Verse 8. Thy going out and thy coming in] Night and day – in all thy business and undertakings; and this through the whole course of thy life: for evermore.

ANALYSIS OF THE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIRST PSALM

The scope of this Psalm is to show that God alone is the refuge of the distressed.

I. While some are looking for earthly comfort and support, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” c.

II. Faith sees God, the only helper and says, “My help is the Lord.”

And the first reason for this is given: God’s omnipotence and sufficiency. “The Lord that made heaven and earth,” and is consequently the author and dispenser of all spiritual and temporal blessings.

And the second reason is, his grace and goodness; “he will not suffer thy foot to be moved.”

A third reason is, his watchful care: “He that keepeth thee will not slumber.”

III. The end which God proposes in his watching, – to keep them.

1. He is the “Keeper of Israel.” He guards his Church; he is as a wall of fire about it.

2. He is a shade. This certainly refers to that kind of umbraculum, or parasol, which was in very ancient use in the eastern countries. The sense of the passage is, Neither the day of prosperity nor the night of adversity shall hurt thee; nor the heat of persecution, nor the coldness of friends or relatives: all these shall work for thy good.

3. “He shall preserve thee from all evil;” – and,

4. Especially from every thing that might hurt thy soul: “He shall preserve thy soul.”

The psalmist concludes with this encouraging assurance.

1. “The Lord shall preserve thy going out.” We are always beginning or ending some action, going abroad or returning home; and we need the protecting care of God in all.

2. “From this time forth.” Now that thou hast put thy whole trust and confidence in God, he will be thy continual portion and defence in all places, in all times, in all actions; in life, in prosperity, in adversity, in death, in time, and in eternity.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in; shall guard and assist thee in all thy expeditions, and affairs, and actions, either at home or abroad. So this phrase is used Num 27:17; Deu 28:6.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

8. thy going out, c.all thyways (Deu 28:19 Psa 104:23).

evermoreincludes afuture state.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in,…. In transacting all the business of life, in going in and out about it; in all ways, works, and conversation; in journeying and travelling; in all affairs, civil and religious; and not only preserve, but prosper in all, Ps 1:3; the Lord blessing him, coming in and going out,

De 28:6; and such, with the poet x, are said to go with a good or prosperous foot. And such persons, in the Punic language, are called Namphanians, as Austin observes y; who says the word signifies a man of a good foot: and the word seems to be the contraction of , which signifies “his good” or “pleasant foot” z; and so one that, wherever he comes and goes, things prosper with him, and with those that are in connection with him: such an one was Jacob in the house of Laban, whom the Lord blessed, as he says, “since my coming”, or at “my foot”, [See comments on Ge 30:30]; and such a foot Joseph had wherever he went, Ge 39:5. Arama interprets it of a man’s going out into the air of this world, and of his entrance into the world to come. The Targum is,

“the Lord will keep thy going out to business, and thy coming in to study in the law.”

from this time forth, and even for evermore; for the Lord not only preserves his people in life and at death, but in heaven, to all eternity; in the utmost safety and peace from all molestations by men or devils, and from their wrath and malice: not only his purpose and decree, but his power and providence, are the vast gulf between the one and the other; by means of which the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, Lu 16:26.

x Virgil. Aeneid. l. 8. “Adi pede sacra secundo”; & l. 10. “adsis pede diva secundo.” y Epist. 44. z Vid. Sterringae Philol. Sacr. p. 169. Reinesium de Lingua Punica, c. 8. s. 10.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

8. Jehovah will keep thy going out and thy coming in. The sense is, Whatever thou shalt undertake or engage in during thy life shall come to a happy and successful termination. God no doubt directs by his Holy Spirit the, deliberations of his servants; but it appears to me, that this passage is rather to be referred to prosperous issues. If, however, any one would give it a more extended meaning I have no objection. It is enough for me to embrace that sense which is indisputably certain and solid, That God will be the continual guide of his people, so that stretching out his hand to them he will conduct them according to their hearts’ desire from the beginning even to the end. Farther, it is of importance to mark the reason why the Prophet repeats so often what he had briefly and in one word expressed with sufficient plainness. Such repetition seems at first sight superfluous; but when we consider how difficult it is to correct our distrust, it will be easily perceived that he does not improperly dwell upon the commendation of the divine providence. How few are to be found who yield to God the honor of being a keeper, in order to their being thence assured of their safety, and led to call upon him in the midst of their perils! On the contrary, even when we seem to have largely experienced what this protection of God implies, we yet instantly tremble at the noise of a leaf falling from a tree, as if God had quite forgotten us. Being then entangled in so many unholy misgivings, and so much inclined to distrust, we are taught from the passage that if a sentence couched in a few words does not suffice us, we should gather together whatever may be found throughout the whole Scriptures concerning the providence of God, until this doctrine-” That God always keeps watch for us” — is deeply rooted in our hearts; so that depending upon his guardianship alone we may bid adieu to all the vain confidences of the world.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(8) Thy going out and thy coming in.A common Hebrew expression to denote the whole of life. (See Deu. 28:6, &c; comp. St. Pauls prayer, 1Th. 5:23.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

