English · KJV

Psalm 121:6

“The Keeper Who Does Not Slumber”Psalm 121:3–6

King James Version
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
The sun H8121 shall not smite H5221 thee by day H3119, nor the moon H3394 by night H3915.

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night.

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
The sunne shall not smite thee by day, nor the moone by night.

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
By day the sun doth not smite thee, Nor the moon by night.

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
6 Hebrew words
  1. יוֹמָםyo·Mamby dayH3119AdvAdverb
  2. הַשֶּׁמֶשׁha·She·meshthe sunH8121Art ¦ N-csNoun Singular common gender Absoluteהַtheשֶּׁמֶשׁsun
  3. לֹאlo'notH3808NegParticle Negative
  4. יַכֶּכָּהya·Ke·kahit will strike youH5221V-Hiphil-Imperf-3ms ¦ 2msVerb Hiphil Imperfect 3rd Singular Masculineיַכֶּit will strikeכָּהyou
  5. וְיָרֵחַve·ya·Re·achand [the] moonH3394Conj-w ¦ N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absoluteוְandיָרֵחַ[the] moon
  6. בַּלָּיְלָהba·La·ye·lahin the nightH3915Prep-b ¦ N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absoluteבַּin theלָּיְלָהnight
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

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In the KJVVerse 16,088 of 31,102 · 51.7%

Study this verse

Written with AI assistance. Always check it against Scripture.

This verse

God guards his people from the blows of the sun by day and from the dangers of the night, so that they are kept at every hour.

“The sun shall not smite thee by day,”

The sun’s blows were heatstroke, sunburn and dehydration on an exposed road, and the LORD’s shade of verse 5 is the answer to them.

“nor the moon by night.”

The night with its cold, its wild animals and its robbers is covered too, so sun and moon together mean every hour of the journey.

Passage studyPsalm 121:3–6

The Keeper Who Does Not Slumber

3He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 5The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. 6The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

Summary

In Psalm 121 a pilgrim on the road to Jerusalem asks where his help comes from, and answers that it comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. These four verses describe that help. The LORD holds his foot steady, keeps watch over him without drowsing or sleeping, stands at his right hand as his shade, and guards him from the sun by day and the moon by night. The God who keeps all Israel keeps each one of his people at every hour, and in Christ that keeping reaches all the way to our eternal safety.

A song for the road to Jerusalem

Psalm 121 is one of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, Psalms 120 to 134, which pilgrims sang as they went up to Jerusalem for the yearly feasts. It begins with the pilgrim lifting up his eyes to the hills and asking where his help comes from (Psalm 121:1). The answer comes at once: “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:2). Verses 3 to 8 then unfold what that help means, and one word holds them together, the word for keeping.

The journey was dangerous. The paths were rugged, steep and easily slippery. Travellers faced wild animals and bandits, the heat of the sun by day and the cold of the night. People on such roads relied on guides and armed escorts, and every guard they could hire eventually grew tired and slept. Each promise in these verses meets one of those dangers, and each one rests on who God is.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved

To “suffer” here is to allow, so God promises that he will let nothing move the pilgrim’s foot. The word behind “moved”, môwṭ, means a tottering, slipping or shaking, the loss of a firm footing, and in a wider sense a fall or an overthrow. On a steep and broken path a slip could end a journey, or a life. The foot also stands for the whole person and the way he walks, so the promise holds for the walk of faith as well as for the mountain road. God keeps his people steady and holds them up against everything that would overthrow them.

Another psalm speaks with the same confidence: “I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved” (Psalm 16:8). The New Testament gives glory to him “that is able to keep you from falling” (Jude 1:24), and Paul is sure that God will complete the good work he has begun in his people (Philippians 1:6).

The reason for the promise follows in the same verse: “he that keepeth thee will not slumber.” The foot stays firm because the one who guards it stays awake.

What it means that God is our keeper

“Keepeth” is shâmar. Its root sense is to hedge about, as with thorns, and from there it means to guard, protect, watch over and preserve. It is the careful, attentive care of someone who answers for what he guards. The same root describes Adam’s work when God puts him in the garden of Eden “to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). In this psalm it takes the form of a participle, “he that keepeth”, so that it works almost as a title, the Keeper (shomer).

The word returns through the rest of the psalm. Verse 4 speaks of “he that keepeth Israel”, verse 5 says “The LORD is thy keeper”, and verses 7 and 8 use it again where the KJV says that the LORD shall “preserve” the pilgrim from all evil and preserve his going out and his coming in (Psalm 121:7–8). The whole of Psalm 121 is a song about the LORD as the keeper of his people.

