
God our Keeper
This verse refers to God during the day. For, oh, when we get out during the day, end go down to the town there, and go about our daily business, we are apt to think: Now, we do not need all that our minister has been preaching to us about–Gods care, and Gods keeping, and God being our nursing Father. During the day we will kind of forge ahead without Him. Nay; do not make that mistake, for you will not. Let God be your Keeper down in business there. I speak to you business men. Suffer the word of exhortation. On some grounds I have no right to speak to you. I stand here and speak for God, and say, when you go back to the office, before you take that budget of letters and open them, look up to God, and say, Now, Thou art to help me here–here among these papers, and manuscripts, and these clerks, and this business of per cents., and I do not know what all. Aye, they are dangerous things–per cents. Oh, Heaven help you! You need God among the per cents. You will lose your soul among the per cents, and the ledgers. Remember the overshadowing Presence, and, while it keeps you, may it also sanctify you. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Travellers in tropical countries know the great danger from a stroke of the sun, or a stroke of the moon, or from lying out at night in the mists and the damps. All the dangers of the way are met and forestalled by this great and mighty Keeper of His people. (John McNeill.)
Safety in Gods keeping
The Lord is thy Keeper, but not thy jailor. His keeping is not confinement, but protection. When you commit your ways to Him, He does not abridge your liberty; He only defends you against evil.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Thy shade; both to refresh thee and keep thee from the burning heat of the sun, as it is expressed in the next verse, and to protect thee by his power from all thine enemies; for which reason God is oft called a shadow in Scripture.
Upon thy right hand; partly to uphold thy right hand, which is the chief instrument of action; and partly to defend thee in that place where thine enemies oppose thee; of which on Psa 109:6. And compare Psa 16:8; 109:31.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. upon thy right handaprotector’s place (Psa 109:31;Psa 110:5).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Lord [is] thy keeper,…. This explains more fully who it is that keeps Israel and particular believers, and confirms the same; not a creature, but the Lord; the Word of the Lord, as the Targum, in
Ps 121:7: Christ, the Word and Wisdom of God; who is the keeper of his people by the designation of his Father, who has put them into his hands to be kept by him; and by their full will and consent, who commit the keeping of their souls to him; for which he is abundantly qualified, being able as the mighty God; faithful to him that has appointed him; tender and compassionate to those under his care, whom he keeps as the apple of his eye; and diligent and constant, for he keeps them night and day, lest any hurt them: he keeps them as they are his flock, made his care and charge; as they are the vineyard of the Lord of hosts; as they are a city, which, unless the Lord keeps, the watchmen watch in vain; as they are his body and members of it, and as they are his jewels and peculiar treasure: these he keeps in the love of God; in his own hands; in the covenant of grace; in an estate of grace; and in his own ways, safe to his kingdom and glory;
the Lord [is] thy shade upon thy right hand; he is at the right hand of his people, to hold their right hand; to teach them to go, lead them into communion with himself, and hold them up safe; and to strengthen their right hand, assist them in working, without whom they can do nothing; and to counsel and direct them, and to protect and defend them against all their enemies. So a shadow signifies defence; see Nu 14:9 Ec 7:12; and such great personages are to others; in which sense Virgil n uses the word “shadow”; and much more true is this of God himself. And he is like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; or of a spreading tree, which is a protection from heat, and very reviving and refreshing; see Isa 32:2. The allusion may be to the pillar of cloud by day, which guided and guarded the Israelites in the wilderness, and was a shadow from the heat, Isa 4:5; as Christ is from the heat of a fiery law, the flaming sword of justice, the wrath of God, and the fiery darts of Satan.
n “Et magnum reginae nomen obumbrat”, Aeneid. l. xi.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
That which holds good of “the Keeper of Israel” the poet applies believingly to himself, the individual among God’s people, in Psa 121:5 after Gen 28:15. Jahve is his Keeper, He is his shade upon his right hand ( as in Jdg 20:16; 2Sa 20:9, and frequently; the construct state instead of an apposition, cf. e.g., Arab. janbu ‘l – grbyi , the side of the western = the western side), which protecting him and keeping him fresh and cool, covers him from the sun’s burning heat. , as in Psa 109:6; Psa 110:5, with the idea of an overshadowing that screens and spreads itself out over anything (cf. Num 14:9). To the figure of the shadow is appended the consolation in Psa 121:6. of the sun signifies to smite injuriously (Isa 49:10), plants, so that they wither (Psa 102:5), and the head (Jon 4:8), so that symptoms of sun-stroke ( 2Ki 4:19, Judith 8:2f.) appears. The transferring of the word of the moon is not zeugmatic. Even the moon’s rays may become insupportable, may affect the eyes injuriously, and (more particularly in the equatorial regions) produce fatal inflammation of the brain.