8. Going out and coming in A phrase of beautiful simplicity for daily undertakings. The “going out” to labour, and the returning home to rest, describe the sweep of life’s pendulum. On the going forth of man to labour see on Psa 104:23. Strong trust in the divine protection and faithfulness, and grateful praise, are the characteristic lessons of the psalm.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Psa 121:8. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, &c. That is; “Shall protect and prosper thee in all thy undertakings.”

REFLECTIONS.In every distress the Psalmist fled to a covenant God. We have,

1. His prayer. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, the place of God’s tabernacle, or to the heavenly hills, the place where his honour dwelleth, from whence cometh my help; or it may be read interrogatively, Shall I lift mine eyes to the hills? to idols, or the mighty men of the earth? from whence shall my help come? from these? No; in vain is salvation hoped for from these hills, Jer 3:23. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth; his arm is my dependance, his grace my sole support, and his power almighty; he who created all things, can and will preserve me from the power of my enemies. Note; (1.) God is a sure refuge to those who fly to him. (2.) When human help is despaired of, with God nothing is impossible.

2. The answer. Either thus the Psalmist may have replied to himself, or he speaks to every humble petitioner in his circumstances: He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; though earth and hell assail the believer’s soul, the grace and power of Jehovah is sufficient for him. He that keepeth thee will not slumber, watchful over his saints, their sure protector; and well and safely kept must they be, whom he keeps. Behold, he that keepeth Israel, his believing people, shall neither slumber nor sleep, but, ever attentive to their concerns, and careful for their good, shall preserve them from the power of evil. The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord Jesus, the great, the good shepherd of the sheep, whose infinite love engages him to watch them with tenderest care: yea, the least lamb of his flock may confidently expect his kind regard. The Lord is thy shade; as the thick cloud which shelters from the scorching beams of day, so God will cover them with his wings from danger, and refresh them, as under the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, Isa 32:2 and ever near to fly unto, even upon thy right hand, a very present help in trouble. Thus hid in God, the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night; the fiercest blasts of persecution shall not scorch us up, as the seed on the rock, nor the cold and nipping frosts or inclement dews of temptation blast. Thus hid in God, the Lord shall preserve thee from all evil, whether of sin or suffering; sin shall not have dominion, and Satan shall not be able to prevail. He shall preserve thy soul, either the life from death; or if he give the enemy power over the body, the soul shall be precious in his sight, and the glorious crown of martyrdom amply recompence all the pains that this flesh can suffer. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in; in all our travels by land or water, in our commerce and business, and in all our affairs, this divine protection is over us, and God will prosper the work of our hands: from this time forth, and even for evermore, not only the guard of faithful souls through life, but their guide to death, in death their stay; and after death their everlasting portion. Lord Jesus, fulfil these thy promises to my soul, I beseech thee!

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

REFLECTIONS

MY soul! methinks I would pass by all lesser considerations, to behold Jesus in this one sweet point of view, as thy Surety and thy Saviour, thus becoming the head of his church, and resting upon Jehovah’s faithfulness for carrying him through the work of redemption. It is blessed, it is profitable, it is happiness itself, to contemplate Jesus in all his wonderful condescension. When the Son of God condescended to become man, he became subject to all that man is subject to, sin only excepted. And the holiness and purity of his nature, totally precluded the possibility of sin. But the weakness of our nature, and the infirmities of that nature in hungering, thirsting, weariness, and the like, as connected with a sinless nature – this, my soul, thy Surety, thy Jesus knew. Behold him then, in this state, ready to engage in the service of Jehovah his Father, for the salvation of his chosen; and, as this Psalm represents, looking for help, and resting for that help on the faithfulness of Jehovah. And when thou least looked to thy Jesus in this character long enough to feel thy whole affections going out after him in every tender regard; then, contemplate thy covenant God and Father answering thy Redeemer’s request, in all those blessed assurances here given, of support and power. And Oh, my soul, rest for all thy own needful supplies, for every grace here, and glory hereafter, upon both these grand pillars, and ground of thy faith, the Father’s covenant engagements, and the Son’s merits and death. Receive Jesus as Jesus, the Father’s gift to poor sinners, in all the glories of his own person, the sufficiency and efficacy of his satisfaction, and Jehovah’s salvation to the ends of the earth. And while the Holy Ghost sets his seal to these blessed truths as they are in Jesus, commit all thy concerns into his Almighty hand, that in thy going out and in thy coming in, in time and to all eternity, Jesus may be thy hope, and thy portion forever.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 121:8 The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Ver. 8. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, &c. ] Thou shalt have his safe-conduct, his public faith for thy defence, in all thy lawful enterprises at home and abroad; together with good success in all thine affairs and actions, Pro 3:6 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

thy going out, &c. Idiom for life in general. The promise was fulfilled in 2Ch 32:22.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Guardianship in Daily Life

The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in,

From this time forth and for evermore.Psa 121:8

1. We often make a mistake in endeavouring to associate these Old Testament hymns with great occasions in the history of Gods chosen race, with the important events and crises through which they were called to pass, forgetting, as we do, that Israel, and Gods servants of every age and place, need Him most of all, and need the uplift of every possible grace most of all, in the continuous processes of lifes development and the humdrum experiences of an everyday world. It needs no great stretch of the imagination to believe that some Robert Burns of his generation wrote down these lines as the expression of his simple belief in the all-providing care of Jehovah and His sleepless watchfulness.

2. The very essence of the psalm is simplicity; here you find no high flights of poetic imagination, no startling metaphors or fresh truth. And yet there is a warm glow in its message, and there is a fragrance in its simple trust, which have made it one of the best loved of all the psalms, to both Jews and Christians throughout the world. It is the song of a man who found life transfigured by a thought, a thought born out of his own experiencethat the God of the everlasting hills was no mere spectator of human struggles, no indolent Deity calming himself to sleep amid the perturbations of a universe and the unheeded cries of his creatures. It is the song of a man who had seen Gods rainbow on the dark background of the days routine, and was assured that all is well. It is the song of a man whose ambitions were of a lowly character, and who was content to go out and in, to meet lifes appointments, if so be that the Lord Himself would be his keeper. And what a power lies secreted in the heart of a song when a man can sing it with the emphasis of experience!

I

Going Out and Coming In

1. These words practically mean the activities, the intercourse, the incidents of life. Again and again we meet with this phrase in the Old Testament Scriptures. Take for instance 2Sa 3:25 There Joab warns David that Abner has come with the pretence of friendship, but really to take note of his circumstances and the weak points at which to attack his throne. He came, said Joab, to know thy going out and thy coming in, and to know all that thou doest. Again, see Isa 37:28; there the Lord through His prophet is speaking of the terrible Sennacherib, the assailant of Jerusalem. I know thy abode, so run the words, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. Here in both passages, the meaning clearly is the whole course and conduct of life, all its active incidents, all things in which man goes out amongst others and comes home to himself again, alternating company and privacy, engaging in the varied undertakings of an active existence. It is in fact life, not spent in the monotony of a cloister, or of a wilderness, but thronging with the realities of the common day and hour.

2. Home is the centre of the picture; the day begins and ends here. Its journey does not take its bearings from the points of the compass. It is not eastward or westward, but homeward or away from home. So simple are the directions of the daily pilgrimage, going out and coming in, that some of us perhaps hardly value the fair promise that God shall protect them both. We, whose lives move through a limited field, easily form the habit of prosaic outlooks, regarding our existence as a commonplace and dull matter. We go out without wonder, and return without surprise. We lose that fine fancy of childhood which made a walk into the next street an expedition and brought us back from the woodlands as travellers from a far country. That we can now step from the door with no thrill in the morning, and that our hearts do not throb as our hands feel for the latch at eventide, speaks an imagination of crippled power.

One of the great dividing-lines in human life is the threshold-line. On one side of this line a man has his world within the world, the sanctuary of life, the sheltered place of peace, the scene of lifes most personal, sacred, and exclusive obligations. And on the other side lies the larger life of mankind, wherein also a man must take his place and do his work. Life is spent in crossing this threshold-line, going out to the many and coming in to the few, going out to answer the call of labour and coming in to take the right to rest. And over us all every hour there watches the Almighty Love. The division-lines in the life of man have nothing that corresponds to them in the love of God. We may be here or there, but He is everywhere.1 [Note: P. C. Ainsworth, The Threshold Grace, 11.]

3. The threshold of the home does not draw the truest division-line in life between the outward and the inward. Life is made up of thought and action, of the manifest things and the hidden things. Thy going out. That is our life as it is manifest to others, as it has points of contact with the world about us. We must go out. We must take up some attitude towards all other life. We must add our word to the long human story and our touch to the fashioning of the world. We need the pledge of Divine help in that life of ours in which, for their good or ill, others must have a place and a part. And thy coming ininto that uninvaded sanctum of thought. Did we say uninvaded? Not so. In that inner room of life there sits Regret with her pale face, and Shame with dust on her forehead, and Memory with tears in her eyes. Our coming in is a pitiable thing at times. More than one man has consumed his life in a flame of activity because he could not abide the coming in. The Lord shall keep thy coming in. That means help for every lonely, impotent, inward hour of life.

It is as we convince and persuade ourselves that God is our Keeper who is also the Maker of heaven and earth, that we are delivered from our bondage to care and fear. We could do no wiselier, then, if we are still seeking the rest of faith, than to translate the phrases of this ancient Psalm into the terms of our modern experience, and to adopt them as a meditation and a prayer:

I am beset with cares, night and daycares for myself and cares for my friends, cares for health physical and mental, cares of business and cares of home, cares about life and cares about death, cares for both body and soul. Where shall I look for help? None can really help me but God. He will help me. And He is the Maker of all things. What can I want, then, that He cannot give? What need I fear when He is my Shield? He is not a man, as I am, soon fatigued, soon exhausted. He has worked hitherto, and will work. The whole course of the human story has been ordained and conducted by Him; and, in every age and every nation, those who have sincerely trusted in Him have been content and at peace. Why should I distrust Him, then? I will not distrust Him. He will keep me in the perils of the day, and in the perils of the night. No form of evil can evade His eye or resist His will. Why should He not keep me from all evil, if He cares for me, as He does, and for all men? When I go down to business He will keep me. He will watch over, not my body alone, or my health, or my life: He will also keep my soul, strengthening it by adversity and by the changes of time. No change, no lapse of time, neither death, nor even life, can separate me from Him, my chief Good, and the Source of all other good. I will trust in Him. I will rest in Him. I have done with care, and fear, and the frets of life, and the dread of death; for I have taken sanctuary in Him, who will be the health of my soul from this time forth and for evermore.

If we were thus to dwell and linger on the thought of God and His care for us, to insist on it to ourselves, to repeat and vary our expression of it, to hark back to it again and again; if we could but rise and settle into the conviction of a tender fatherly Providence that covers our whole life, and extends through all time; we too might feel the swell and sacred glow of the Hebrew pilgrims who sang the praise of Jehovah, their Keeper and ours.1 [Note: S. Cox, The Pilgrim Psalms , 44.]

II

The Peril of the Common Round

It was much for the folk of an early time to say that as they went forth the Lord went with them, but it is more for men to say and know that same thing to-day. The going out has come to mean more age after age, generation after generation. It was a simpler thing once than it is now. Thy going outthe shepherd to his flocks, the farmer to his field, the merchant to his merchandise. There are still flocks and fields and markets, but where are the leisure, the grace, and the simplicity of life for him who has any share in the worlds work? Men go out to-day to face a life shadowed by vast industrial, commercial, and social problems. Life has grown complicated, involved, hard to understand, difficult to deal with. Tension, conflict, subtlety, surprise, and amid it all, or over it all, a vast brooding weariness that ever and again turns the heart sick.

1. There is peril in going out.What does this going out involve? Surely it means a great exchangean exchange of peace for warfare, passing from privacy into publicity, leaving those who know us so intimately and love us so well, and going amongst the many, perhaps unknowing and unloving. On the one side of the line we share with others, on the other side we are claiming for ourselves. Here we find our greatest joy in giving; there, usually, our greatest joy is in getting. Here we love and work for one another; there the common aim is to work for ourselves. Within the doorway, on this side of the threshold, life is common, but there, outside, it is individualistic to a degree. Competition rages, fierce and unabating, every day changing its detail, its methods, and its scope. There are slow, grinding changes in the common life which crush the sluggard to the wall, and there are quick sudden surprises which overwhelm even the wary.

There are elements of danger in modern life that threaten all the worlds toilers, whatever their work may be and wherever they may have to do it. There is the danger that always lurks in thingsa warped judgment, a confused reckoning, a narrowed outlook. It is so easily possible for a man to be at close grips with the world, and yet to be ever more and more out of touch with its realities. The danger in the places where men toil is not that God is denied with a vociferous atheism; it is that He is ignored by an unvoiced indifference. It is not the babel of the market-place that men need to fear; it is its silence. If we say that we live only as we love, that we are strong only as we are pure, that we are successful only as we become just and good, the world into which we go forth does not deny these things, but it ignores them. And thus the real battle of life is not the toil for bread. It is fought by all who would keep alive and fresh in their hearts the truth that man doth not live by bread alone. For no man is this going out easy; for some it is at times terrible, for all it means a need that only this promise avails to meetThe Lord shall keep thy going out. He shall fence thee about with the ministry of His Spirit, and give thee grace to know, everywhere and always, that thou art in this world to live for His kingdom of love and truth and to grow a soul.

Put before your mind a man who is fully exposed to real life; imagine him with all the complications of his character: his defects of will, his disadvantage of temperament, his imperfect balance of thought and feeling. What is to happen to him in his going out and coming in? Look at him going out from church for instance. Even on the Sunday night he cannot leave these doors But more or less he finds himself in miscellaneous circumstances at once. And he will soon be waking up to Monday morning, and all the calls and all the undertakings of the week. He will not spend the weekwe shall not spend itunder a sanctuary roof; he will have to engage in the business of the hour, to attend, like most of us, to things which in themselves are of the earth, earthy. He will have to do, as we shall, possibly in close personal intercourse, time after time, with those who know not our hope and love not our Lord, and are thinking of anything in the world but of helping us on for heaven. Look at this man in his going outout to all the countless circumstances that make up life for him; and he cannot keep himself! Look at him in his coming in. He comes into the home circle; and home is too often the place where man is most off his guard. Or perhaps he is away from home life, living by himself; he comes into the privacy of his study, to his college rooms, to his lodgings in the town. However, he comes in; and the enemy will be waiting for that man; some snare, be sure, will be set for his feet, within or without, in the regions of thought, of imagination, of habit, all alone. Ah, what shall he do? How shall he face the perpetual effort, to watch always, to meet and to conquer everything in the going out and the coming in?1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, Thy Keeper, 73.]

2. There is peril in coming in.It might seem to some that once a man was safely across the threshold of his home he might stand in less need of this promise of help. But experience says otherwise. The world has little respect for any mans threshold. It is capable of many a bold and shameless intrusion. The things that harass a man as he earns his bread sometimes haunt him as he eats it. No home is safe unless faith be the doorkeeper. In peace will I both lay me down and sleep: for thou, Lord, alone makest me dwell in safety. The singer of that song knew that, as in the moil of the world, so also in the shelter of the place he named his dwelling-place, peace and safety were not of his making, but of Gods giving.

The returns of life are hardly less adventurous and fraught with surprise than its outgoings. There are apprehensions that wake as we move into the areas of our familiar places again. What may have chanced in the hours of absence? What shock of joy or sorrow may have broken on the home? To what revelation for which our hearts are unprepared are we drawing near? There are moods in which the least sensitive of us has known these questionings. When sickness or anxiety is in the house, our feelings are intensified to a pitch at which we scarcely know whether to hasten or to linger. Or, when our nerves have been strained and jangled in the business hours, they may be quickened to an ominous foreboding.

And, indeed, it is always true that as changes have been worked for us who have been out in the busy world, so for those we left at home there have been also sequences of change. As we do not return the same men we went out in the morning, we do not find quite the same presences awaiting us. The home has had its own temptations and battle-grounds as well as the shop; the wife and children have passed through their spiritual disciplines as well as ourselves. For some hours we have been out of contact; our developments may have been different. The ways along which we have journeyed may not have been the same, not even parallel, nor in the same direction. Our lessons may not have been similar, and our moods and thoughts may have moved on divergent planes.

