Tag Archives: Psalms of Ascent

Psalm 124 Us and God Against the World

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Pilgrim Steps Leading to the Double Gate (Southern Steps of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem) picture from 2009 by Wilson44691 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6899573

Psalm 124

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

 1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side
  —let Israel now say—
 2 if it had not been the LORD who was on our side,
  when our enemies attacked us,
 3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
  when their anger was kindled against us;
 4 then the flood would have swept us away;
  the torrent would have gone over us;
 5 then over us would have gone
  the raging waters.

 6 Blessed be the LORD,
  who has not given us
  as prey to their teeth.
 7 We have escaped like a bird
  from the snare of the hunters;
 the snare is broken,
  and we have escaped.

 8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
  who made heaven and earth.

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

The overall meaning of the psalm should be clear to any reader: the LORD is the one who is on our side and who rescues us from the perils of the world. The theme of God as strength, support, shelter, rock, shield, fortress and many other metaphors of protection and comfort occur regularly throughout the psalms and scripture in general. The theme of this fifth song of ascent is not new, but its language (somewhat dulled in English translations) is striking. Israel would not continue to exist without the LORD. Paul’s defiant statement in his letter to the church in Rome echoes the sentiment of this psalm: “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31)

Verse one and two both begin with a statement that seems conditional in English, “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side” but as Nancy deClaissé-Walford highlights,

Verses 1 and 2 both begin with if not (lûlê), forming the protasis of vv. 1-5. Lûlê, however, is only used in Hebrew to express an unreal condition. The psalm-singers are confident that the Lord is on their side. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 907)

This psalm of corporate trust in the LORD begins and ends with a confident assurance that the God of Israel has protected the people of God against her enemies. The enemies identified in verse two is identified with the collective noun humanity(‘adam). Israel and God have all humanity arrayed in opposition to them, and without God Israel would have been overwhelmed.

The psalm then uses several images that indicate that the people of God on their own are powerless before those who oppose them. Their enemy is large enough to swallow them alive, or to sweep over the life of the people,[1] to be devoured in the mouth or captured in a trap. In verse six the word rendered teeth is the same word (lason) rendered tongue in Psalm 120:2

          Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

Compared to the hunter of fowl the people of Israel are like a bird unable to free themselves from the traps their enemies have laid. On their own Israel is small and weak before the mass of humanity arrayed against them. Yet here, as in Psalm 121, their help is in the name of the LORD who makes heaven and earth. What was a confession of individual trust in Psalm 121 is now a corporate statement of trust in the creating and protecting God. As a people they ‘go with God.’

In the United States, where I live and lead a congregation, there is a reliance on self-sufficiency that is very different from the biblical faith represented in the psalms and throughout the bible. As J. Clinton McCann, Jr. aptly writes,

To profess that God is our fundamental help means to profess that we are not sufficient to create and secure our own lives and future. In short, we need help. (NIB IV: 1191)

As people of God, we believe that God is on our side and stands with us against the enemies that threaten to consume or overwhelm us. If it were only our own strength that we could rely on we would find ourselves consumed, overwhelmed, and trapped but in our own weakness we know our help comes from the one who created the heavens and the earth.

[1] In verse 4b and 5 the “us” in the verse is the Hebrew nephesh, often rendered “soul” in English translations but in Hebrew thought it is closer to the essence of life, not something that can be separated from life. J. Clinton McCann, Jr. notes the word may have originally meant neck. (NIB IV: 1190)

Psalm 122 Prayers of Peace for Jerusalem

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The Bünting Clover Leaf Map, by Heinrich Bünting, was published in 1581 and depicts Jerusalem as the center of the world.

Psalm 122

A Song of Ascents

1 I was glad when they said to me,
  “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”
 2 Our feet are standing
  within your gates, O Jerusalem.

 3 Jerusalem—built as a city
  that is bound firmly together.
 4 To it the tribes go up,
  the tribes of the LORD,
 as was decreed for Israel,
  to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
 5 For there the thrones for judgment were set up,
  the thrones of the house of David.

 6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
  “May they prosper who love you.
 7 Peace be within your walls
  and security within your towers.”
 8 For the sake of my relatives and friends
  I will say, “Peace be within you.”
 9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
  I will seek your good.

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

If we look at the first three songs of ascent in order (Psalm 120-122) there is a suggestive narrative. The psalmist begins in a place far from the city of peace surrounded by those who desire war (Psalm 120). The psalmist then departs on a journey lifting up their eyes to the hills (Mount Zion-Psalm 121). In this third song of ascent the psalmist arrives at their destination of Jerusalem. (NIB IV:1183) This song of thanksgiving upon arriving in the city of Jerusalem, the spiritual center of their world captures the joy of a pilgrim upon reaching their long-awaited destination.

Both Isaiah 2: 2-3 and Micah 4:1-4 envision Jerusalem as being the spiritual center of the world for Jews and Gentiles, where the nations see the people living in harmony with God’s will for the world and they come to the mountain of God seeking instruction. Jerusalem becomes the pivot for a complete reordering of power in the prophetic imagination as swords become plowshares and spears become pruning hooks. The city of shalom (Jerusalem) becomes a light on the hill that the nations are drawn to learn God’s ways of peace.

The psalm is structured around the two houses that reside in Jerusalem: the house of the LORD and the house of David. The house of David occupies the central verse of the poem structurally, and the royal house occupies an important role in providing judgment for people coming to the city. As James L. Mays can highlight:

Pilgrimage season was likely a time when conflicts and disputes unsettled in the country courts were brought to the royal officials and their successors in the postexilic period. The peace of the community depended on the establishment of justice. Pilgrimage is a journey in search of justice. (Mays, 1994, p. 393)

The house of David has a crucial role in making Jerusalem a place of shalom, but the psalm also places the house of the LORD as the bookends structurally of the psalm. The place of the house of the LORD at the beginning and end encompasses the authority of the house of David. (NIB IV: 1184) 2 Samuel 7 makes a similar point when the LORD informs David that he will build a house (lineage) for David rather than David building a house for the LORD.

The psalm begins with a joyous embrace of the traditional call to go up to the house of the LORD. There is some debate about whether the perspective of the psalmist is currently in Jerusalem (are) or whether it should be translated in past tense as the psalmist remembers Jerusalem in anticipation of a journey, but I have stayed with the NRSVue’s translation of Our feet are standing. From the perspective of the pilgrim, Jerusalem is a city bound firmly together. There is some Hebrew word play in the word for bound (Hebrew habar) which is never elsewhere used for construction and always refers to human alliances or covenants. (NIB IV:1184) The psalm imagines a time where the unified tribes of Israel gather in Jerusalem as a place of festival, worship, and ultimately peace making.

The language in verse six to seven centers around shalom (peace) and Jerusalem (yeru-shalom) and the structure in Hebrew makes this even clearer by the phonetic repetition of ‘sh’ and ‘l’ sounds. As Nancy deClaissé-Walford states:

Of the ten Hebrew words that make up vv. 6 and 7, six contain the letters sin and lamed: ask (sha’alu); well-being (twice) (shalom); Jerusalem (yerushalaim); may they be at ease (yishelayu); and tranquility (shalwa)—acoustically and visually emphasizing the theme of well-being. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 901)

Jerusalem is the city of shalom, the longed-for peace absent in Psalm 120. Peace is for the city of peace, for the walls that defend the city from hostility, and for the families who are present in the city or back home. Psalm 133 will later echo this hope for peace among relatives.

Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger make an important point for this prophetic imagination of the people in the context of the exile. When there is no longer a city of shalom to seek where the houses of the LORD and David reside, how are the people to function? Brueggemann points to the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 29: 4-10) when he states:

”seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you in exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” The word “welfare” of course renders the Hebrew shalom; the prophet is exhorting the deportees to pray for the shalom of the city of Babylon. (Bellinger, 2014, p. 530)

In the absence of the city, the temple, and the Davidic king it was still possible to seek peace, but it involved seeking the shalom of the place where you find yourself transplanted. Even if Jerusalem is de-centered from the world, peace can still be found in the cities where the pilgrims sojourn.

Psalm 120 A Pilgrimage To A Place Of Peace

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Pilgrim Steps Leading to the Double Gate (Southern Steps of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem) picture from 2009 by Wilson44691 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6899573

Psalm 120

A Song of Ascents.

1 In my distress I cry to the LORD, that he may answer me:

2 “Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.”

3 What shall be given to you? And what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue?

4 A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree!

5 Woe is me, that I am an alien in Meshech, that I must live among the tents of Kedar.

6 Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace.

7 I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.

The Psalms of Ascent (Psalm 120 – 134) are fifteen psalms that may have been used as a part of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Jerusalem sits upon a hill so any approach to Jerusalem is always an ascent, but the ascent may also refer to the ascending of the steps of the temple. Mishnah states there are fifteen steps that lead from the Court of Women to the Court of the Israelites which correspond to the fifteen psalms. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 887) It is conceivable that a practice of reciting these fifteen short (except for Psalm 132) psalms as one approaches Jerusalem or as one ascends the steps of the temple. As this psalm indicates, this practice may help the people transition from their exile in a world of war and deceitful tongues to their homecoming in the city of peace.[1]

Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. The poet is a stranger in a strange land. They are a foreigner/alien(ger) in the midst of a people of different gods, sharp tongues, and unjust practices. Meshech and Kedar are likely metaphors for places both geographically and spiritually distant from the memory of their homeland. The situation of this psalm forms the antithesis of Psalm 133: How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. The situation of Psalm 120 could be summarized: how traumatizing it is for one who lives as an alien among those who love division.

In language that resonates with James 3: 1-12, the psalmist describes the tongue as an instrument of violence. The psalmist may be the direct recipient of these deceitful and painful words, or they may exist in a society where the truth has disappeared.[2] Like the son in the parable of the prodigal[3] they may find themselves vulnerable and hungry in a world where no one cares. It may be ironic, as Brueggemann and Bellinger state, that the person who considers themself a person of peace would respond to these deceitful tongues with metaphorical weapons of war (Bellinger, 2014, p. 524) but the psalmist is asking for God to deliver. God is in the position to judge the people who the psalmist lives among. Yet, it is also possible that the description in verse four is merely a continuation of the description of the words of the lying lips and deceitful tongues. Sharp weapons are used metaphorically along with predatory animals to describe people hostile to the psalmist in Psalm 57:4. The broom tree is a hard wood tree known for its long burning fires. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 892)

This psalm can resonate with people of all times who attempt to live justly in an unjust world. Who seek peace (shalom) among a people whose words and actions seek conflict. As James L. Mays states about Psalm 120,

It is a poignant expression of the pilgrims’ pain over the world from which they come. It puts that world in the sharpest possible contrast to the peace they desire and seek in coming to Zion. (Mays, 1994, p. 388)

People of peace long for a homecoming where they can live in unity with their brothers and sisters who speak with truthful lips and words that heal instead of these weaponized tongues they encounter in the land of their sojourn. Pilgrimage, either physical or spiritual, is a hopeful ascent to a place of shalom.

[1] Jerusalem’s name comes from a combination of the word for city and shalom.

[2] Similar imagery is used in Psalm 10:4; 12: 1-4; and 31:8.

[3] Luke 15: 11-32.