Guard and Protect
At one point in my parents’ life, all five of their children were under the age of eight. Somewhere along in there, they were made aware of a 3M product called Scotchgard. You probably know this is a spray-on stain-prevention substance that had moderate waterproofing qualities. Since young children do at times spill, drool and otherwise, soil fabrics, this kind of guard was worth using on certain items with upholstery.
Certainly much more than the fabric of home furniture needs the Scotchgard protection for the spilled cups of Kool-Aid, and snacks of all kinds, we need to be guarded by God’s protective covering all our days. We need the guarding love of God to move through this life, given our vulnerable state.
Guarding and protecting are among the actions of describing God in the Scriptures. The people of God are vulnerable, and the God of love is protective. I have appreciated learning from Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who produced a rather recent translation of the Hebrew Bible into English. In my sharing here I will extend some of his insights into Psalm 121 which we will use on Sunday as our gradual psalm. The Holy One, in this Psalm, is seen as a sentry who guards over you for protection. The Hebrew word for “guard” (shomer) appears six times in the eight verses of this psalm. In our prayer book English translation, the meaning is carried in the following words and phrases—watches over, shades, preserves, and keeps safe—showing God’s attentive action:
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills; *
from where is my help to come?
2 My help comes from the Lord, *
the maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved *
and he who watches over you will not fall asleep.
4 Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel *
shall neither slumber nor sleep;
5 The Lord himself watches over you; *
the Lord is your shade at your right hand,
6 So that the sun shall not strike you by day, *
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; *
it is he who shall keep you safe.
8 The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in, *
from this time forth for evermore.
Remember the nursery rhyme:
“Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lay on.
Four corners to my bed, Four angels 'round me spread:
One at the head, one at the feet And two to guard me while I sleep.”
The four Gospels are the way the stories of Jesus come to us. We think of angels and saints as aids to our faith and protection, but much more, we think of God’s very Spirit as the supplier of grace that guards and keeps us.
The psalm above is sometimes thought of as one of the pilgrim psalms for the trips the faithful made to Jerusalem and home again. Lifting eyes to the hills is itself a kind of prayer beckoning God to come and protect from dangers on the pilgrim’s path. Robert Alter points out that the images of need and supply are worded generally, the better to apply them to all of the ways we look to God, not simply those on the way to and back from the Holy City. Every day is a day for looking for help from the Almighty.
In this Psalm, we pray for the shade of God to protect us from the sun that could strike us by day or the moon by night. I admit, I often wondered how the Psalmist could ever think that moonbeams could strike and harm us. Professor Alter writes that ancient Israel thought being moonstruck was a possible cause of madness. Clearly, we desire the shade of God to keep us from all harm. I love the poetry in the psalm: the image of God watching over our going out and our coming in, always. We look figuratively to the hills, from where we help to come. Indeed, our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.