Bible Strands
Psalms 121:5
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is the shade on your right hand.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — A pilgrim or Israelite in the Song of Ascents, affirming God's protection between the declaration that the Protector of Israel does not sleep (v. 4) and the sun and moon not striking (v. 6).
The words — שֹׁמֵר (shomer) is the active noun for a posted guard, not a passive shelter; צֵל (tsel) is the shade cast by a solid object, implying a body that blocks the light.
The thread — The shade imagery recurs in Isaiah 25:4 ("a shade from the heat") and Psalms 91:1 ("the shadow of the Almighty"), while Exodus 13:21 shows the pillar of cloud functioning as that blocking presence by day.
Why it lands — The verse positions God at the right hand — the side of action and strength — not above or behind, asking the reader to stop scanning the horizon for safety and acknowledge the one already standing in the line of fire.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 25:4 For You have been a refuge for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like rain against a wall,
- Psalms 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
- Exodus 13:21 And the LORD went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way by day, and in a pillar of fire to give them light by night, so that they could travel by day or night.
- Psalms 16:8 I have set the LORD always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
- Isaiah 4:5 Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud of smoke by day and a glowing flame of fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a canopy,
- Psalms 109:31 For He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from the condemners of his soul.
- Isaiah 32:2 Each will be like a shelter from the wind, a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in a dry land, like the shadow of a great rock in an arid land.
- Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!