I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills, Psalm 121:1 Wall Art

A hiker and the mountains

This is one of the few scenes in the collection set in our own time. A hiker in a cap and a light jacket, a brown pack on his back, stands on a trail of pale boulders and leans on a wooden stick. He is small in the frame and turned away from us, so the viewer looks where he looks.

In front of him, ridge after ridge fades from deep pine green to soft blue, with snow on the highest summits and mist filling the valley where a river runs. Between two peaks the sky turns gold. Dark firs frame the path on both sides. Above the whole scene, in three lines of brown script: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” and Psalm 121:1.

Is Psalm 121:1 a question?

The King James reads it as a statement, but the Hebrew is most naturally a question, and many newer translations add a question mark: I look up at the hills; where does my help come from? The next verse gives the answer: “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.” Help does not come from the hills themselves but from the One who made them.

Psalm 121 belongs to a group of fifteen psalms (120 to 134) titled “A Song of degrees”, usually understood as songs of ascent sung by pilgrims walking up to Jerusalem for the great feasts. On those roads the hills meant both beauty and danger: steep climbs, heat, robbers. The psalm answers every fear in turn. God will not let your foot slip, he does not sleep, the sun will not strike you by day nor the moon by night.

It ends with a blessing that has been spoken over travelers for centuries: “The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”

Who this print is for

Hikers, climbers and anyone who feels closest to God on a trail recognize themselves in the lone walker. It is a natural gift for a graduate, a missionary, someone moving across the country, or a family member deploying far from home.

Because the psalm speaks of a God who keeps watch through the night, it is also chosen after a death, as a sympathy gift or for a memorial wall, and some parents hang it in a child's room after a baptism. In a hallway or above a desk, the wide view opens up the wall.