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I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Psalm 122 A pious patriot Homilist. I. REJOICING IN THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ASSEMBLING FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP (vers. 1, 2). 1. One of the grandest social duties of religious men — to invite their neighbours to religious worship. 2. The delight that may be expected from the right discharge of this duty. II. HIGHLY APPRECIATING THE VARIOUS ADVANTAGES OF HIS COUNTRY (vers. 8-5). He rejoices in it because — 1. It was a scene of material beauty. 2. It was the scene of religious worship. 3. It was the scene of civil justice. III. EARNESTLY DESIRING THE PROSPERITY OF HIS FATHERLAND (vers. 6-9). 1. He invokes for it the highest good — peace and prosperity. 2. For the strongest reasons. (1) Personal (ver. 6). (2) Social (ver. 8). (3) Religious (ver. 9). ( Homilist. ) The communion of saints W. S. Lewis, M. A. I. BEFORE WORSHIP (vers. 1, 2). 1. The joy of a common purpose. Men cannot help approaching one another in approaching one common object. 2. The joy of a common hope. II. DURING WORSHIP (vers. 3-5). 1. The exceeding beauty of unity. 2. The secret of this admirable unity. (1) One object of worship. (2) One priesthood. (3) One ruler and king. III. UNITED WORSHIP ITSELF (vers. 6-9). 1. The invitation. "Jerusalem which now is" is not without faults, nor yet without foes. All the more need for her true children and friends to pray for her "peace." It is part of their duty. It is part, also, of their wisdom. "They shall prosper that love thee." When we meet to say "Our Father," let us say also, "Thy kingdom come." 2. The response to the invitation — to its request — to its reasonings.(1) The request is right, and we will gladly accede to it. "Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces." May all be right internally and externally too.(2) The reasoning also is sound, and we are prepared to act on it. "For my brethren and companions' sakes," and because I feel that good to them is good to myself as well, "I will now say, Peace be within thee." "Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God," in which house and its common worship this feeling is so especially realized, "I will seek thy good." ( W. S. Lewis, M. A. ) The Christian's pleasure at being invited to God's house H. Melvill, B. D. Probably this psalm was composed for the use of the Israelites when journeying up to worship at Jerusalem on the great annual solemnities. We stand in one of the valleys of the Promised Land, whilst it yet flowed with milk and honey, and the children of Abraham had not been exiled for their sins. We see a company approaching: they are a band of one of the distant tribes, and they are hastening to be at Jerusalem on one of the grand anniversaries. As they advance, we catch the sound of their voices: they are beguiling with psalmody the tedious pilgrimage. We listen attentively, and at length we can distinguish the words, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem." Louder and louder grows the melody: the thought of the glories of the city, in which Jehovah specially dwelt, cheers the weary travellers; and the surrounding mountains echo the beautiful invocation, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces." 1. Now, it is not required of us to undertake any wearisome journeys: we are not called to incite one or the other by holy melodies to the leaving of our homes, that we may seek the Lord at some distant shrine. But, nevertheless, we are still bound to the duty of public worship; the privilege is left us, though graciously freed from inconvenience; and it may be as necessary as ever, seeing that the removal of difficulties is not unlikely to produce indolence, that men should exhort one another with the words, "Let us go into the house of the Lord." We know, of course, that there is a sense in which the Almighty "dwelleth not in temples made with hands"; "heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him;" how much less the houses which His creatures build l But, nevertheless, just as He may be said to dwell especially in heaven, though, in virtue of His omnipresence, He is equally everywhere, because in heaven He manifests Himself with greater brightness than in any other scene; so may He be said to dwell specially in our churches, if He there give extraordinary tokens of that presence which must indeed be the same in all departments of creation. And when a true servant of God goes up to the sanctuary, it is in the humble but earnest hope of gaining greater knowledge of doctrines which concern his salvation, of gathering fresh stores of that manna which "cometh down from heaven," and of drinking a fresh draught of "the water of life." Neither is it only on account of the advantages derivable from the preaching of the Word that the sincere Christian is earnest in attending the sanctuary. There is a charm and a power to him in public worship, in the being associated with a multitude of his fellow-men in acts of prayer and praise, which would draw him to God's house. It is an inspiriting and elevating thing when numbers loin, with one heart and voice, to ask Divine protection, and celebrate Divine love. There is more of the imagery of heaven in such an exhibition than in any other to be seen on this earth. But we must not omit, in our survey of reasons, why a Christian is glad, when invited to the house of the Lord, that in this house are administered the Sacraments, those mysterious and most profitable rites of our holy religion. 