Psalm 134
3 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 120×11 Chronicles 9×1Psalms 135×1Psalms 28×11 Timothy 2×1Psalms 63×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The last step of the Ascents: nightfall at the temple. 'Behold, bless ye Jehovah, all ye servants of Jehovah, that by night stand in the house of Jehovah. Lift up your hands to the sanctuary, and bless ye Jehovah.' The pilgrims charge the night-watch priests to keep the praise burning while the city sleeps; the watchmen answer with the road-worn travelers' benediction turned back on them: 'Jehovah bless thee out of Zion; even he that made heaven and earth.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 134The history
Three verses close the collection that began with a man stranded in a foreign country. The journey ends in the house of the LORD at night.
The people addressed are the night shift. The sanctuary was guarded around the clock; Jewish records describe priests keeping watch at three posts and Levites at twenty-one more, with a captain making rounds and waking anyone found asleep. Lamps had to be tended and the place could never be left empty.
Lifting the hands toward the sanctuary was the ordinary posture of prayer and blessing, hands raised and open. It is what a person did instead of kneeling in silence.
The blessing runs both ways in the psalm, which is what makes it a farewell. The departing pilgrims bless the servants who stay on duty, and the answer comes back over them as they go: the LORD bless you from Zion, the maker of heaven and earth.
What it meant to them
The fifteen Songs of Ascents were a road in themselves — far away, on the way, at the gates, in the city, and finally in the courts. This is the last step.
For families packing up to walk home for another year, the point was that worship did not stop when they left. Somebody was standing in that house all night, and the blessing they carried out of it came from the God who made everything, not just the hill they had climbed.
Sources cited
- The Mishnah, tractates Middot and Tamid (Danby translation)
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 134. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.