What does Psalms Chapter 120 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Eyes are lifted to mountains and help attributed to their Maker. Israel’s keeper is declared sleepless. Keeping soul and movements remains requested as well as praised.

Chapter breakdown

Levavi oculos is the incipit; the heading says God keeps His servants and the inscription is a gradual canticle. The speaker has lifted eyes to mountains from whence help shall come and identifies his help as from the Lord who made heaven and earth. The declaration is not rewritten as a question or rejection of mountains and fortresses.

He asks that the addressee’s foot not be moved and the keeper not slumber, declaring Israel’s keeper shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is keeper and protection on the right hand. Sun shall not burn by day nor moon by night; the text does not name shade, sunstroke, cold exposure or a particular mountain road to Jerusalem.

The Lord keeps from all evil and the speaker asks Him to keep the soul, coming in and going out from now forever. Those requests remain requests rather than an observed guarantee against every physical injury.

The story inside

Opening: Eyes are lifted to mountains and help attributed to their Maker. Development: Israel’s keeper is declared sleepless. Conclusion: Keeping soul and movements remains requested as well as praised.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Eyes are lifted to mountains and help attributed to their Maker.
2
Israel’s keeper is declared sleepless.
3
Keeping soul and movements remains requested as well as praised.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 65970–65973
120:1. I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me. 120:2. My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Lines 65975–65978
120:3. May he not suffer thy foot to be moved: neither let him slumber that keepeth thee. 120:4. Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep, that keepeth Israel.
Lines 65985–65988
120:7. The Lord keepeth thee from all evil: may the Lord keep thy soul. 120:8. May the Lord keep thy coming in and thy going out; from henceforth now and for ever.