Keeping is a word of covenant faithfulness. The God who keeps the pilgrim is the faithful God of Deuteronomy 7:9, who guards and preserves those he has chosen.

Neither slumber nor sleep

Verse 4 opens with “Behold”, hinneh, a word that stops the hearer and points to what comes next. What follows widens the promise. The one who keeps “thee”, the single traveller of verse 3, is “he that keepeth Israel”, the guardian of the whole covenant people. The pilgrim on his road is kept by the same God who keeps the nation.

Two words name what the Keeper is free from. Nûwm, “slumber”, is the drowsiness of a watchman whose head begins to nod, a light doze from which he could still be roused. Yâshên, “sleep”, is sleep itself. Its root sense is to be slack or languid, and Scripture can use it figuratively of death. Verse 3 says that the keeper “will not slumber”, and verse 4 adds “neither slumber nor sleep”, so God is fully awake at every moment, from the first nod of a tired head to the deepest sleep a man can fall into.

Scripture often speaks of God in human terms so that we can understand him. Here the psalm names a need that every person has and sets God apart from it. Every watchman in Israel, however faithful, eventually had to sleep, and while he slept the people he guarded lay open to danger. The Keeper of Israel stays awake through every hour of every night. Isaiah speaks of God who never faints or grows weary (Isaiah 40:28). Deuteronomy speaks of the same unfailing presence with his people (Deuteronomy 31:6), and says, “The eternal God is thy refuge” (Deuteronomy 33:27). Our security rests on his wakefulness and his unchanging character, and so it rests on him.

If God never sleeps, why did he rest on the seventh day?

God’s rest on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2–3) marks the completion of his work of creation, and it gave his people the pattern for the Sabbath. He rested from creating and went on sustaining and governing all that he had made. His rest was the rest of a finished work held in perfect order, and the God who rested then is the same wakeful Keeper who watches over Israel.

Does the promise to Israel reach believers today?

The promise was spoken first to Israel, the covenant people of the Old Testament, and it holds for every believer, because the Keeper is the same God. Paul speaks of “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16), and the New Testament counts those who believe in Christ as heirs of the promises made to Abraham. Peter writes that “the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous” (1 Peter 3:12), and he hears them when they cry to him. The watchful care of verse 4 belongs to all God’s children in every age.

The LORD is thy keeper, the LORD is thy shade

Verse 5 names the Keeper of verses 3 and 4. Twice in one line the psalm says “the LORD”, the covenant name Yᵉhôvâh, the God who made heaven and earth and bound himself to his people. Saying the name twice fixes the pilgrim’s eyes on the one source of his protection and gives the promise the weight of God’s own character. The two titles stand side by side. As keeper he watches and guards, and as shade he shelters and refreshes.

Shade from the heat

The word for shade, tsêl, means a shadow or shade, and figuratively shelter and protection. In the dry heat of the Judean wilderness shade was a matter of life, because a traveller left in the full sun could suffer sunstroke and dehydration. To call the LORD the pilgrim’s shade is to promise relief and refuge from everything that beats down on him, and the picture reaches from the heat of the road to every scorching trial of life. Isaiah praises God as “a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat” (Isaiah 25:4).

At thy right hand

The shade is “upon thy right hand”. Yâmîyn means the right hand or the right side, and because a person facing east has the south on his right, it can also mean the south. In Israel the right hand was the hand of strength, skill and action, used in battle and in blessing. Someone at a man’s right hand stood close beside him, as a helper or as an ally in a fight. It was also the side where a man could be most exposed, so a defender there stood exactly where he was needed. The LORD at the pilgrim’s right hand is near, strong and ready to act.

Does “upon thy right hand” mean God stands at my right side?

The phrase is a picture of God’s nearness and his readiness to help. God is present everywhere, so his place at the right hand speaks of how close he stands and how quickly he acts in moments of weakness or exposure. The psalm quoted under verse 3 says it the same way: “because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved” (Psalm 16:8). There the LORD at the right hand and the foot that stands firm come together, just as they do in verses 3 and 5 of this psalm.

The sun by day and the moon by night

Verse 6 shows what the shade protects against. The verb is nâkâh, the ordinary word for striking, hitting or wounding, a blow that does real harm. The sun, shemesh, struck travellers in exactly that way. Its heat on an exposed road brought sunstroke, heat exhaustion, severe sunburn and dehydration, and long exposure could kill. The LORD who made heaven and earth has power over the sun, and he shelters his people from its blows. Isaiah gives God’s people the same promise: “They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them” (Isaiah 49:10).

