Psalm 132

Psalms 132:1-2

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, reads A Song of degrees, one of the fifteen Songs of Ascents and the collection's own psalm of the ark and the covenant. Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions opens a prayer built on Nathan's oracle to David in 2 Samuel 7, asking the Lord to remember the king's zeal for a place to dwell rather than any merit of David's own. The afflictions named are not personal complaint but the toil the next verses describe, the vow that kept David from his own rest until the Lord had one.

Psalms 132:3-5

David's oath binds his own comfort: he will not come into the tabernacle of his house nor go up into his bed, will not give sleep to his eyes or slumber to his eyelids, until he finds a place for the Lord. The vow reads like a king's private account of the zeal 2 Samuel 7:2 records in a single sentence, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains, this psalm giving the resolve where Samuel gives the complaint. Gill and Henry both read the extremity of the language, no sleep, no rest, as the poetic overstatement proper to an oath rather than a literal fast David kept for years.

Psalms 132:6-7

Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood recalls the ark's long stay at Kirjath-jearim after its return from the Philistines, the fields of the wood a namesake for a town whose Hebrew means city of forests. Ephratah is read two ways among the commentators, the district name tied to Bethlehem or an older name reaching back toward Ephraim, and the psalm does not settle which. We will go into his tabernacles, we will worship at his footstool answers the search with the pilgrim's own resolve, footstool being the same name the Chronicles history gives the ark itself.

Psalms 132:8-9

Arise, O Lord, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength is the prayer's centre, asking that the ark's advance into the sanctuary become the Lord's own settling into his dwelling. Solomon prays these same words almost word for word at the temple's dedication in 2 Chronicles 6:41, and the commentators take the echo as proof this psalm belonged to Israel's worship well before or alongside that history rather than after it. Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy pairs the priesthood's inner character with the people's outward praise, a couplet the psalm repeats with an upgrade at verse 16.

Psalms 132:10

For thy servant David’s sake turn not away the face of thine anointed closes the first half's argument on the ground it opened, not the king's own worth but David's zeal and God's own regard for him urged as the reason for present favour. The anointed here is Solomon or whichever heir then sat on David's throne, the prayer offered on his behalf rather than in his own mouth. Henry reads the plea as a pattern for prayer generally, standing on another's merit and history when a man's own case will not carry the request.

Psalms 132:11-12

The Lord answers oath with oath: The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David, he will not turn from it, and the content is 2 Samuel 7:12's promise in the psalm's own words, of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. Verse 12 states a condition Nathan's oracle does not put so plainly, if thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore, and the bench divides over how the condition sits beside the unconditional grant, some reading it as bearing on a given king's own tenure rather than the dynasty's final future, others as ordinary covenant conditionality running alongside a promise kept in full for the greater Son. The tension stands in the psalm's own two verses rather than being imported by any reader.

Psalms 132:13-14

For the Lord hath chosen Zion, he hath desired it for his habitation answers David's search of verses 6 and 7 with the Lord's own choice, the resting place settled by revelation rather than found by a king's search. This is my rest for ever, here will I dwell, for I have desired it takes up David's own prayer of verse 8, arise into thy rest, and turns it into a divine decree, the imperative of the first half answered by the indicative of the second. Spurgeon marks the change of voice, man asking becomes God declaring, as the psalm's own hinge.

Psalms 132:15-16

I will abundantly bless her provision, I will satisfy her poor with bread answers a city's plainest want, Zion's own table supplied from the Lord's own hand. I will also clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy repeats the pairing of verse 9 with two upgrades the commentators mark, righteousness becomes salvation and shout for joy becomes shout aloud for joy, the second half answering the first half's request with more than was asked. Barnes reads the whole psalm on this pattern, every plea of the opening half returned with interest in the closing half.

Psalms 132:17-18

There will I make the horn of David to bud draws on the horn as the Old Testament's standing figure for strength and a ruling house, the same image Hannah's song uses at 1 Samuel 2:10 for the king the Lord would raise up. I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed carries the formula the books of Kings use for the Davidic line's survival even under its worst kings, a lamp in Jerusalem history nearly put out more than once, and Delitzsch and Barnes both read the pairing here, a horn budding and a lamp kept burning, as the psalm's own picture of a dynasty renewed rather than merely spared. His enemies will I clothe with shame, but upon himself shall his crown flourish closes the psalm on the clothing language that ran through it from the priests' robes onward, shame the enemies' garment and flourishing the king's own.