We may be coming with buoyant steps from a days work, where all has gone fairly and smoothly, to a house where numberless small irritations have ruffled the temper and played upon the heart. Or we may return weary and disheartened to a hearth where the day has passed in peaceful routine. We are in a sense strangers to one another. We have to adjust ourselves and to seek a new point of contact, and it may be very easily missed. We may strike in sudden discord upon one another, our unattuned moods may jar and clash. A husbands buoyancy may enter unsympathetically upon a mood of his wife who is worried and overstrained, or the mans ruffled temper may turn the placid welcome of the woman to bitterness, and so the peace that ought ever to be found on the threshold of home is not found there.

A Christian woman in a burst of querulous questioning said, Ah, if these good men had like me the charge of six little children, and only a careless girl to help them, they would know better whether it is possible to be always at peace. Yes! The Lord shall keep thy coming in. Homenurserykitchen, are His as much as the closet. His keeping is needed in them all, and is equally possible there.1 [Note: J. E. Cumming, The Blessed Life, 100.]

III

The Keeper of Our Way

1. The recurring and characteristic word of the psalm is keep; it is repeated no fewer than six times in the last six verses. The Creator of the universe is the Keeper of Israel. The Keeper of the whole nation is the Keeper of the individual man. The Keeper of the man and the nation does not fall into slumber from weariness; nor is his life, through mortal weakness, an alternate waking and sleeping; He guards them from the perils of the night as well as from the perils of the day. He keeps those who trust in Him from evil of every form. He keeps their very soul, their most inward and secret life. He keeps them in all the changes and intercourses of their outward life, their goings out and their comings in. He keeps them through all lapse of time, now and for evermore.

We need more than ever to convince our own hearts and to lay emphasis upon the truth of the constant supervision of our Father in Heaven over the minutest details of our lives, for, as Carlyle put it, The Almighty God is not like a clockmaker that once in old, immeasurable ages, having made his horologe of a universe, sits ever since and sees it go. Such a travesty of Providence leads to a gloomy fatalism, a fatalism that robs the heart of joy and of the safe-guarding realization of Gods near and ever-defending Presence. And there is nothing that can counteract this movement towards spiritual pessimism, but practising the presence of God.

In the little introductory poem to the Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, there is a line that expresses the feelings of a multitude of men and women: I was ever commonplace. That was certainly never true of Rutherford, and it is never true of any man. And that feeling robs life of all its beauty and its strength. If we believe that we are commonplace, our work commonplace, and our destiny commonplace, then we will do our best not to belie our character. Therefore, our hopes are blasted, and our work becomes in very deed a cruel drudgery. Could we but convince ourselves that the Lord Himself is our Keeper; could we but assure ourselves that we are linked to the eternal purpose of the Almighty, that nothing is commonplace in the outgoings and the incomings of our lives, then we should dream dreams and see visions. We should stand on our feet as the sons of God. We should be filled with the glowing hope of a new enthusiasm. Every duty would be an anvil on which we would forge another link for the chain of character, and every temptation another opportunity of adding something to our credit and the honour of our Lord. Even the very darkness of sorrow and pain would but bring out the stars of Gods mercies.

You have heard of the man who, when he was dying, asked that they should inscribe upon his tombstone just one word, and that one word was not his name, his good deeds, or anything about him; but over the anonymous corpse that lay beneath was to be the word Kept. It was a stroke of genius. Kept. That will do. If I live until I am ninety, and do well all that time, when I come to die, put me down in my grave, and only put that over the top of me, and I will be full contentKept.1 [Note: J. McNeill, Regent Square Pulpit, iii. 249.]

2. God stands at the door morning and evening, like a sentinel, to keep us under friendly observation. The Hebrews attached a good deal of religious significance to the doorway. Even now the pious Jew hangs on his doorpost the mezuzah, a small metal cylinder, which contains a piece of parchment on which is inscribed the famous command in Deuteronomy: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. That command is still fulfilled. The Jew fixes the little case, with the parchment inside, on the upper part of the right-hand post of his door, and every time he goes in or comes out he touches it and he recites the words of this text.

