BackgroundDavid's voice, placed at the moment of arrival. After the distress of 120 and the climb of 121, the pilgrim now stands inside the gates of Jerusalem. The psalm names the city by its old tribal name ("a city joined together"), notes the convergence of the twelve tribes for the festival (per Deuteronomy 16:16), and looks at the thrones of the house of David seated for judgment. The famous prayer for the peace of Jerusalem closes the psalm and is still recited daily in Jewish liturgy.
Psalm 122: Glad to Go Up
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
By Bea Zalel
Psalm 122
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
- I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD."
- Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem.
- Jerusalem is built up as a city united together,
- where the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as a testimony for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
- For there the thrones of judgment stand, the thrones of the house of David.
- Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May those who love you prosper.
- May there be peace within your walls, and prosperity inside your fortresses."
- For the sake of my brothers and friends, I will say, "Peace be within you."
- For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your prosperity.
Theme
The third Song of Ascents reverses the mood of the first. Where Psalm 120 began "in distress I cried," Psalm 122 begins "I was glad." That gladness has a specific occasion: someone said to the pilgrim, finally, "let us go to the house of the LORD," and now he is standing inside the gates. The Ascents track an actual journey, and arrival is not a small thing.
David's authorship is significant here in a collection where it is rare. He composed the psalm before the temple existed, when the "house of the LORD" was still the tent housing the ark on Mount Zion. The psalm therefore sits at the hinge of the city's sacred geography. Solomon will later build the stone temple, but David has already named the joy of going up.
The closing prayer for the peace of Jerusalem is not generic. "Shalom" in Hebrew shares a root with "Yerushalayim," so the prayer is a wordplay: pray for the peace of "city of peace." Jewish liturgy has prayed this line three times daily for two and a half millennia. Christians have prayed it through every century of pilgrimage and crusade and quiet exile. The line reaches the believer with the weight of a long, unresolved hope.
Discussion questions
- Why is David's authorship of this Ascent particularly fitting given his role in establishing Jerusalem as Israel's worship center (2 Samuel 6)?
- What does it mean that the pilgrim's gladness is occasioned by OTHERS saying "let us go," and how does that detail commend the value of community in worship?
- How does the description of Jerusalem as "a city joined together" (or "compact together") function both architecturally and theologically?
- Why does the psalm specifically mention "the thrones for judgment" of the house of David, and how does that connect Jerusalem's worship to Jerusalem's justice?
- How does the wordplay between "shalom" and "Yerushalayim" make the prayer for peace literarily inevitable?
- What does the daily Jewish recitation of "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" through two and a half millennia teach Christians about persistent prayer for unfulfilled hopes?
- How does Hebrews 12:22 ("you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God") reframe this psalm for those who cannot make a literal pilgrimage?
- What is the right Christian posture toward the geographical city of Jerusalem in light of the New Testament's spiritualization of Zion?
- How does Jesus's lament over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37-39 stand in tension and continuity with the gladness of Psalm 122?
- If your local church gathering is, in some sense, your weekly going up, what would it mean to begin each Sunday with "I was glad" rather than obligation?
Read this psalm in another translation
The inline text above is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Open in a new tab to compare with a modern licensed translation: