Mazmur 122:1--124:8

Psalm 122 ¹ 

A song of ascents, ²  by David.

122:1 I was glad because ³  they said to me,

“We will go to the Lord’s temple.”

122:2 Our feet are ⁴  standing

inside your gates, O Jerusalem.

122:3 Jerusalem ⁵  is a city designed

to accommodate an assembly. ⁶ 

122:4 The tribes go up ⁷  there, ⁸ 

the tribes of the Lord,

where it is required that Israel

give thanks to the name of the Lord. ⁹ 

122:5 Indeed, ¹⁰  the leaders sit ¹¹  there on thrones and make legal decisions,

on the thrones of the house of David. ¹² 

122:6 Pray ¹³  for the peace of Jerusalem!

May those who love her prosper! ¹⁴ 

122:7 May there be peace inside your defenses,

and prosperity ¹⁵  inside your fortresses! ¹⁶ 

122:8 For the sake of my brothers and my neighbors

I will say, “May there be peace in you!”

122:9 For the sake of the temple of the Lord our God

I will pray for you to prosper. ¹⁷ 

Psalm 123 ¹⁸ 

A song of ascents. ¹⁹ 

123:1 I look up ²⁰  toward you,

the one enthroned ²¹  in heaven.

123:2 Look, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a female servant look to the hand of her mistress, ²² 

so my eyes will look to the Lord, our God, until he shows us favor.

123:3 Show us favor, O Lord, show us favor!

For we have had our fill of humiliation, and then some. ²³ 

123:4 We have had our fill ²⁴ 

of the taunts of the self-assured,

of the contempt of the proud.

Psalm 124 ²⁵ 

A song of ascents, ²⁶  by David.

124:1 “If the Lord had not been on our side” –

let Israel say this! –

124:2 if the Lord had not been on our side,

when men attacked us, ²⁷ 

124:3 they would have swallowed us alive,

when their anger raged against us.

124:4 The water would have overpowered us;

the current ²⁸  would have overwhelmed ²⁹  us. ³⁰ 

124:5 The raging water

would have overwhelmed us. ³¹ 

124:6 The Lord deserves praise, ³² 

for ³³  he did not hand us over as prey to their teeth.

124:7 We escaped with our lives, ³⁴  like a bird from a hunter’s snare.

The snare broke, and we escaped.

124:8 Our deliverer is the Lord, ³⁵ 

the Creator ³⁶  of heaven and earth.

[122:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 122. The psalmist expresses his love for Jerusalem and promises to pray for the city’s security.

[122:1]  ² sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[122:1]  ³ tn Heb “in the ones saying to me.” After the verb שָׂמַח (samakh), the preposition בְּ (bet) usually introduces the reason for joy.

[122:2]  ⁴ tn Or “were.”

[122:3]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[122:3]  ⁶ tc Heb “Jerusalem, which is built like a city which is joined to her together.” The meaning of the Hebrew text is unclear. Many regard this as a description of the compact way in which the city was designed or constructed. The translation assumes an emendation of the verb חֻבְּרָה (khubbÿrah, “is joined”) to a noun חֶבְרָה (khevrah, “association; company”). The text then reads literally, “Jerusalem, which is built like a city which has a company together.” This in turn can be taken as a reference to Jerusalem’s role as a city where people congregated for religious festivals and other civic occasions (see vv. 4-5).

[122:4]  ⁷ tn Or “went up.”

[122:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “which is where the tribes go up.”

[122:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “[it is] a statute for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord.”

[122:5]  ¹⁰ tn Or “for.”

[122:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “sat.”

[122:5]  ¹² tn Heb “Indeed, there they sit [on] thrones for judgment, [on] thrones [belonging] to the house of David.”

[122:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “ask [for].”

[122:6]  ¹⁴ tn Or “be secure.”

[122:7]  ¹⁵ tn or “security.”

[122:7]  ¹⁶ tn The psalmist uses second feminine singular pronominal forms to address personified Jerusalem.

[122:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I will seek good for you.” The psalmist will seek Jerusalem’s “good” through prayer.

[123:1]  ¹⁸ sn Psalm 123. The psalmist, speaking for God’s people, acknowledges his dependence on God in the midst of a crisis.

[123:1]  ¹⁹ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[123:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I lift my eyes.”

[123:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “sitting.” The Hebrew verb יָשַׁב (yashav) is here used metonymically of “sitting enthroned” (see Pss 9:7; 29:10; 55:19; 102:12).

[123:2]  ²² sn Servants look to their master for food, shelter, and other basic needs.

[123:3]  ²³ tn Heb “for greatly we are filled [with] humiliation.”

[123:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “greatly our soul is full to it.”

[124:1]  ²⁵ sn Psalm 124. Israel acknowledges that the Lord delivered them from certain disaster.

[124:1]  ²⁶ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[124:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “rose up against us.”

[124:4]  ²⁸ tn Or “stream.”

[124:4]  ²⁹ tn Heb “would have passed over.”

[124:4]  ³⁰ tn Heb “our being.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

[124:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “then they would have passed over our being, the raging waters.”

[124:6]  ³² tn Heb “blessed [be] the Lord.”

[124:6]  ³³ tn Heb “[the one] who.”

[124:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “our life escaped.”

[124:8]  ³⁵ tn Heb “our help [is] in the name of the Lord.”

[124:8]  ³⁶ tn Or “Maker.”