The moon, yârêach, brings the night into the promise. The night had dangers of its own: the cold of the desert, wild animals, robbers working under cover of darkness, and unseen pitfalls on the path. Sun and moon together name day and night, two halves standing for the whole, a figure called a merism. So the verse promises protection at every hour, from the dangers everyone could see and from the ones hidden in the dark. The psalm also speaks of the sun and moon as if they could strike, which makes the threats vivid and the rescue vivid too. Both are works of the God who made them, and they answer to him. Psalm 91 likewise promises God’s people protection from terror and pestilence (Psalm 91:5–6).

Does the psalm mean the moon can harm people?

The moon stands beside the sun so that the night is covered as fully as the day. Some of the nations around Israel did connect the moon with sickness and even with madness, the old notion behind words like “moonstruck” and “lunacy”. The psalm uses the moon only to name the night, and whatever a traveller feared in the dark, real or imagined, the LORD’s keeping covered that too.

Does this promise that God’s people will never be harmed?

These verses promise that God keeps his people through every danger, and the rest of Scripture shows what that keeping means. Jesus told his disciples that in the world they would have tribulation (John 16:33), and Paul writes of a creation that groans as it waits for redemption (Romans 8:18–23). The Songs of Ascents themselves speak of the hardships of the road. God’s people stumble, suffer and die in this life, and he keeps them through all of it. Nothing can separate them from his love (Romans 8:38–39), and he works all things together for their good (Romans 8:28). The foot of verse 3 may slip on the path, and the Keeper will still hold up the one he keeps until he brings him safely into his presence.

Christ, the Keeper of his flock

All that these verses say of the LORD comes to its fullness in Jesus Christ. He is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11), and he says of them, “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand”, adding that they are held in his Father’s hand as well (John 10:28–29).

He keeps watch over his people now. He “ever liveth to make intercession” for them (Hebrews 7:25), and he prayed for Peter in his hour of weakness (Luke 22:32). He calmed a furious storm with a word (Mark 4:39), showing that he is Lord over the forces that threaten his people, as the LORD of this psalm is Lord over the sun and the moon. Through his cross and resurrection he triumphed over the principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), so that the fiercest temptations of the day and the darkest fears of the night are powers he has already beaten.

Believers are “kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5), sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). Christ is able to keep them from falling and to present them blameless before his glory with great joy (Jude 1:24). He is also the shade for the weary: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). In him we find shelter from the heat of sin’s condemnation and from the trials of a fallen world.

The Keeper who watches while we sleep

These verses give us a God who is awake while we sleep. Our safety rests on his watchfulness and his faithful character, and he holds it at every hour, through the heat of the day and the dark of the night. He keeps the traveller’s foot on the road and the believer’s soul to the end, and he stands at our right hand as our shade.

Paul writes that when God’s people bring their requests to him with thanksgiving, the peace of God guards their hearts and minds (Philippians 4:6–7), and Peter speaks of casting all our care upon him (1 Peter 5:7). Both rest on the truth of Psalm 121, for the one who receives our cares is the Keeper who “shall neither slumber nor sleep”. The God who made heaven and earth has made himself our keeper and our shade.

Last revised

Public-domain commentary

Matthew Henry

From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Psalm 121:1–8. He set out his notes in a two-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.

1662–1714 · 8 verses
Passage under commentPsalm 121:1–8
I. II. Main points1. 2. Sub-points

This psalm teaches us,

I.To stay ourselves upon God as a God of power and a God all-sufficient for us. David did so and found the benefit of it.

1.We must not rely upon creatures, upon men and means, instruments and second causes, nor make flesh our arm: "Shall I lift up my eyes to the hills?" - so some read it. "Does my help come thence? Shall I depend upon the powers of the earth, upon the strength of the hills, upon princes and great men, who, like hills, fill the earth, and hold up their heads towards heaven? No; in vain is salvation hoped for from hills and mountains, Jeremiah 3:23. I never expect help to come from them; my confidence is in God only." We must lift up our eyes above the hills (so some read it); we must look beyond instruments to God, who makes them that to us which they are.

