Psalms 121:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand— In those countries, where the heat of the sun was intolerable, shady places were esteemed as not only very refreshing, but likewise as salutary and necessary to the preservation of life. When therefore the Psalmist stiles Jehovah his shade or shelter, he means that he protected him from danger, and refreshed him with comforts. Mudge, instead of smite in the next verse, reads hurt, after the Syriac; and he observes, that they attributed distempers to the influences of the sun and moon, and that this expression points to a country life, where they were more exposed day and night to the influences of those luminaries: As the heat of the sun in the day, so the copious dews which fell most abundantly in the moonshine, were very pernicious in those countries.