יהוה שָׁמַר--Yahweh Shamar (God Watches)


Psalm 121
1I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
2My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
3He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
8The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

There are numerous passages I cling to when stress takes over my life. I would be hard pressed to declare a favorite, but this psalm would come close. So this morning I listened to Psalm 121 about 20 times as I meditated through the verses.

First, I want to point out that the word or idea of shamar appears in every verse expect 6. The NIV uses the word "watch" while the ESV uses "keep". They both bear the same meaning. That word points to God’s guardianship – to hedge about, guard, protect, keep, attend, to watch. From this prayer, we know that God never looks away from us.

This psalm is a marvelous piece of Hebrew poetry. By genre it is called a Tetrastich. (There’s a long Greek word you’ll never need again.) That simply means it steps up progressively every two verses. So there are 4 steps in this Tetrastich. The first two verses lay out the question and supple an answer: Who will take care of me? The Lord who made me!

The 3rd & 4th verses give assurance that the God who “keeps me” never sleeps. Think about that. God never looks away. He isn’t surprised by what is happening to you, nor is He unable to handle it. We find that illustrated by the fact that He never sleeps.

Verses 5 & 6 deal with things further away from me, with the writer even using two things that are always with us – sunlight and the moon. There is great comfort in knowing that God controls all things, even in how they affect me. He can keep the everyday stuff, like the sun and moon from causing you danger. I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that He protects us from the moon. Why? I was taught that means He will protect my mind from “lunacy”. That’s slightly funny to me and there may be those in my life who might declare that sometimes my behavior seems like I have indeed lost my mind. But – I digress.

Verses 7 & 8 wrap up the whole idea with the reminder that not even evil can assault me without the Lord’s knowledge and protection. That puts me in mind of Peter and Jesus the night before Jesus is arrested. Jesus tells Peter that Satan has asked to “sift him [Peter] as wheat” (Luke 22:31-32) and Jesus puts barriers around that event.

After being reminded of all this meat inside of these 8 brief verses, I can see why this psalm draws us in while we are experience turmoil. For King and Country have put this song to words. I leave a link here so that you can extend your devotional time with some music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDSU5SNojE4

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