2.We must see all our help laid up in God, in his power and goodness, his providence and grace; and from him we must expect it to come: "My help comes from the Lord; the help I desire is what he sends, and from him I expect it in his own way and time. If he do not help, no creature can help; if he do, no creature can hinder, can hurt." 3. We must fetch in help from God, by faith in his promises, and a due regard to all his institutions: "I will lift up my eyes to the hills" (probably he meant the hills on which the temple was built, Mount Moriah, and the holy hill of Zion, where the ark of the covenant, the oracle, and the altars were); "I will have an eye to the special presence of God in his church, and with his people (his presence by promise) and not only to his common presence." When he was at a distance he would look towards the sanctuary (Psalm 28:2; Psalm 42:6); thence comes our help, from the word and prayer, from the secret of his tabernacle. My help cometh from the Lord (so the word is, Psalm 121:2), from before the Lord, or from the sight and presence of the Lord. "This (says Dr. Hammond) may refer to Christ incarnate, with whose humanity the Deity being inseparably united, God is always present with him, and, through him, with us, for whom, sitting at God's right hand, he constantly maketh intercession." Christ is called the angel of his presence, that saved his people, Isaiah 63:9. 4. We must encourage our confidence in God with this that he made heaven and earth, and he who did that can do any thing. He made the world out of nothing, himself alone, by a word's speaking, in a little time, and all very good, very excellent and beautiful; and therefore, how great soever our straits and difficulties are, he has power sufficient for our succour and relief. He that made heaven and earth is sovereign Lord of all the hosts of both, and can make use of them as he pleases for the help of his people, and restrain them when he pleases from hurting his people.

II.To comfort ourselves in God when our difficulties and dangers are greatest.

It is here promised that if we put our trust in God, and keep in the way of our duty, we shall be safe under his protection, so that no real evil, no mere evil, shall happen to us, nor any affliction but what God sees good for us and will do us good by.

1.God himself has undertaken to be our protector: The Lord is thy keeper, Psalm 121:5. Whatever charge he gives his angels to keep his people, he has not thereby discharged himself, so that, whether every particular saint has an angel for his guardian or no, we are sure he has God himself for his guardian. It is infinite wisdom that contrives, and infinite power that works, the safety of those that have put themselves under God's protection. Those must needs be well kept that have the Lord for their keeper. If, by affliction, they be made his prisoners, yet still he is their keeper.

2.The same that is the protector of the church in general is engaged for the preservation of every particular believer, the same wisdom, the same power, the same promises. He that keepeth Israel (Psalm 121:4) is thy keeper, Psalm 121:5. The shepherd of the flock is the shepherd of every sheep, and will take care that not one, even of the little ones, shall perish.

3.He is a wakeful watchful keeper: "He that keepeth Israel, that keepeth thee, O Israelite! shall neither slumber nor sleep; he never did, nor ever will, for he is never weary; he not only does not sleep, but he does not so much as slumber; he has not the least inclination to sleep." 4. He not only protects those whom he is the keeper of, but he refreshes them: He is their shade. The comparison has a great deal of gracious condescension in it; the eternal Being who is infinite substance is what he is in order that he may speak sensible comfort to his people, promises to be their umbra - their shadow, to keep as close to them as the shadow does to the body, and to shelter them from the scorching heat, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, Isaiah 32:2. Under this shadow they may sit with delight and assurance, Song of Solomon 2:3. 5. He is always near to his people for their protection and refreshment, and never at a distance; he is their keeper and shade on their right hand; so that he is never far to seek. The right hand is the working hand; let them but turn themselves dexterously to their duty, and they shall find God ready to them, to assist them and give them success, Psalm 16:8. 6. He is not only at their right hand, but he will also keep the feet of his saints, 1 Samuel 2:9. He will have an eye upon them in their motions: He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. God will provide that his people shall not be tempted above what they are able, shall not fall into sin, though they may be very near it (Psalm 73:2, Psalm 73:23), shall not fall into trouble, though there be many endeavouring to undermine them by fraud or over throw them by force. He will keep them from being frightened, as we are when we slip or stumble and are ready to fall. 7. He will protect them from all the malignant influences of the heavenly bodies (Psalm 121:6): The sun shall not smite thee with his heat by day nor the moon with her cold and moisture by night. The sun and moon are great blessings to mankind, and yet (such a sad change has sin made in the creation) even the sun and moon, though worshipped by a great part of mankind, are often instruments of hurt and distemper to human bodies; God by them often smites us; but his favour shall interpose so that they shall not damage his people. He will keep them night and day (Isaiah 27:3), as he kept Israel in the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day, which screened them from the heat of the sun, and of fire by night, which probably diffused a genial warmth over the whole camp, that they might not be prejudiced by the cold and damp of the night, their father Jacob having complained (Genesis 31:40) that by day the drought consumed him and the frost by night. It may be understood figuratively: "Thou shalt not be hurt either by the open assaults of thy enemies, which are as visible as the scorching beams of the sun, or by their secret treacherous attempts, which are like the insensible insinuations of the cold by night." 8. His protection will make them safe in every respect: "The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil, the evil of sin and the evil of trouble. He shall prevent the evil thou fearest, and shall sanctify, remove, or lighten, the evil thou feelest. He will keep thee from doing evil (2 Corinthians 13:7), and so far from suffering evil that whatever affliction happens to thee there shall be no evil in it. Even that which kills shall not hurt." 9. It is the spiritual life, especially, that God will take under his protection: He shall preserve thy soul. All souls are his; and the soul is the man, and therefore he will with a peculiar care preserve them, that they be not defiled by sin and disturbed by affliction. He will keep them by keeping us in the possession of them; and he will preserve them from perishing eternally. 10. He will keep us in all our ways: "He shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in. Thou shalt be under his protection in all thy journeys and voyages, outward-bound or homeward-bound, as he kept Israel in the wilderness, in their removes and rests. He will prosper thee in all thy affairs at home and abroad, in the beginning and in the conclusion of them. He will keep thee in life and death, thy going out and going on while thou livest and thy coming in when thou diest, going out to thy labour in the morning of thy days and coming home to thy rest when the evening of old age calls thee in," Psalm 104:23. 11. He will continue his care over us from this time forth and even for evermore. It is a protection for life, never out of date. "He will be thy guide even unto death, and will then hide thee in the grave, hide thee in heaven. He will preserve thee in his heavenly kingdom." God will protect his church and his saints always, even to the end of the world. The Spirit, who is their preserver and comforter, shall abide with them for ever.