(Note: Many expositors, nevertheless, understand the destructive influence of the moon meant here of the nightly cold, which is mentioned elsewhere in the same antithesis. Gen 31:40; Jer 36:30. De Sacy observes also: On dit quelquefois d’un grand froid, comme d’un grand chaud, qu’il est brulant. The Arabs also say of snow and of cold as of fire: jahrik , it burns.)
From the hurtful influences of nature that are round about him the promise extends in Psa 121:7-8 in every direction. Jahve, says the poet to himself, will keep (guard) thee against all evil, of whatever kind it may be and whencesoever it may threaten; He will keep thy soul, and therefore thy life both inwardly and outwardly; He will keep ( , cf. on the other hand in Psa 9:9) thy going out and coming in, i.e., all thy business and intercourse of life (Deu 28:6, and frequently); for, as Chrysostom observes, , , therefore: everywhere and at all times; and that from this time forth even for ever. In connection with this the thought is natural, that the life of him who stands under the so universal and unbounded protection of eternal love can suffer no injury.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(5) Thy keeper.Notice again how the prominent word is caught up from the preceding verse and amplified, and then again repeated, and again amplified in Psa. 121:7-8, where preserve is an unfortunate substitution by the Authorised Version.
Shade.An image of protection, and one peculiarly attractive to the Oriental. (See Num. 14:9, margin; Psa. 91:1; Isa. 25:4; Isa. 32:2.)
Upon thy right hand.Some commentators combine this expression with the figure of the shadow, supposing the psalmist, in the phrase right hand, to allude to the south or sunny side. But this is prosaic. No doubt there is here, as so often, a confused combination of metaphors. We have several times met with the figure of the right-hand comrade in war, a protection to the unshielded side (Psa. 16:8; Psa. 109:31, &c).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Thy shade Shadow, as a covering, gives the idea, figuratively, of protection, as Psa 91:1; Isa 30:2-3, and is here parallel to keeper in the first member of the verse.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 121:5. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand In those countries, where the heat of the sun was intolerable, shady places were esteemed as not only very refreshing, but likewise as salutary and necessary to the preservation of life. When therefore the Psalmist stiles Jehovah his shade or shelter, he means that he protected him from danger, and refreshed him with comforts. Mudge, instead of smite in the next verse, reads hurt, after the Syriac; and he observes, that they attributed distempers to the influences of the sun and moon, and that this expression points to a country life, where they were more exposed day and night to the influences of those luminaries: As the heat of the sun in the day, so the copious dews which fell most abundantly in the moonshine, were very pernicious in those countries.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 121:5 The LORD [is] thy keeper: the LORD [is] thy shade upon thy right hand.
Ver. 5. The Lord is thy keeper ] His peace within thee and his power without thee shall safeguard thee to his heavenly kingdom, , Phi 4:7 .
The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 121:5-8
5The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
8The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.
Psa 121:6 This is imagery for
1. military attack
2. demonic attack (see Special Topic: The Demonic in the OT )
Notice the phrase protect/keep from all evil in Psa 121:7 a. It is surely possible that this phrase is a Hebrew idiom for all problems.
Psa 121:7 He will keep your soul What a wonderful promise of individual care and protection! He is with and for faithful followers. We are not alone and our life has purpose!
Psa 121:8 a This is Hebrew imagery for God’s watchful care over all of the life of His faithful followers (cf. Psa. 28:6; 139:1-6).
Notice the typical Hebrew way of using two opposites as a way to include all.
1. heaven – earth, Psa 121:2
2. sun – moon, Psa 121:6
3. in – out, Psa 121:8
Psa 121:8 b There is surely an element of eternity in this verse, as there is in Psa 23:6. The afterlife is veiled in the OT but the progressive revelation of the NT clarifies the truth!
forever See Special Topic: Forever (‘olam) .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
This is a study guide commentary which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.
These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought provoking, not definitive.
1. To what mountain or mountains does Psa 121:1 refer?
2. Why is God as creator mentioned in this Psalm?
3. Explain the OT imagery of Psa 121:3 a.
4. Why is Israel brought into this Psalm in Psa 121:4? How does the corporate aspect of protection and care apply?
5. Explain the imagery of shade in Psa 121:5 b
6. To what does all evil of Psa 121:7 a refer?
7. Is there a reference to the afterlife in Psa 121:8 b?
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
thy shade: Exo 13:21, Isa 4:5, Isa 4:6, Isa 25:4, Isa 32:2, Mat 23:37
upon: Psa 16:8, Psa 109:31
Reciprocal: Gen 28:15 – keep Exo 13:22 – He took Exo 26:14 – a covering Num 14:9 – defence 1Sa 2:9 – will keep 2Ch 6:20 – thine eyes Psa 91:6 – pestilence Pro 2:8 – keepeth Isa 49:10 – neither Dan 3:17 – our God
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Yahweh would guard His people as an animal keeper protects his charge. He would protect them from hostile influences that the blazing Palestinian sun represented. He would not allow danger to overtake them by day or by night.