Tag Archives: Songs of Ascent

Psalm 126 Carrying in the Sheaves Planted in Tearful Moments

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Wheatsheaves in a Field (1885) by Vincent van Gogh

Psalm 126

A Song of Ascents.

1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
  we were like those who dream.
 2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter
  and our tongue with shouts of joy;
 then it was said among the nations,
  “The LORD has done great things for them.”
 3 The LORD has done great things for us,
  and we rejoiced.

 4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
  like the watercourses in the Negeb.
 5 May those who sow in tears
  reap with shouts of joy.
 6 Those who go out weeping,
  bearing the seed for sowing,
 shall come home with shouts of joy,
  carrying their sheaves.

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

Psalm 126 follows a common pattern in the psalms and throughout the scriptures. It begins with a remembrance of the ways God has acted on behalf of the people in the past and then moves to an appeal for God’s action in the troubles of the present. As J. Clinton McCann Jr. states, “We live in the hope of God’s help always remembering what God has done in the past…and always anticipating what God will do in the future.”(NIB III:1196) The imagery of sowing and reaping have led to the Psalm’s usage on Thanksgiving Day in worship (Year B in the Revised Common Lectionary) and it inspired Knowles Shaw’s song “Bringing in the Sheaves.”

The psalm is structured around two uses of a Hebrew idiom translated “restored our fortunes” in the NRSVue. The phrase is difficult to render in English and has led to a wide variety of translations, but in the prophets it relates to the change in condition brought about by God turning away from God’s wrath and again regarding the people with favor. (Mays, 1994, p. 399) The use of the phrase often refers to the return of the exiles to the homeland of Israel (Deuteronomy 30:3; Jeremiah 30: 3, 18; 32:44; Ezekiel 39:25) and here it may also refer to a homecoming of the exiles from Babylon. (NIB III: 1195) The specific context that the psalm originally spoke to is not required for the reader to understand the relief and joy of those who have experienced the great things God has done for the people of the psalmist. The dreamy state of the remembered joy and laughter of the people emerges from the ways God has provided for and protected the people in the past. From the memory of what God has done in the past comes the hope of God’s action in the present.

Wadi in Nahal Paran, Negev, Israel By Wilson44691 at English Wikipedia – Photograph taken by Mark A. Wilson (Department of Geology, The College of Wooster).[1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3140024

The experience of the present is one described metaphorically by the dry watercourses of the Negeb. During the rainy season these creek beds are filled with water but now in the metaphor of the psalm they are dry. Psalm 42 used the imagery of thirsting for water as a metaphor for thirsting for God’s presence:

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. Psalm 42:1

The prophet Joel will also use a similar image:

In that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water; a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD and water the Wadi Shittim. Joel 3:18

It is possible as Walter Beyerin argues that the author of Psalm 126 utilized Joel as a source of imagery as the psalmist, in his reconstruction, attempts to deal with the disappointment that prevailed in Judah after the return from Babylon (NIB III: 1196) but the beauty of the psalms is their ability to fit circumstances frequently encountered in life. Most people can relate to the imagery of drought in the personal, relational, economic, and spiritual struggles of life. The desire for the tears of today to turn to shouts of joy and a desire for the pain of the present to have some harvest of meaning in the future. To live in anticipation that the God who brings an end to the dryness of the watercourses of the Negeb will also turn tears into joy as people come in carrying the sheaves planted in these moments of hardship.

Psalm 125 A Place Where Righteousness Can Flourish

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The Judean Hills viewed from the Dead Sea By Kreecher at Russian Wikipedia – Transferred from ru.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4241172

Psalm 125

A Song of Ascents.

1 Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,
  which cannot be moved but abides forever.
 2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
  so the LORD surrounds his people
  from this time on and forevermore.
 3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
  on the land allotted to the righteous,
 so that the righteous might not stretch out
  their hands to do wrong.
 4 Do good, O LORD, to those who are good
  and to those who are upright in their hearts.
 5 But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways,
  the Lord will lead away with evildoers.
  Peace be upon Israel!

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

Underlying the wisdom of the psalter is the conviction that God is trustworthy. Those who trust in the LORD become like the one that they trust in the metaphors of this psalm. Jerusalem, the temple, and Mount Zion were viewed as being a place protected by God an idea echoed by Psalm 46: 5,” The LORD is in the midst of the city, it shall not be moved.” Zion as a focal point of hope was likely increased in the aftermath of Sennacherib’s unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem in the time of King Hezekiah/Uzziah (2 Kings 18–20). Mount Zion is in the psalm an immovable object and now those who trust in the LORD in the metaphor are also immovable. Yet they are not immovable because they stand on their own but instead, they are surrounded by the LORD’s presence perpetually just as Mount Zion is surrounded by even higher mountains particularly in the east. God is trustworthy and those who trust in God are able to stand fast because they are surrounded by God’s protection and strength.

The Hebrew particle ki which begins verse three indicates a strong contrast between the forces of wickedness and the righteous. I like Nancy deClaissé-Walford’s translation of this verse as “Surely the tribe of the wicked ones will not rest upon the inheritance of the righteous.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 901) which captures several elements of the Hebrew. Some scholars have viewed verse three as indicating a post-exilic era since might indicate a time when ‘the wicked’ dominated the inheritance of ‘the righteous’ but I think the easier reading is to assume a pre-exilic time among a people who believe that God’s defense of the land and the city will never change. The land was a breathing space for the righteous to learn how to live free from the pressures of the wicked world around them. Jerusalem and Mount Zion became a safe space where the righteous were protected from the wicked.

The basic wisdom themes of the LORD watching over the life of the good and leading away the wicked and evildoers is a central theme of the psalms beginning with Psalm 1. The sovereignty, strength, and protection of God over the city was to create a space where righteousness could flourish. Yet the practice of life in Jerusalem in 1&2 Kings and 1&2 Chronicles tells a less rosy story of the city of peace which rested on Mount Zion. As I was thinking about this psalm I was reminded of the opening lines of a Paramore song from 2009 “Turn it Off.” “I scraped my knees while I was praying/ And found a demon in my safest haven.” The people of God have often dreamed of space of safety and well-being, and it is shattering when those places become corrupted. For the prophets that was their understanding of why Jerusalem did not endure on Mount Zion forever, and it is a warning for any place of God that allows the scepter or tribe of wickedness to have power over the righteous ones. The pilgrims of the Songs of Ascent have come seeking a safe space where they can live in righteousness surrounded and protected by the LORD. Those charged with leading places where people gather to worship bear a responsibility in partnership with God to make these places of peace where the righteous are protected. Israel has rarely known peace and as I write these words it is currently at war along with the United States against Iran. Yet I long, along with these pilgrims from long ago, for shalom (peace) for Israel, shalom for those who gather to seek the LORD in churches and synagogues and other holy spaces, and peace for the righteous and the upright in heart.

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 123 Appealing to the God whose Mercy Overcomes Contempt

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Nehemiah Views the Ruins of Jerusalem’s Walls (Neh. 2:1-20) Gustave Dore, Dore’s English Bible (1866)

Psalm 123

A Song of Ascents 

1 To you I lift up my eyes,
  O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
 2 As the eyes of servants
  look to the hand of their master,
 as the eyes of a maid
  to the hand of her mistress,
 so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
  until he has mercy upon us.

 3 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
  for we have had more than enough of contempt.
 4 Our soul has had more than its fill
  of the scorn of those who are at ease,
  of the contempt of the proud.

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

If you read the psalms of ascent as a sequence, which scholars assume was a common practice during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there is a narrative that may underly the pattern. 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 the third song of ascent the psalmist arrives at their destination of Jerusalem (Psalm 122). Now in Jerusalem the pilgrim is joined by other pilgrims coming to the city of peace and they turn their eyes to God and lift up their complaint about the world they come from. They have left behind others in a land of people who seek conflict and speak with lying lips (Psalm 120) and now in the city of God they appeal for not only Jerusalem but the world the LORD stands in authority over.

