Psalm 134

Psalms 134:1-2

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, reads A Song of degrees, the fifteenth and last of the fifteen psalms so marked, verified across 120 to 134 exactly. A departing pilgrim turns to bless the priests and Levites who stand by night in the house of the Lord, keeping the watch after the daytime worshippers have gone home. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary names the ordinary posture of prayer and praise, and the blessing asked of the night watch closes the whole ascent collection on a note of ongoing service rather than a finished climb.

Psalms 134:3

The watchers answer in kind: the Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion, the Creator's own blessing returned from the very house the pilgrim is leaving. The title, Maker of heaven and earth, recurs through the Songs of Ascents (121:2, 124:8, 146:6) as the collection's settled name for God, the largest possible power attached to the smallest human errand, a traveler's safe road home. Delitzsch reads the closing exchange as the fitting end to a pilgrim collection that began in distress at Psalm 120: blessing given, blessing returned, the ascent complete.