It is said that the great conqueror, Alexander, was able, like Napoleon, to sleep amid the noise and tumult of battle. On a friend expressing surprise at the achievement, he replied, Parmenio watches! But the Maker of Parmenio, the faithful sentinel, is our keeper! How safe we are when we lie in the Bosom of God! How safe when we walk with our hand in Gods! Walking or resting, waking or sleeping, we are safe, if the Lord is our Shepherd.1 [Note: J. M. Scott, Some Favourite Psalms , 124.]

3. The true Guardian is also the Good Shepherd. There are few of the psalms which the early Christians referred more frequently to Christ. On the lintel of an ancient house in the Hauran may be read the inscription: O Jesus Christ, be the shelter and defence of the home and of the whole family, and bless their incoming and outgoing. How may we also sing this psalm of Christ? By remembering the new pledges He has given us that Gods thoughts and Gods heart are with us. By remembering the infinite degree which the cross has revealed, not only of the interest God takes in our life, but of the responsibility He Himself assumes for its eternal issues. The cross was no new thing. The cross was the putting of the love of God, of the blood of Christ, into the old fundamental pieties of the human heart, the realizing by Jesus in Himself of the dearest truths about God. Look up, then, and sing this psalm of Him. Can we lift our eyes to any of the hills without seeing His figure upon them? Is there a human ideal, duty or hope with which Jesus is not inseparably and for ever identified? Is there a human experiencethe struggle of the individual heart in temptation, the pity of the multitude, the warfare against the strongholds of wickednessfrom which we can imagine Him absent? No; it is impossible for any high outline of morality or religion to break upon the eyes of our race; it is impossible for any field of righteous battle, any flood of suffering to unroll, without the vision of Christ upon it. He dominates our highest aspirations, and is felt by our side in our deepest sorrows. There is no loneliness, whether of height or of depth, which He does not enter by the side of His own.

Who has assumed responsibility for our life as Christ has? Who has taken upon himself the safety and the honour, not of the little tribe for whom this psalm was first sung, but of the whole of the children of men? He took upon Himself our weariness, He lifted our sorrow, He disposed of our sinas only; God can call or lift or dispose. Nothing exhausted His pity, or His confidence to deal with us; nothing ever betrayed a fault in His character, or belied the trust His people put in Him. He suffers not thy foot to be moved; He neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Christ will keep us as a shepherd doth his flock. What a possession those of us have who can say, The Lord is my shepherd, not the or our, but my own, even should there be thousands of other sheep besides. Why is He called the great Shepherd of the sheep? Because surely He is Intercessor, High Priest, Mediator, Surety, Captain of Salvation, Author and Finisher of Faith, Forerunner, King of Righteousness, King of Peace: He is all these, and all else His sheep need; for see our provision, I shall not want. I should think not; with such a Shepherd, how can we? Our position, He maketh me to lie down. No sheep lies down until it is satisfiedso our position as kept is just to lie down, to rest on His bosom, secure in His care from all attacks from without or within. Being kept by such a Shepherd, surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life. The meaning of this is that in the East the head shepherd goes in front and two under-shepherds follow behind the sheep, to pick up any who become lame, or are prone to wander. Our Shepherd, who is to keep us, has commissioned Goodness and Mercy to thus follow us. We shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck us out of his hand, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Having been kept all the way by His own power, for He will not give this work to another; we are so precious to Him that we are to be kept by the power that created heaven and earth. Keep them in thine own name, He prays. The very name of the Lord is at stake.1 [Note: G. Clarke, The Keeper and the Kept, 56.]

4. The help and protection of the Lord accommodate themselves to all our individually varying states and circumstances. Help on our right hand is help for our whole sphere of life; help by day and by night is help under all changes; help which subdues the fierce power of the light and also protects from the evils which walk in darkness is help in all our conditions; preservation for our soul is help for our whole nature from its centre, help for body, soul, and spirit; help in our going out and coming in is help watchful and perpetual.

I do not know how these words were interpreted when very literal meanings were attached to the parabolic words about the streets of gold and the endless song. But they present no difficulty to us. Indeed, they confirm that view of the future which is ever taking firmer hold of mens minds, and which is based on the growing sense of the continuity of life. To offer a man an eternity of music-laden rest is to offer him a poor thing. He would rather have his going out and his coming in. Yes, and he shall have them. All that is purest and best in them shall remain. Hereafter he shall still go out to find deeper joys of living and wider visions of life; still come in to greater and ever greater thoughts of God.1 [Note: P. C. Ainsworth, The Threshold Grace, 17.]

