Psalms 121:6
“The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Through the whole turning of day and night, nothing can harm us beyond God's keeping.
Context
Part of a Song of Ascents sung by pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem, where the blazing daytime sun and the chill, exposed nights were both genuine dangers to a traveller out in the open.
What Does Psalms 121:6 Mean?
On the open road a traveller felt the day and the night each in their own way. The sun could smite, striking down with heat and sunstroke on a long climb with no shade. The night brought its own dread, the moon presiding over hours that felt unguarded and cold. The verse pairs them deliberately, the bright and the dark, to cover the full round of the day. Whatever hour it is, whatever the sky is doing, the believer is held. There is no slice of the day so harsh and no stretch of the night so lonely that it falls outside God's keeping.
This is poetry of completeness, the way Scripture often names two opposites to mean everything between them. Day and night, sun and moon: all of it is covered. Jesus is the One who holds both, the light that no darkness can put out (John 1:5), present through our brightest noons and our longest nights alike. Whatever the hour of our lives, He keeps us in it. We belong to a Lord whose watch over us is never broken by the turning of the sky.
In the Original Language
nakah (נָכָה), 'smite' -- to strike or strike down, here the dangerous blow of the harsh midday sun.
Application
Life has its blazing middays and its cold, exposed nights, and this verse covers them both. There is no hour of our lives too harsh or too lonely to fall outside God's keeping. We can move through the whole turning of our days trusting the Lord who holds the light and the dark alike.