This article has been translated by John Gabriel in italian, find it here (click)
Hello all,
this is going to be a quick short essay… First of all, apologies for the long silence… it is unbelievable how one can get so busy to the point to not find a time to even rest. I know I have started a topic on the “atheist video” which still needs to be concluded - promise soon!
I was just thinking of Psalm 121 and I just decided to throw out a small little exegetical challenge.
For information, Psalm 121 is considered to be part of the Song of Ascents, which was sung by worshipers as they would walk towards the sacrificial hills as a song of encouragement and such…
So, if you have this image of David sitting at his balcony and looking west to the mountains and eloquently singing Psalm 121, you should just erase this image from your mind as it is very delusional and missleading in the interpretation of that psalm.
People were tired and weary when singing this song and would sing it on their way to the sacrificial hills…
Having said that, I hope you start getting the picture… the high mont / the high place of worship were not only paganistic, but part of the jewish worship. Jews sacrified and made offerings/prayers on the high mounts
“I lift my eyes to the mountain” is not “I lift my eyes to the OBSTACLE” as many people for centuries interpreted. The mountain never refered to a “problem” nor to an “obstacle”.
“I lift my eyes to the mountain” is also not “I lift my eyes to God” as other people have metarmorphised it…
Getting down to the literal and historial context of that psalm, we can logically, easely and rationally conclude that
“I lift my eyes to the mountain” could just be “I lift my eyes to the place of worship”
“Where does my help come from?” the people asked themselves - and they answered “it comes from the Lord, the maker of all”, it did not come from the worship place, it did not come from the church.
Where is your help coming from? do you often stop like many of us? going to church and stopping at “I lift my eyes to the mountain” or are you like the jews and continue the song “But my help comes from the Lord” 
This was made to challenge and let you interpret it what it would mean to you….
Peace to you all
Ali
November 16th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Interesting, I never thought about that point. I always saw the mountain as the thing that would be the obstacle, the scary issues that we need to deal with, thats why we call out “where does my help come from”…
I agree that God is the one to whom we call out and not the church itself. but hopefully you will have a setting of a faith community which helpf you to look up to God and when you cry out for his help, stands by your side…
November 24th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
The problem is that the “faith community” must be healty by itself to help you being healty. Too many “communities” today have the words “faith” and “help”only in their mouth and not in their deeds.
I translated this Article for the Italian brother of TMC, in order to extend theese thoughts to non-English people.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Hello John Gabriel
Thanks for the kind translation.. you are right that the faith community must be healthy by iself, although each individual members do affect the community health… if we all would strive to be healthy and be open to let God reveals himself to us beside pursuing success in ministry and such… well then I think the community might be healthy.
The problem I see often is that with all the problems the community has, everybody tries to act standalone, away from the community and yet they remain part of that community.
As my personal opinion, I think a lot of the tradional doctrines and theology are suppose to undergo changes to obtain a healthy community which will not be based on traditions or doctrines.