Psalms 125

The confidence of Jehovah’s faithful people is unshakable, and His guardianship of them unceasing: He will not suffer them to be the victims of oppression longer than they can bear it (Psalms 125:1-3). A prayer for the loyal-hearted, and a solemn warning of the fate of disloyal renegades, conclude the Psalm (Psalms 125:4-5). This Psalm may with great probability be dated a little later in Nehemiah’s life than the preceding Psalm. The walls of Jerusalem, it may be supposed, have been successfully restored; Jehovah has given His people an assurance that the tyranny which had dismantled Jerusalem, and almost crushed the life out of the little community of returned exiles (see Nehemiah 1:3 and Ryle’s note) shall not be perpetual: loyal-hearted Israelites have everything to hope; but the disloyal party, which was still endeavouring to thwart Nehemiah’s efforts, and was in secret correspondence with Tobiah, will eventually meet the fate which it deserves. The whole of Nehemiah 6 should be studied in connexion with this Psalm.

Psalms 125:1-3

1–3. The confidence of true Israelites in Jehovah, and Jehovah’s protecting care for His people.

Psalms 125:2

2. “All around Jerusalem are higher hills: on the east, the Mount of Olives; on the south, the Hill of Evil Counsel, so called, rising directly from the Vale of Hinnom; on the west the ground rises gently … while on the north, a bend of the ridge connected with the Mount of Olives bounds the prospect at the distance of more than a mile.” Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1. 259. This girdle of mountains is an ever-present symbol to the dweller in Jerusalem of Jehovah’s guardianship of His people. Cp. Zechariah 2:5, “I will be unto her a wall of fire round about.”

Psalms 125:3

3. For &c.] We might rather have expected an inference from Psalms 125:2, Therefore: but the connexion of thought is that the confidence of Psa 125:1-2 is justified, for the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous. Israel will not always be unjustly oppressed. The sceptre is the symbol of rule (Isaiah 14:5). The lot of the righteous is the land of promise, so called with allusion to its division by lot (Joshua 18:10-11). Israel is called ‘righteous’ in contrast to the heathen, in virtue of its calling (Habakkuk 1:13; Isaiah 26:2; Isaiah 1:26).

The ‘sceptre of wickedness’ does not refer simply to the fact that Israel was subject to Persian rule, but to the injuries done them by the Samaritans and others with the sanction of the Persian power, resulting in the disastrous condition of things which Nehemiah had found on his arrival. See Ezra 4:23. The A.V. and P.B.V. follow the LXX in rendering the wicked, but the Heb. text reads wickedness. The difference is one of vowel points only. lest the righteous &c.] Prolonged oppression might tempt Israelites in despair to deny their allegiance to Jehovah and their duty to their country, and make common cause with the enemies of their religion and nation. Cp. Psalms 37:7-8; Psalms 73:10 ff.

Psalms 125:4-5

4, 5. A prayer for the faithful and a warning to renegades.

Psalms 125:5

5. But as for such as turn aside &c.] Renegades who forsake the straight course of duty to their God and country for tortuous courses of intrigue with enemies: the disloyal party in Jerusalem, some of whom, like Shemaiah, took bribes from Sanballat and Tobiah to entrap Nehemiah, while others kept up a treasonable correspondence with them. See Nehemiah 6:12-13; Nehemiah 6:17. shall lead them away] To share the judgement of those whose hostility to Israel they have chosen to abet. Cp. Matthew 25:41. but peace shall be upon Israel] Better as a separate sentence, a concluding prayer or benediction: Peace be upon Israel (R.V.). Cp. Psalms 122:6-8; Psalms 128:6; Numbers 6:26; and Galatians 6:16, “Peace be … upon the Israel of God.” The preceding words “as many as shall walk by this rule” suggest that St Paul may have had this passage in mind. “In these words the Psalmist gathers up all his hopes and prayers and wishes, as it were stretching out his hands over Israel in priestly benediction. Peace is the end of tyranny, hostility, division, disquiet, alarm: peace is freedom and harmony and security and blessedness” (Delitzsch).