2. We have hitherto enlarged on the motives to joy which are furnished by the ordinances of religion: we will now examine whether there be not also motives in the finding that others associate themselves with us in those ordinances, yea, incite us to their most diligent use? And what more evident than that, if it be a joyful thing to the Christian to go up to God's house, it must be yet more joyful to go up with a throng? Anxious himself to obtain spiritual strength, it will delight him to mark the like anxiety in others. For there is nothing selfish in genuine religion: on the contrary, it enlarges and throws open the heart, so that the safety of others is eared for in proportion that one's own seems secured. 3. It is one of the predictions of Isaiah in reference to those days when the dispersed Jews are to be restored, and Jerusalem made "a praise in the earth," that "many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountains of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob." Who would not be glad to have it said unto him, "Let us go into the house of the Lord," when the saying implied that God had at length fulfilled His mightiest promises, that His banished ones were gathered home, and that there had broken on this creation days for which kings and righteous men had longed, days when "out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," till earth, in its remotest tribes, yield homage to the Christ? We may not live to hear the summons thus applied; but we may show our desire for the glorious triumphs which Christianity has yet to achieve, by the earnestness of our endeavours to promote its diffusion. ( H. Melvill, B. D. ) Gladness about worship U. R. Thomas. These words show us that the psalmist was thinking — I. About WORSHIP. "The house of the Lord." That, to the pious Hebrew, was the scene and symbol of worship. There are two aspects of worship, both of which are right. One is, that in the house of the Lord we get from God what, as sinners and sufferers and suppliants for others, we seek. The other is, that we give to God the adoration and praise He condescends to receive. II. About SOCIAL WORSHIP. "Let us go." The solitary worship in "the still hour ' and in "the quiet resting-place" is good. But prayer has special promise attached to it when "any two agree"; and praise has special glory when "young men and maidens, old men and children" blend their hallelujahs. III. About INVITATION TO SOCIAL WORSHIP. There are times when, to the neglectful, or the depressed, or the sinful, this human invitation seems an echo of the Divine welcome. There is gladness (1) because God may be worshipped. (2) Because others are worshipping God. (3) Because others are caring for us. ( U. R. Thomas. ) Gladness in the prospect of Divine worship S. Martin, M. A. The house of the Lord suggests such subjects of thought as these — they may not come to us in this order, but they are such as these: — I. THOUGHTS OF THE LORD HIMSELF. The house of the Lord. A gladdening thought this to David, and to every man who knows God as Jesus Christ teaches His disciples to know the Father. There may be very little gladness through simply saying "there is a God"; but surely joyfulness must spring up in the soul when a man can add "O God, thou art my God." II. THOUGHTS OF THE VARIOUS GLORIOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD. III. THOUGHTS OF HIS MERCIES. IV. THOUGHTS OF THE EXERCISE AND THE ACT OF WORSHIP. How pleasant to praise! What relief is there in the confession of sin! How soothing is prayer! V. THOUGHTS OF MEETING GOD AS HE IS NOT MET ELSEWHERE. VI. THOUGHTS OF RECEIVING SPECIAL BLESSINGS FROM GOD. VII. THOUGHTS OF THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. VIII. THOUGHTS OF ENJOYING A PRIVILEGE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF DUTY. ( S. Martin, M. A. ) The good man's joy in the engagements of the sanctuary R. S. McAll, LL. D. I. THERE HE IS WARRANTED TO EXPECT THE PECULIAR ENJOYMENT OF THE DIVINE PRESENCE. To an affectionate friend nothing is so delightful as his friend's society. To a fond child nothing is dearer than the embrace of his father. He delights when absent to return to him. Such is the emotion with which a sincerely pious mind welcomes the coming of the Sabbath, and the returning solemnities in the house of God. And this is a state of feeling that must continually increase in proportion to the increase of his spirituality and piety. II. THE GRATIFICATION THUS EXPRESSED ON APPROACHING TO THE HOUSE OF GOD, SPRINGS ALSO FROM THE HAPPINESS OF A NEAR AND INTIMATE ASSOCIATION WITH OUR BRETHREN IN ALL THE EXERCISES OF UNITED DEVOTION. III. THE TRULY PIOUS MAN WILL REJOICE IN APPROACHING TO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD, BECAUSE OF THOSE SACRED AND SOLEMN EMPLOYMENTS SO CONGENIAL WITH HIS BEST FEELINGS THERE AWAITING HIM. For there may he freely, and in concert witch his brethren, engage in those avocations, and