“The Psalms are not primarily about God but about the life of the soul in relation to God.”

— C.S. Lewis

In front of me was the director of a neurobehavioral unit (“suicide watch“). He was evaluating me to see if I was fit for release. After he called out some of my 💩, and suggested maybe I should consider staying longer, he threw a little Bible-nerdiness my way about Psalm 121:6. He shared that the psalm speaks of God protecting us from the strikes of the moon, which, in their world, was tied to distress and anxiety.

That story and he have stayed with me, and the last four-plus years have shown how right he was about my theology back then.

Where Does My Help Come From? (Psalm 121:1-2)

Psalm 121 is one of the Songs of Ascent, meaning it was one of many songs ancient Israelites would sing as they journeyed to Jerusalem for festivals and offerings. These psalms were memorized and prayed as part of communal preparation, pilgrimage, and worship.

Verses one and two set the theme: 

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.”

v. 1-2

The singer’s help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth, the God of Creation. For the ancient Jew, “heaven and earth” immediately brought Genesis 1 to mind. This wasn’t decorative theology but polemical in the deepest sense: not argumentative, but psychologically reordering. It takes a human’s perceived reality and puts it back under the right Authority. Genesis 1:1-2:3 was the foundational Text for the Jewish concept of Sabbath Rest and Shalom Peace. It’s what every person is looking for. 

Some suggest that the Psalmist looking to the hills was a contrast against the high places of idol worship, and there are plenty of those in Scripture. However, the Psalmist isn’t thinking about them. He’s asking where his help comes from while he journeys towards the Temple. This Psalm is about the Israelites wandering through the wilderness of Creation back to the Temple of God, and doesn’t assume high places.

A God Who Doesn’t Rest & Provides It (v. 3-5)

“He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep.”

v. 3-4

Verses 3-4 reassure the singer that God never sleeps, so that they can. He is not a petulant God needing us to keep his constant attention. The “Father is working until now” so we can rest (John 5:17). We can trust Him, relax, and rest well. He “keeps” Israel as a hen keeps her chicks.

“The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.”

v. 5

The imagery here calls to mind sitting in the shade, not working or fighting. The “right hand” suggests a partner, most trusted friend, or advisor. Our Counselor is the shade of Rest, not the sword or plow we hold during our day.

Sunscreen & Moonguard (v. 6)

“The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.”

v. 6

The sun and moon are generally about the day and night. The verse pairs day and night as a merism, a poetic way of saying “all the time” or “at every hour.” The line is a compact promise of total protection.

“Strike” means to kill, slay, or slaughter, first used when Cain kills Abel. The concept of the sun and moon, or day and night, being able to strike down must have struck an accord with the psalmist.

In Genesis 1, God creates the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night, but He does not name them. That matters. Every empire around Israel had its own way of naming the heavens, assigning power to the sky, and treating the sun and moon as more than lights. Genesis refuses that. The lights are real, ordered, and useful, but they are not gods. They’re not in charge but of service to the rest of Creation. They are for marking time, seasons, and the rhythm of life.

In ancient civilizations, the moon was blamed for all sorts of things, while the sun was often tied to a tyrant who thought of themselves as God’s special child. Whoever controlled those gods controlled the population. God did not name the sun and moon in Genesis 1, so humanity understood that they were at our service and did not depend on us. The celestial bodies were for timekeeping and marking of seasons.

Israel’s calendar was lunar, and that rhythm mattered. It grounded the people in the movement of the moon, harvest, feasts, and the land. The Israelite liturgical calendar itself became a spiritual discipline: a way of remembering that time does not belong to us, but we get to be a part of it. The same was true of the Old Testament’s laws concerning generosity, gleaning, tithes, atonement, and care for the poor. These were not random religious accessories. They were part of a world ordered toward wholeness. 

Read plainly, Psalm 121:6 is a poetic balance: sun by day, moon by night, as a way of covering the whole range of danger for both our waking and sleeping hours. Other scholars think it may preserve an older folk sense that the moon could affect health or the mind, which is part of where the later Latin word “lunacy” came from.

There’s a faint polemical edge against ancient Near Eastern lunar religions, and thus solar ones, which is naturally carried over from the polemic of Genesis 1. Still, the function is structural, not speculative, and calls the singer in holistic trust, from heaven and earth, to the sun and moon, and with how it ends, which we’ll come back to.

A Tiny Terrestrial Tangent

Psalm 121 as a whole does provide a holistic and integrated view of mental health. The Earth is never a threat in this Song of Ascent. In Genesis 3, Earth is cursed because of us, and then again in chapter 4, when the violence of humanity has to be absorbed by it. For this reason, the Apostle Paul would later say that all of creation awaits humanity’s redemption (Romans 8:22).

The psalm helps orient the singer spiritually. It re-aligns the soul in proper relationship with God, Heaven and Earth, the present moment and season, and our journey of ascent done in relationship and community. With the intention of sacrifice and atonement ahead, or whatever the festival’s purpose was, this Psalm would help structure the yearly calendar for a human and keep the main thing the main thing by reminding us that God will fight battles we cannot fight, including the ones happening in the background of family, society, and politics. 

The Earth that the Psalmist trudged on was a beneficiary of his or her worship.

Our Comings & Goings (v. 7-8)

“The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and forevermore.”

v. 7-8

The Psalms end with a promise that the Lord will protect the worshipper from evil¹ and “keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

The Jew would have also remembered the Shema, a call to listen for the voice of God, by reciting Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It invites the singer to remember to also have practices and tools of remembering, for spiritual disciplines and wholeness while they are resting (for the ancient Jew, the day began and ended with the night, not the other way around). 

If you’re the kind of person who gets nervous about leaving your place, who knows people can be cruel, and who has to buckle down just to make it through the day, this psalm is for you. The Lord will guard you and help you get through it. He will be there by your side when you go out and when you come back. He will be there when you rise and when you lie down, when you fall and when you get back up. And He is not going anywhere.

Psalm 121 doesn’t remove the world. It reorders its authority.

The sun still rises. The moon still shows up. The anxiety doesn’t just disappear.

But none of it has the final word anymore.

“The world is not disenchanted; it is wrongly enchanted.”

— Peter Leithart