Commentary - Psalm 122

Bird's-eye view

Psalm 122 is one of the Songs of Ascents, a collection of psalms sung by Hebrew pilgrims as they made their way up to Jerusalem for the great annual feasts. This particular psalm is a song of arrival, bursting with the joy of a worshiper whose journey is complete and whose feet are now standing within the holy city. It is a celebration of corporate worship, civic unity, and divine order. David, speaking with a prophet's foresight, rejoices in the very idea of God's people gathering in God's appointed place. The psalm moves from personal gladness to a description of the city's unique character as a place of unified worship and righteous judgment, and it concludes with an urgent call to pray for the peace and prosperity of that city, a prayer motivated by love for the brethren and zeal for the house of God.

For the Christian, this psalm is filled with gospel meaning. The earthly Jerusalem was a type, a shadow, of the true reality which is the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church of the living God. Our pilgrimage is not to a geographical location in the Middle East, but a spiritual ascent into the heavenly places in Christ every Lord's Day. Christ Himself is our Jerusalem, the place where God meets with man. The unity, peace, and justice celebrated here find their ultimate fulfillment in the body of Christ, and so the command to pray for the peace of Jerusalem becomes our mandate to pray for the health, purity, and prosperity of the Church.

Outline

Context In The Songs of Ascents

The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120-134) form a psalter within the Psalter. They were the travel songs for the people of God. Three times a year, all Jewish males were required to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem, and these journeys were communal events. The psalms move through the stages of this pilgrimage: the distress of living in a hostile world (Psalm 120), the trust in God's protection along the way (Psalm 121), and here in Psalm 122, the joyful culmination of the journey. The "ascent" was literal; Jerusalem is situated high in the Judean hills. But it was also spiritual, a going "up" to meet with God. This psalm, therefore, is not just about seeing a city, but about the gladness of heart that comes from arriving at the place of corporate, covenantal worship.

Key Issues

Glad to Be Gathered

Modern evangelicalism has been deeply infected with a radical individualism. For many, "faith" is a private affair between them and God, and church is an optional add-on, a place to get "fed" or to have your needs met. This psalm is a powerful antibiotic for that sickness. The psalmist's joy is not in a private devotional experience, but in a corporate reality. "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go...'" His gladness is sparked by the invitation of others to join in a communal act. The whole psalm breathes a corporate spirit. It is about the tribes, the city, the gates, the walls, the brothers, and the house of God. The blessings described here, unity, peace, justice, and prosperity, are not blessings for lone-ranger saints. They are blessings poured out upon a people who are gathered together in the name of their God.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of Yahweh.”

The psalm begins with a burst of joy. This is not a reluctant trudge to fulfill a religious duty. This is heartfelt gladness. And notice the source of the gladness: the invitation of others to go to corporate worship. The call to worship is a summons to joy. For the faithful Israelite, the "house of Yahweh," first the tabernacle and later the temple, was the center of the world. It was the place where Heaven and Earth met, where God had placed His name and promised to dwell with His people. To be invited there was to be invited into the manifest presence of God. For the Christian, this same gladness should characterize our attitude toward the Lord's Day gathering. The church is the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15), and when the saints gather, Christ is present in their midst. The call to come to church is a call to come to Christ, and it ought to make our hearts glad.

2 Our feet are standing Within your gates, O Jerusalem,

The anticipation of verse 1 is now realized. The journey is over. The pilgrims have arrived. There is a sense of firmness and stability in the phrase "our feet are standing." After the uncertainties of the road, they are now secure within the city of God. The gates of a city represent its strength, its identity, and the point of entry into its communal life. To be within the gates is to belong, to be a citizen, to be safe. For us, this is a picture of our standing in the New Jerusalem, the Church. By faith in Christ, we are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph. 2:19).

3 Jerusalem, which is built As a city joined altogether;

The psalmist looks at the physical city and sees a spiritual reality. Jerusalem was a tightly-built, well-fortified city, what we might call "compact." This physical unity was a picture of the spiritual and civic unity of the people of God. It was a city where all the tribes, despite their distinct identities, came together as one people. This is a beautiful image of the Church, which is "fitly framed together" (Eph. 2:21) and "compacted by that which every joint supplieth" (Eph. 4:16). The Church is God's new city, a diverse people made one in Christ, a society bound together not by blood or geography, but by the Holy Spirit.