I know of a going out and a coming in when we shall specially need the preserving care of God; and to these, as to, every other, may the promise be extended. There is a going out from this world; there is a coming in to the next world; the departure from the present scene of existence on the unknown futurity. But the Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in. Christ Jesus, according to His own declaration, has the keys of death and the invisible world; and therefore, it must be He who dismisses the spirit from the flesh, and opens to it the separate state.2 [Note: Henry Melvill.]

The last day dawned, bringing a busy morning with correspondence and future plans. At a quarter to five letters and cheques were brought to him to sign, and he dictated two other letters. Soon after he fell asleep, and awoke at a quarter to six and partook of a light meal. During the progress of the meal he said to his wife, My head is so heavy, let me rest it on your face. He appeared to have no pain but a slight choking sensation. Then he leaned back in his chair and passed away. He was not afraid of death. I have looked, he had written not long previously in sympathizing with a dear friend on the loss of her husband, into the face of death. Three times has my life been given back to me after a dire struggle that nearly ended it all. But oh! I can tell you death is not so dark and drear as it is painted, even to the Christian. I felt as in the embrace of a friend.1 [Note: Memoirs of the Late Dr. Barnardo, 269.]

She sat within Lifes Banquet Hall at noon,

When word was brought unto her secretly:

The Master cometh onwards quickly; soon

Across the Threshold He will call for thee.

Then she rose up to meet Him at the Door,

But turning, courteous, made a farewell brief

To those that sat around. From Care and Grief

She parted first:

Then turning unto twain

That stood together, tenderly and oft

She kissed them on their foreheads, whispering soft:

Now must we part; yet leave me not before

Ye see me enter safe within the Door;

Kind bosom-comforters, that by my side

The darkest hour found ever closest bide,

A dark hour waits me, ere for evermore

Night with its heaviness be overpast;

Stay with me till I cross the Threshold oer.

So Faith and Hope stayed by her till the last.

But giving both her hands

To one that stood the nearest: Thou and I

May pass together; for the holy bands

God knits on earth are never loosed on high.

Long have I walked with thee; thy name arose

Een in my sleep, and sweeter than the close

Of music was thy voice; for thou wert sent

To lead me homewards from my banishment

By devious ways, and never hath my heart

Swerved from thee, though our hands were wrung apart

By spirits sworn to sever us; above

Soon shall I look upon Thee as Thou art.

So she crossd oer with Love.2 [Note: Dora Greenwell, The Souls Parting.]

Literature

Ainsworth (P. C.), The Threshold Grace, 11.

Cox (S.), The Pilgrim Psalms , 44.

Cumming (J. E.), The Blessed Life, 94.

McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, ii. 249.

Melvill (H.), Sermons, 1854, No. 2241.

Moule (H. C. G.), Thy Keeper, 63.

Piggott (W. C.), The Imperishable Word, 120.

Pulsford (W.), Trinity Church Sermons, 50.

Scott (J. M.), Some Favourite Psalms , 126.

Smith (G. A.), Four Psalms , 127.

Wilson (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Clifton College Chapel, ii 147.

Christian World Pulpit, lxxxiii. 107 (G. E. Darlaston).

Presbyterian, Jan. 23, 1913 (J. R. MLean).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

thy going out: Deu 28:6, Deu 28:19, 2Sa 5:2, Ezr 8:21, Ezr 8:31, Pro 2:8, Pro 3:6, Jam 4:13-16

from this time: Psa 113:2, Psa 115:18

Reciprocal: Gen 8:16 – General Gen 8:18 – General 1Sa 2:9 – will keep 1Sa 18:13 – he went out 1Sa 29:6 – thy going 1Sa 30:23 – who hath 2Sa 3:25 – and to know 2Sa 8:6 – the Lord 1Ki 3:7 – to go 2Ki 19:27 – thy going out 1Ch 18:6 – Thus the Lord 2Ch 15:5 – no peace Job 5:24 – thou shalt visit Psa 12:7 – thou shalt Psa 26:1 – I shall Psa 37:23 – steps Psa 56:8 – tellest Pro 3:23 – General Pro 24:12 – that keepeth Jer 36:26 – but Mat 2:22 – being Mat 6:13 – deliver Act 9:28 – coming

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

121:8 The LORD shall preserve thy {d} going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

(d) Whatever you attempt will have good success.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes