Psalms 122

Psalms 122:1-9

The restored House and the City! A song of the ascents: of David. The next psalm brings in the full blessing. In view of the 132nd psalm; it is quite natural that it should be a psalm of David: against which it is vain to appeal to the fifth verse, unless it is quite plain that not only was David no prophet, but that he did not even believe the prophecy as to his house. The psalm shows us the end of the pilgrimage in the restored city and temple of the glorious days to come. The worse than lone man of the first psalm finds himself here surrounded with companions, who are in complete sympathy also with his own delight in what is the glorious city’s crown of blessing, the dwelling-place of Jehovah in her midst.

1. Jerusalem is now the uniting centre for Israel: in fact, (though this does not appear in the psalm,) of the whole earth. The basis of unity the first verse expresses, the power over the soul of Jehovah’s house. Our Jerusalem has indeed no temple, but only because God is there in a more perfect way. But how glad will they be when it is said to them; “Let us go into the house of Jehovah”! It is now for them no more a matter of faith: it is one of sight: “standing are our feet within thy gates, Jerusalem.” It is a resurrection; indeed, this city compacted together: all firmly united because held by that divine attraction which the first verse expresses. No other bond can unite like this, and none else be like this -eternal. Now we see the nation united with it, the tribes going up on their pilgrimages when in the land, -happy substitution for the toil of the wilderness itself, now ended. Thus the blessing is now complete for them: I do not, of course, mean told out completely, but we realize that they are in it.
2. The city thus reviewed is now lifted into the supremacy which belongs to it: “for there are set thrones of judgment, -thrones for the house of David.” Christ has His place here, as we know, though we must go to other scriptures to learn that it is so. “Thrones,” in the plural. and for the house of David," imply, apparently, the vice-royalty of the simply human “prince” of that line, with whom Ezekiel makes us acquainted (ch. 46 throughout). Of the reign of the heavenly saints with Christ, with which some would connect it, it cannot possibly speak. The thrones are “for judgment,” -no mere regal state: for righteousness is to be maintained upon the earth; and men are bidden now to welcome and be subject to this new sovereignty. As was said to Abraham, “blessed shall he be who blesseth thee,” so now is it here: “they shall prosper that love thee.” To love righteousness is to be righteous; and here is a kingdom of righteousness in which every sufferer for and every hater of wrong may rejoice together. The peace of Jerusalem means the welfare of men and the blessing of God. There is a human ground for such a prayer as is here offered: brethren and companions in divine things whose prosperity it means; and there is a divine-human ground, that dwelling of God with man which the house of God implies. Oh for the days to come in which all this shall be revealed! And yet this is only the type and shadow of better things above. Thus the first series is clearly ended, and to begin another we go back in time.