Psalm 133

Psalms 133:1

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, reads A Song of degrees of David, one of several Ascents carrying David's name among the fifteen. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity opens with two exclamations before naming the thing they praise, unity among brethren treated as good and pleasant the way beauty is obvious to the eye rather than argued into the reader. The pilgrim feasts gathered Israel's scattered tribes to Jerusalem three times a year, and the commentators read the psalm as written for that gathering, brothers who lived apart made visibly one at Zion.

Psalms 133:2-3

The first likeness is priestly, the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, the anointing oil of Exodus 30:22-25 poured out so generously it reached the skirts of his garments, unity pictured as a consecration flowing from the head to the whole body. The second likeness moves the reader north to south, as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, two ranges far apart in fact, Hermon towering in the north and Zion a low hill far south, joined only inside the simile. Delitzsch and Barnes read the geographic reach as part of the point, dew falling under one heaven able to settle on both, and the psalm closes where it began, unity named as the place the Lord has commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.