The Psalms of Ascent are a beautiful little group of psalms near the end of the book (120-134). Supposedly they were sung by Jews traveling to Jerusalem, which is on a mountain, hence the ascent. There are wonderful themes of worship and God’s protection running all through them, and the more I read them together, the more I see how interconnected they are.

Psalm 120 begins the set by talking about how wearisome it is to live among liars and foreigners (a problem because foreigners served foreign gods) and those who hate peace. Then Psalm 121 starts with some imagery you’ve probably encountered:

I lift my eyes to the mountains:
where is help to come from?

In his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson makes a point about this verse I had never considered. When you looked up at mountains in ancient Israel, what would you see?

Idolatry.

Over and over throughout the Old Testament, centers of worship for false gods are called high places. God condemns them repeatedly, and occasionally someone goes around and knocks some down, but they always pop back up. Even some of the better kings who try to return to serving God don’t destroy the high places.

But when the psalmist looks to the high places and wonders where he can get help, he realizes it’s not from those gods.

Help comes to me from Yahweh,
who made heaven and earth.

Then we get a lovely description of all the help Yahweh provides.

No letting our footsteps slip!
This guard of yours, he does not doze!
The guardian of Israel
does not doze or sleep.

Yahweh guards you, shades you.
With Yahweh at your right hand
sun cannot strike you down by day,
nor moon at night.

Yahweh guards you from harm,
he guards your lives,
he guards you leaving, coming back,
now and for always.

In Psalm 122, the psalmist arrives in Jerusalem and is excited to worship God there with his fellow Israelites. And in Psalm 123, we have some development.

I lift my eyes to you,
to you who have your home in heaven,
eyes like the eyes of slaves
fixed on their master’s hand;

like the eyes of a slave girl
fixed on the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes are fixed on Yahweh our God,
for him to take pity on us;

pity us, Yahweh, take pity on us,
we have had more than our share of scorn,
more than our share
of jeers from the complacent,
of scorn from the proud.

No looking around at the mountains to see all the false gods with their high places and wondering who to ask for help. This time we look straight to Yahweh – and with laser focus.

As it should be.

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