4 To which the tribes, the tribes of Yah, go up, A testimony for Israel, To give thanks to the name of Yahweh.

Here we see the purpose of the gathering. The twelve tribes, identified here as the "tribes of Yah," emphasizing their covenant identity, ascend to Jerusalem for two reasons. First, it is a testimony for Israel. Their very gathering was a public witness, a declaration to themselves and to the world of who they were: the covenant people of Yahweh. Corporate worship is a powerful testimony. Second, they came "to give thanks to the name of Yahweh." The central act of worship is thanksgiving. It is the grateful acknowledgement of God for who He is and what He has done. This is the heartbeat of true worship, both then and now.

5 For there, thrones sit for judgment, The thrones of the house of David.

This verse is crucial. The same city that is the center of worship is also the center of justice. In Jerusalem were the thrones of judgment, the supreme court of the nation, administered by the Davidic king. This teaches us that true worship and righteous government are not to be separated. The God we praise in the sanctuary is the God who establishes justice in the city square. The thrones of David, of course, point us directly to the throne of the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ, who reigns as King. The Church, the new Jerusalem, is the place where His righteous judgments are declared and His kingly rule is made visible on earth. Peace and prosperity follow right judgment; they are not the precondition for it.

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.

This is the central exhortation of the psalm. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom, which means far more than the absence of conflict. It means wholeness, well-being, security, and prosperity in the fullest sense. We are commanded to pray for the shalom of the city of God. In the new covenant, this is a command to pray for the Church. And a blessing is attached: those who love the Church and seek her good will themselves prosper. This is not the health-and-wealth gospel. It is a covenantal principle. When you align your heart with God's heart, and God loves the Church, you place yourself in the path of His blessing.

7 May peace be within your walls, And tranquility within your palaces.”

The prayer is now given specific content. "Peace within your walls" is a prayer for security from external threats. "Tranquility within your palaces" is a prayer for harmony and order within the leadership and households of the city. For the Church, this is a prayer that we would be protected from the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and that we would be free from internal strife, factions, and discord. It is a prayer for both purity and peace.

8 For the sake of my brothers and my friends, I will now say, “May peace be within you.”

The psalmist gives his first reason for this earnest prayer: love for the brethren. He seeks the good of the city because it is the home of his brothers and friends. Our prayers for the Church should not be abstract. They should be fueled by a genuine love for the actual people who make up the Church. We want the Church to be healthy and safe because we love the saints who gather there. Theology without brotherly affection is cold and dead.

9 For the sake of the house of Yahweh our God, I will seek your good.

The second and ultimate motivation is zeal for God's glory. He prays for Jerusalem because it is the "house of Yahweh our God." His ultimate concern is not for the people, or even for the city itself, but for the honor of the God who dwells there. We are to seek the good of the Church because the Church is God's building, God's temple, the place where His name is glorified in the world. Our love for the brethren is grounded in our prior love for the God of the brethren.

Application

First, we must recover the gladness of corporate worship. If the thought of gathering with God's people on Sunday morning feels like a burden, we need to ask God to diagnose the sickness in our hearts. Psalm 122 teaches us to see the church gathering not as a duty to be checked off, but as a destination to be longed for, a foretaste of the final gathering around the throne.

Second, we must love the Church. Not an idealized, invisible church, but the visible, local church with all its warts and blemishes. This is the Jerusalem God has given us. We are to love her people, and for their sake, pray for her peace and purity. To love the Church is to love what Christ loves, for the Church is His bride.

Finally, we must actively and earnestly pray for the shalom of the Church. This means praying for her protection from false doctrine and worldly compromise. It means praying for unity among the brethren and wisdom for her leaders. It means praying for her prosperity in the gospel, that her testimony would be clear and her thanksgiving would be loud in the world. When we pray for the good of the new Jerusalem, we are praying for the advance of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we are promised that those who love her will prosper.