Psalm 121:1

Verse 1. -- The hills. There can be no doubt that in Palestine we are in the "Highlands" of Asia. This was the more remarkable in connection with the Israelites, because they were the only civilized nation then existing in the world, which dwelt in a mountainous country... The Hebrew people was raised above the other ancient states, equally in its moral and in its physical relations. From the Desert of Arabia to Hebron is a continual ascent, and from that ascent there is no descent of any importance, except to the pains of the Jordan, Esdraelon, and the coast. From a mountain sanctuary, as it were, Israel looked over the world... It was to the "mountains" of Israel that the exile lifted up his eyes, as the place from whence his help came. --Arthur Penrhyn Stanley.

Verse 1. -- The hills, from whence cometh my help. See no riches but in grace, no health but in piety, no beauty but in holiness, no treasure but in heaven, no delight but in "the things above." --Anthony Farindon.

Verse 1. -- From whence cometh my help. The natives of India used to say that when Sir Henry Laurence looked twice to heaven and then to earth he knew what to do.

Verse 1,2. -- Faint at the close of life's journey, a Christian pilgrim repeated the line, --

She quoted it several times, trying to recall the song in which it occurs, and asked that the once familiar hymn, part of the voice of which she caught, might be all fetched home to her mind again; and she was greatly refreshed and comforted when we read at her bedside Charles Wesley's spirited paraphrase, beginning, --

--Edward Jewitt Robinson, in "The Caravan and the Temple", 1878.

Verse 1-3. --

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 1. -- The window opened towards Jerusalem.

Verse 1. -- Whence cometh my help? A grave question; for,