The psalm begins with a solitary speaker lifting up their eyes to the LORD who sits on the seat of authority in heaven. The psalmist may imagine God presiding over the gods of the nations as in Psalm 82 as they address the LORD in this manner, and this may set the stage for the complaint that the people raise about the contempt and scorn they have received in the nations. The eyes of an individual pilgrim are joined by other servants and maids of the LORD their God look to their master for mercy. The Hebrew conception of the relationship between a servant or maid and their master or mistress envisions the master/mistress bearing responsibility for their subordinates. The subordinates are dependent upon their master for their provision and protection, but the expectations of the master in the psalm are conditioned by the merciful LORD their God who is master over the heavens and the earth. The identity of the LORD God as expressed by God in Exodus 34 is:

 “The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34: 5-7.

And the blessing of the Aaronic priests in Numbers 6:22-27 echoes the ideas of God turning God’s face in graciousness towards those who lift up their eyes to the LORD:

 22 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them:
 24 The Lord bless you and keep you;
 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
  27 “So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

The pilgrim has joined other pilgrims within the city seeking mercy from the LORD their God and they lift up their eyes and their appeal. As Walter Brueggemann notes, “Our psalmist…dares to look to heaven, not because he is worthy but because he knows that the master to whom he looks is merciful.” (Bellinger, 2014, p. 533)

The character of the people of God is expected to match the God who they serve and this informs the view of what the kings, princes, and nobles of Israel were to be. The character of God is one of the reasons that subordinates can look to those in authority over them with the expectation of receiving mercy. This psalm made me reflect on leaders I have encountered in numerous settings who I was proud to serve under. They were leaders who were invested in those who they led and were dependable. Many of them saw the way they led as connected to their faith and it was reflected not only in their actions but in the response of their subordinates to their authority.

Psalm 123 is unusual because it ends in complaint rather than thanksgiving, but it may rely on the following psalm to complete the normal pattern. The pilgrim looks at the world of people of lying lips and who seek conflict and they dare to seek in their God, “the grace that overcomes the world.” (Mays, 1994, p. 396) Before they begin their complaint they have invoked God’s mercy three times. They need God’s mercy to overcome the contempt and scorn which have overwhelmed them. Nancy deClaissé-Walford notes on the translation of verse three and four:

The word translated overwhelmed (NRSVue have had more than enough/ its fill) is from the root ‘saba’, which means, literally, “eat one’s full, be sated, have enough.” And interestingly the word translated mockery (NRSVue scorn) is from the root la’ag, which beans literally, “speak with a stammering tongue.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 904)

Their experience of conflict and lies in their communities have overwhelmed them. They have had more of mockery and scorn than they can take and the leaders in the communities they have come from leave them crying out for God’s mercy which can overcome the mockery and scorn which overwhelms them.

J. Clinton McCann, Jr. connects the language of this complaint to the post-exilic experience of the time of Nehemiah.

As several scholars observe, the situation certainly sounds like that of the post-exilic era (see, e.g., Neh 2:19, 4:4, where “ridiculed” and “despised” represent the same Hebrew root as “contempt” in Ps 123: 3-4, “scorn” in 123:4 also occurs in Neh 2:19; 4:1 as “mocked.” (NIB IV: 1187)

The post-exilic experience of returning to the remains of the once proud city of Jerusalem and being taunted by their neighbors is a reasonable backstory for the psalm, but the experience of being overwhelmed by contempt or scorn is a common experience. If the experience is tied to the experience of Psalm 120 that also is a common experience of people longing for peace and justice in an unjust world that seeks conflict. That is one of the reasons that the psalms continue to resonate thousands of years after their composition. They may have originally spoken to a specific crisis in the pilgrim’s life but now they speak to the community of the faithful raising their eyes to God and appealing for God’s mercy which can overcome the experiences and injustices which threaten to overwhelm them.

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.