Ps 120:1

“...Let them "lift up their eyes to the hills whence cometh their help" [Psalm 121:1]. What meaneth, The hills have been lightened? The San of righteousness hath already risen, the Gospel hath been already preached by the Apostles, the Scriptures have been preached, all the mysteries have been laid open, the veil hath been rent, the secret place of the temple hath been revealed: let them now at length lift their eyes up to the hills, whence their help cometh..."Of His fulness have all we received," [John 1:16] he saith. Thy help therefore is from Him, of whose fulness the hills received, not from the hills; towards which, nevertheless, save thou lift thine eyes through the Scriptures, thou wilt not approach, so as to be lighted by Him.”

“And say, "I have lifted my eyes to the mountains from which help shall come to me" in such a way that you add to it immediately, "My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Therefore let us lift our eyes to the mountains from which help shall come to us. Yet it is not the mountains themselves in which our hope is to be placed, for the mountains receive what they may present to us. Therefore we must put our hope in that place from which the mountains also receive [what they give to us]. When we lift our eyes to the Scriptures, because the Scriptures were delivered through people, we lift our eyes to the mountains from which help will come to us; and yet since they who wrote the Scriptures were themselves people, they were not providing enlightenment from themselves. Rather, Christ was the true light who enlightens everyone coming into the world.”

“However just people may be, however preeminent in grace, however luminous their wisdom, however great the merits that set them on a pinnacle, they are only mountains. Pay attention to the psalm: "I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help shall come," because "there was a man sent by God, whose name was John; this man came to bear witness to the light." So you have lifted up your eyes to the mountain John, from where your help may come, because he is bearing witness to the light. Continue with the psalm; do not stop on the mountain: "My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." That is Christ; "all things were made through him." He is the constructor of the world; he is, you see, the Word of the Father; the Father made all things through the Word.”

“When he says, "I lifted up," he shows that he had advanced to a certain contemplation. Lifting up is bringing something to higher levels. "My eyes" refers to the sight of the heart. The following has been written about them: "Unveil my eyes and I will consider marvelous things from your law" and "The commandment of the Lord is clear, illuminating the eyes." If you were to turn those eyes of flesh, what good would it have been if he had chosen to see mountains situated among forests or rough rocks? But if you were to investigate this matter spiritually, it is altogether beneficial that he be believed to have lifted the eyes of his heart either to holy men or to the divine books or to lofty angels. They are truly mountains in their size and solidity. If he sought help from them, he was sustained. But lest we should perhaps put our hope in the mountains previously spoken about, the second verse shows whence truly our help can come: the one arranging all things in a salutary order. Thus, insofar as there is hope in the mountains, it is nonetheless so that we may know that the Lord offers help to us through them. It is the Lord from whom are the needed kindness and salvific protection and unshaken happiness, as the apostle says: "Neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth." And lest you might think that there is another Lord, since this word is equivocable, he says, "[the Lord] who made heaven and earth," meaning the Word, through whom all things were made.”

“(A song for ascents The simple meaning is that when the Levites began to ascend the steps, they recited this song. Although this song is not written first, there is no chronological sequence.) (In other books I found:) A song for ascents [The Psalmist] alludes, in the second psalm, to the steps that ascend for the righteous in the future from beneath the tree of life to the Throne of Glory, as we learned in Sifrei (Ekev 47): “It does not say here, ‘A song of ascents’ but, ‘A song for ascents’; a song for the One Who is destined to make ascents for the righteous in the future.” This is what the Kalir established (in the concluding poem of the morning service for the second day of Succoth, which was composed by Rabbi Elazar the son of Rabbi Simon the son of Yochai in Chagigah, chapter “We may not expound,” see there): “And from beneath them thirty steps, one above the other until the Throne of Glory, flying and ascending with the pleasant speech of the song of ascents.””

“Canticle. David wrote this during his flight from Absalom; (Grotius) and de Muis judges from the martial air, that it was composed in the midst of danger. It relates to the captives, (Origen; Calmet) and to all in the pilgrimage of this world. (Berthier) — Mountains. Jerusalem, and heaven, whence all our help must come. God most readily hears the prayers which are poured forth in places appointed by him. (Worthington) — Jerusalem was situated among mountains, and the Jews turned towards it in prayer, Daniel vi. 10. They did not depend on human aid, Jeremias iii. 22.”

“Apollinaris renders as meaninglessly as possible: ὄμματα δενδροκόμων ὀρέων ὑπερεξετάνυσσα - with a reproduction of the misapprehended ἦρα of the lxx. The expression in fact is אשּׂא, and not נשׂאתי. And the mountains towards which the psalmist raises his eyes are not any mountains whatsoever. In Ezekiel the designation of his native land from the standpoint of the Mesopotamian plain is "the mountains of Israel." His longing gaze is directed towards the district of these mountains, they are his ḳibla, i.e., the sight-point of his prayer, as of Daniel's, Dan 6:11. To render "from which my help cometh" (Luther) is inadmissible. מאין is an interrogative even in Jos 2:4, where the question is an indirect one. The poet looks up to the mountains, the mountains of his native land, the holy mountains (Psa 133:3; Psa 137:1; Psa 125:2), when he longingly asks: whence will my help come? and to this question his longing desire itself returns the answer, that his help comes from no other quarter than from Jahve, the Maker of heaven and earth, from His who sits enthroned behind and upon these mountains, whose helpful power reaches to the remotest ends and corners of His creation, and with (עם) whom is help, i.e., both the willingness and the power to help, so that therefore help comes from nowhere but from (מן) Him alone. In Psa 121:1 the poet has propounded a question, and in Psa 121:2 replies to this question himself. In Psa 121:3 and further the answering one goes on speaking to the questioner. The poet is himself become objective, and his Ego, calm in God, promises him comfort, by unfolding to him the joyful prospects contained in that hope in Jahve. The subjective אל expresses a negative in both cases with an emotional rejection of that which is absolutely impossible. The poet says to himself: He will, indeed, surely not abandon thy foot to the tottering (למּוט, as in Psa 66:9, cf. Psa 55:23), thy Keeper will surely not slumber; and then confirms the assertion that this shall not come to pass by heightening the expression in accordance with the step-like character of the Psalm: Behold the Keeper of Israel slumbereth not and sleepeth not, i.e., He does not fall into slumber from weariness, and His life is not an alternate waking and sleeping. The eyes of His providence are ever open over Israel.”