Devotional Short Note to Psalm 122: Do
not even think of making this Psalm non-Davidic or post-exilic as so many
commentaries want to do. There was no strong king after the exile and there
could not have been thrones for judgment set up at that time. It is not
necessarily after Solomon built the temple since also the tabernacle and other
places of worship for the Lord was called “house of the Lord”. Grammatically
the linguists are whining that it must be late-Phoenician due to the relative
pronoun /š/ added to the nouns in 122:3b and 122:4a. Hebrew normally used three
letters for the relative pronoun, but Phoenicians used one. Aramaic preferred a
/d/. Phoenician texts known to us all post-date 900 BCE. Thus, scholars want to
cancel David for 970 BCE when David died, which they consider as too remote for
the Phoenicianism to have slipped in by the hand of David. David in one place
used the short form for the name of the Lord, namely just Yah instead of Yahweh
(122:4b). What about the relative pronoun /š/ late appearance? Answer: In Old
Babylonian of 1980 BCE and further, it was ša. OK. What is the difference
between Hebrew /š-/ and Old Babylonian /ša/? Answer: Nothing. In Amorite it was
/šu/ dating most Mari-period 1750 BCE. (For pastors: Consult the book by Sabatino
Moscati, An introduction to the
Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages, 1969, page 113-114). Just
that you know it is not thumb-sucking stuff. So what is the conclusion: we do
not know for sure if the loan is from Phoenician since it appeared also in Old
Babylonian and in Amorite that were earlier than David in 1050-970 BCE. Thus,
linguistic dating of the relative pronoun is just a guess that it is Phoenician
but evidence is ambiguous. Sorry. David still wrote Psalm 122. For reasons why
David wrote the Psalm read also the commentary of Hengstenberg. What makes one
commentary liberal and another conservative is what? The political party they
belong to? The Bible as navigational rule in life. Either culture and
environment dictates the rules or the Bible overrides culture and environment
rules. The populist wide way and the narrow way. Hengstenberg is a lover of the
narrow way. So are we. Atheists, secularists and liberals are calling those
‘conservative’, ‘fundamentalists’ because they cling to the fundamental words
of the Bible or ‘biblicists’, because they always want to answer confrontation
with “it is written”. It sounds like David the soldier was
asked by the troops to go to house of the Lord. He was outside for whatever
purpose. But, he said he was very glad: “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘let
us go unto the house of the Lord’” (122:1). This is not Jerusalem Romanticists.
Not the cult of Jerusalem worshipping. It is not that the city is a god to be worshipped
with awe and holy respect. The soldiers did not ask to go to Jerusalem for the
city’s sake. They went up to see the Lord. They need worship and sorting things
out with the Lord. Soul matters to be fixed. To be set straight. So they want
to go to the “house of the Lord”. That happen to be in Jerusalem. Arriving at the gates, David spoke
formally and his diary keeper wrote frantically every detail down, word for
word: “Standing is our feet in your gates Jerusalem” (122:2). Just before
anyone clinched in their minds that it is a clear case of city-worship or
Jerusalem-fetishism, stop the bus. Go down to 122:4c “to give thanks unto the
name of the Lord”. Not to the city. Not to its people. Not to himself. To the
Lord. Thus, the awe of being close to where they are able to have worship is
more important than the stones and wood with which the entryway is built. He describes Jerusalem as “like a city
that [Old Babylonian or Phoenician relative pronoun used] is companioning to
her together” (122:3). Someone said he wanted to express that it is “compact”.
“That [relative pronoun] there went up the tribes, the tribes of Yah = the
Lord, a testimony to Israel” (122:4). Spiritual Israel not ethnic Israel. When
one give thanks to the Lord unto His name as Creator then one is giving a
testimony and this witness is edifying the whole spiritual Israel. It is possible that 122:2 as standing in
the gates of Jerusalem is the location referred to in 122:6 that the king’s
thrones were set up in the gates to give judgment (122:5). David then requested praying for
peaceful conditions for the people in Jerusalem: “Pray for the peace of
Jerusalem” (122:6). Peace has nothing to do with structures but has all to do
with people and relationships. Spiritual Israel needs peace in all their
relationships for effective tasking. “May they prosper that loves You” [the
Lord, not the city] (122:6b). Many commentaries interpreted this part as the
blessing to the pilgrim who loves Jerusalem. God does not operate with
superstitions. The witch of Endor with Saul is an example. There is a great
no-no to such language and games. You do not embrace and kiss walls of
Jerusalem because you want to be blessed. It is those who love the Lord that
will prosper. Nothing short of it. The peace is not on the walls or the
palaces itself, it says: “May there be peace in your walls” (122:7a). May the
people that are operating, living and filling the space of the structure
experience peace. Not the structure or buildings of Jerusalem. There are people
who really kiss structures in the Old City of Jerusalem until today because
they think it has magical, mystic or other powers flowing from it to the
worshipper. Judaism went through additions of mysticism in their development
and thus many practices in and around Jerusalem is filled with an outside
appearance of holiness but is actually essentially mystical influences borrowed
from Islam, Christianity mixed with Stoicism, neo-Platonism, Gnosticism and
other early movements. Even in our day the Franciscan book of Richard Rohr with
Mike Morrell. The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. It is a
hodge-podge of mixing Hinduism, Stoicism, Christianity and what we know about
the Trinity and the theory of kenosis (self-emptying of Christ). The main idea
is that the Trinity empties itself to flow in one another and so also the
Godhead empty to each person in order to flow into the person as a life-giving
energy. Those who supports the book are the new age adherents and atheist
‘Christians’ and new movements to bring in “meditation”, “contemplation” and
other transformational experiences into worship. Ellen White said that in the
last days Spiritism will make inroads in Christianity trying to pull them away
from the truths of the Bible. David then says: “For the sake of my
brothers and friends I will say however, ‘Peace in You” (122:8). Again the
peace is within the walls and not the walls or structure as some would make it,
misplacing the text boundaries with enlargements of inclusiveness. Why is David seeking peace, seeking
good, “I will seek your good” (122:9b). It is because the house of the Lord is
important “for the sake of the house of the Lord our God” (122:9a). This is the
overriding Leitmotif of the psalm.