God’s Word for You
Psalm 121:3-4 The Lord watches
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, February 5, 2026
3 He will not even let your foot shake.
The One who watches you does not tire.
4 He does not get drowsy. He does not fall asleep.
He watches over Israel.
In verse 2 we were reminded that God is the one who made heaven and earth. Now we are assured: the same one who made everything is the one who watches over us at all times. “Just as nothing was made except through the creating essence, so nothing continues to flourish except through the preserving power of the same [God]” (Anselm).
This is a wonderful comfort, or it should be. But the sinful cynic says in his heart, “I don’t think that God is watching over me all the time. Sometimes I think he really is asleep, just the opposite of what he claims here. In fact, sometimes I think that his snoring is so loud that he can’t hear my desperate prayers for help. Wake up! Wake up! I cry. How can I get help from these terrible, awful things in my life when the one who says that he’s watching over me is sound asleep? If I could storm into his bedroom, I would throw off the covers and shake him awake and ask him why he doesn’t keep a closer watch over me? But this is my cynical sinful side speaking. I know full well that if I could dare to storm into heaven, my sinful nature would stop me at the door. I know full well that if I tried to find God’s bedroom, I would be shown proof by everyone there that there is no such thing as God’s bedroom, since he never tires, never nods off, never naps, and never sleeps. Never.
In fact, I may find to my shame that so many of the troubles I’ve been facing have come on account of my own sins, all of the times I decided to do what I wanted instead what God wills, and so he has put some road blocks into my life to slow me down; some crosses for me to pick up, heft up onto my shoulder, and realize that I need to ask for help. What God wants from us is trust, and when we’re tempted to wonder if he’s listening, then the problem isn’t the connection on his end, but on ours.
Luther also says: “The righteous always act in fear as if the Lord saw them. But the ungodly walk along smugly, as if God had his eyelids closed and did not see them, even though he examines them, too, and knocks, warning their conscience, as Revelation 3:20 says, ‘I stand at the door and knock.’ For no one is so evil that he does not feel the murmur of reason and the voice of conscience.”
Many English translations invert the order of the two phrases in verse 4, while the Greek and Latin (and I) follow the order of the Hebrew words. This arrangement gives a three-part comfort to the reader, not unlike the three-part warning of Psalm 1. In this case, God does not (1) get tired, (2) drift off to sleep (or nap), or (3) sleep at all. His is always watching over us. Grammatically, we should notice that all of the verbs that describe the various acts of sleep are all finite, imperfect verbs (this is the grammatical name), but the verbs that describes God as the one who watches are participles and show God as the one who is constantly performing this act, which is watching over us and over Israel. He is always watching.
And speaking of the Greek translation, the LXX begins verse 3 with μὴ δῷς εἰς σάλον τὸν πόδα σου, “He will not give your foot over to a rough wave,” where σάλος can be either rough waves of the sea (Jonah 1:15; Luke 21:25; Psalm 89:9) or the tremors of an earthquake, “the rough storms of the south” (Zechariah 9:14) and yet could also be any “rough stuff” including rough clothing like “the one clothed in burlap” (Sirach 40:4). God will not give us over to any rough stuff, weatherwise or otherwise, unless it might be for our eternal good or for his good plan for the Gospel spreading out into the world to gather his people into the fold.
The devil never gives up attacking God’s people, and God not does give up guarding and keeping us, watching over us, and sending his holy angels to fight unseen battles all around us. What greater comfort could we have than knowing that whenever troubles come, in every temptation, whether physical or spiritual, worldly or otherworldly, that the Lord watches over us and guards us? We realize, to our humbled awe, that God is concerned about us! Us! Why would I ever be the Lord’s concern? This is another proof of God’s eternal love for us, that he who chose us in Christ before the creation of the world is also concerned about each of us when our turn comes to step out onto the stage of the world for the brief scenes of our act. Surely he watches us and offers his help to us, whether a person “struts and frets his hour upon the stage” or “passes over the stage in order and state,” until the curtain falls and home we are called at last to rest and rejoice in the arms of Jesus forever.
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Click for Something Extra: Psalm 1:2
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.