Historical interpretation

Historical reception

1 surviving comment on this verse from the historical church.

1 quote · AD 430
d. AD 430Augustine of HippoPost-NiceneSourceExposition on Psalm 121
"May the Lord shield you upon the hand of your right hand" [Psalm 121:6]. I have said, and I believe you have recognised it. For had ye not recognised it, and that from the Scriptures, you would not signify your understanding of it by your voices. Since then you have understood, brethren, consider what follows; wherefore the Lord shields you "upon the hand of your right hand," that is, in your faith, wherein we have received "power to become the sons of God," and to be on His right hand: wherefore should God shield us? On account of offenses. Whence come offenses? Offences are to be feared from two quarters, for there are two precepts upon which the whole Law hangs and the Prophets, the love of God and of our neighbour. [Matthew 22:37-40] The Church is loved for the sake of our neighbour, but God for the sake of God. Of God, is understood the sun figuratively: of the Church, is understood the moon figuratively. Whoever can err, so as to think otherwise of God than he ought, believing not the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost to be of one Substance, has been deceived by the cunning of heretics, chiefly of the Arians. If he has believed anything less in the Son or in the Holy Spirit than in the Father, he has suffered an offense in God; he is scorched by the sun. Whoever again believes that the Church exists in one province only, and not that she is diffused over the whole world, and whoso believes them that say, "Lo here," and "Lo there, is Christ," [Matthew 24:23] as you but now heard when the Gospel was being read; since He who gave so great a price, purchased the whole world: he is offended, so to speak, in his neighbour, and is burnt by the moon. Whoever therefore errs in the very Substance of Truth, is burnt by the sun, and is burnt through the day; because he errs in Wisdom itself...God therefore has made one sun, which rises upon the good and the evil, that sun which the good and the evil see; but that Sun is another one, not created, not born, through whom all things were made; where is the intelligence of the Immutable Truth: of this the ungodly say, "the Sun rose not upon us." Whosoever errs not in Wisdom itself, is not burnt by the sun. Whosoever errs not in the Church, and in the Lord's Flesh, and in those things which were done for us in time, is not burnt by the moon. But every man although he believes in Christ, errs either in this or that respect, unless what is here prayed for, "The Lord is your defence upon the hand of your right hand," is realized in him. He goes on to say, "So that the sun shall not burn you by day, nor the moon by night" [Psalm 121:6]. Your defence, therefore, is upon the hand of your right hand for this reason, that the sun may not burn you by day, nor the moon by night. Understand hence, brethren, that it is spoken figuratively. For, in truth, if we think of the visible sun, it burns by day: does the moon burn by night? But what is burning? Offence. Hear the Apostle's words: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?" [2 Corinthians 11:29]
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

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