A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM CXXI.
_The great safety of the godly, who put their trust in God’s protection._ A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help _cometh_ from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD _is_ thy keeper; the LORD _is_ shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore. This is a Psalm of consolation, wherein the Psalmist, from his own experience, exhorts the godly to a constancy of faith, and to an expectation of help and defence from God. For although in the hour of temptation God puts off his help, and all things appear as if he were asleep, or had forgotten us altogether, and had left us to be scorched by the heat of the sun by day, and by the beams of the moon by night; that is, as though he had given us up to be afflicted and destroyed by all manner of temptations, by Satan, by the world, and by sin, day and night: yet it is not so;—he has not given us up, as we, according to the weakness of our flesh, imagine and feel. He sees and regards us, and watches over us; nor does he suffer us to be so burnt as to be destroyed, nor so tempted or distressed, as to be swallowed up of over-much sorrow: and this all blessedly experience, who call upon him for his help and patiently wait for it.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.