delight himself with those pleasures, which are to be his business and his felicity for ever. IV. WE SHALL REJOICE TO ENTER AGAIN INTO THE HOUSE OF GOD, BECAUSE OF THE PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENT IN ALL OUR CHARACTER THERE CONSTANTLY EXPERIENCED. And in order to the attainment of this advance in the Divine life, derived from all the engagements of the sanctuary, meditate much on their importance. Seek to approach in a state of sacred preparation. Think not of man, but of God. Remember that you stand immediately before Him. Call frequently to mind the account you must render hereafter, and ask with solemnity of spirit how you would be able even now to render it. Be not satisfied, unless you can discern, after each season of devotion, some benefit experienced; some grace attained or strengthened; the soul melted into deeper humility on account of sin, or else kindled into loftier exultation, and conscious of a purer love for all the joys of pardon, and the hope of glory. ( R. S. McAll, LL. D. ) Happiness and worship R. Sinclair. To know a real and undying happiness, the soul must be bent away from earth and bound back to God. This is religion. But how few know it to be so in this mammon-worshipping world. How few can catch at the sentiment of this text, and breathe it through the heart — "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." Tell the world it will find happiness anywhere but in religion, and it will go anywhere, and will never give up the hope under its vain Search. But tell it that the springs of abiding gladness are here, in the house of the Lord, that they are within the reach of all, and you will immediately find its credulity changed into incredulity, and its activity into idleness. Now, why is this? The more I search into it, the more am I convinced that what is wrong are the false conceptions that have been steadily growing up in our midst as to what the Church is, and the mistaken relations we have been entertaining to it. To a great many people who have enough of religious sentiment left in them to forbid them wishing to see the Church entirely effaced, it is anything but gladness to be told to go into the house of the Lord. They have no inclination to be in the sanctuary, but a very strong desire to be anywhere else. All this is the fruit of a mistaken notion of what the Church is. They regard it very much as a schoolboy regards compulsory attendance at school, not as a privilege, but as a hardship; not as offering untold benefits, but only as so much restraint and drudgery that ought to be escaped from as much as possible. And so, when they do go, it is under a sense of constraint or decency, to bestow favour and not to expect good. But if these are glad to escape church attendance and to be let alone, there are also those who are really glad when the Sabbath invitation summons them to the church, but of whom it can, nevertheless, be said that they are not worshippers; they are simply sermon-hunters. But if people are glad to go to church sometimes because they hear clever sermons, just as if they are drawn to a hall to listen to some great political orator or candidate, so are there some who enter church neither to be instructed nor amused, but to bear themselves as critics and judges, and to take no other part in the service. This also grows out of a false conception of the Church. For it is not a place where man is at liberty to sit in judgment on his fellow, or where the instrument is greater than the hand that wields it; but the place where men ought to be humble and not presumptuous, and where they ought to serve and not judge. But if the influence of the Christian Church has been hindered and impaired because of the false notions with which we have so often entered it, we have also weakened it and prevented its power by the wrong relations we have borne to it. It has been to us too long no more than an earthly temple of stone and timber, with a human voice sounding in our ears, and human creatures like ourselves our only companions. It has been to us the resort of habit, and the place where by inherited faith we have been trained from childhood to repair to. But the stone and timber of the sanctuary are no more than the stone and timber of any other building, neither are those we meet with here other than those we meet with in the world, nor yet is the habit acquired nor the faith inherited which carries us to the sanctuary of any value. Our true and sole relation to the place is not in the visible, but in the invisible. When we repair to it we ought to see nothing, and feel nothing, and desire nothing but God. For it is "the house of the Lord." We have to please God, and this is how we will please Him, by remembering, when we are in the house of the Lord, that He is there, to receive our praises, to hear our prayers, and to instruct us not after our own choosing, nor with the words of man's wisdom, but in the simplicity of the truth. This is worship therefore when we sing, and when we pray, and when we listen for spiritual edification, and not because we have an itching ear. Then shall carping criticism be dead, and the small shall become really great; for the poorest sermon shall have much in it then, and the best sermon shall have more spiritual momentum, and all the Church's service will be worship, and the Church shall awake and put on her strength, and God. shall be glorified; and we shall find enduring happiness and salvation in the harmony of the new life. ( R. Sinclair. ) Inducements to public worship J. F. Haynes, LL. D. It should be a source of joy to us, even as it was to David, to be regular and punctual in our attendance upon the public means of grace — I. WITH A VIEW TO GOD'S HONOUR AND GLORY. If, on the one hand, the devout and humble worshipper contributes, as he most undoubtedly does, to that great end, then, I ask you whether it does not follow, upon the other hand, that his unnecessary or inexcusable neglect to attend the services of the sanctuary positively dishonours God? II. FOR OUR OWN SPIRITUAL REFRESHMENT AND EDIFICATION. We have our own individual cares and anxieties, and our own hard struggles in the race of life, and ofttimes we feel so worn and fagged with the hurry and bustle of the world that we are well nigh ready to sink beneath the pressure upon us, and we experience an intense yearning for rest, an earnest longing for something — perhaps some of us scarcely know what — but something that certainly we find not in the whirl of business or the excitement of pleasure. Ah! thank God, that peace which the world cannot give is to be found here, here in the house of prayer. Every time these doors are opened for public worship, God awaits His hungry, and thirsty, and fainting people, and whispers to each poor, needy, longing soul, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." III. THAT WE MAY BECOME EXAMPLES FOR GOOD TO THOSE AROUND US. Let me assure you that when you give up for a time the sweet converse of friends and the cheerful glow of the bright fireside, and turn out, it may be, into the blinding snow, or the pelting rain, or the dismal fog, that you may go into the house of the Lord, you do far more by these your silent, but practical, examples than we can hope to accomplish by any amount of persuasion. It was a noble answer that an old saint of God who had been for years very deaf once gave to her minister when he asked her why she was so constant in her attendance at church: — "Though I cannot hear, I come to God's house because I love it, and I love the service, and I wish to be found in His ways, and He gives me many a sweet thought upon the text when it is pointed out to me. Another reason is because I am in the best company, in the most immediate presence of God, and among His saints, the honourable of the earth. I am not satisfied with serving God in private; it is my duty and privilege to honour Him regularly and constantly in public." ( J. F. Haynes, LL. D. ) Gladness of God's house J. G. Butler. Why glad? 1. That you have a house of the Lord to which you may go. David's zeal for God's house. The incident with Araunah. Removal of the ark to Jerusalem. His reasoning about a house for God. His large liberality toward building the Temple. That which costs us nothing we do not prize. When our money and labour and brain and heart go into God's house, we are "glad when," etc. 2. That any feel enough interest in me to say, "Let us go," etc. 3. That I am able to go to God's house. That my Sabbaths are my own. Sabbath and government and capital — the right of the working-man. That I have bodily health. That I have mental health. Able to-day, may not be to-morrow. 4. That I am disposed to go. "Where there's a will there's a way." Many excuses, but true of the mass of non-church-goers, that they have not the will. ( J. G. Butler. ) Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Psalm 122:2 Jerusalem Canon Liddon. The psalm was probably written by a pilgrim to Jerusalem. at some time previous to the Babylonish Captivity. On the one hand, it is clear that "the house of the Lord," the ancient Temple, was still standing; on the other, the reference to "the house of David" and the anxious prayer "for the peace of Jerusalem," its walls, its palaces, seem to point to a later period than that of David. The pilgrim who composed the psalm would have belonged to one of the ten separated tribes; but he had remained after the general defection true to the divinely-ordered worship at Jerusalem, and his psalm may well have been composed on the occasion of his first visit. 1. Now, one thing that would have struck a pilgrim to Jerusalem who should approach the city, as was natural, from its north-eastern side, would be its beauty. Possibly this pilgrim had seen Damascus straggling out amid the beautiful oasis which surrounds it in the plain of the Abana, or he had seen Memphis, a long strip of buildings, thickly populated, extending for some twelve or fourteen miles along the western bank of the Nile. Compared with those Jerusalem had the compact beauty of a highland fortress, its buildings are seen from below standing out against the clear Syrian sky, and conveying an impression of grace and strength that would long linger in the memory. No doubt in the eyes of a pilgrim in these old Jewish times, as afterwards, the physical beauty of Jerusalem must have suggested and blended with a beauty of a higher order. The beauty of the world of spirit imparts to the world of sense a subtle lustre which of itself it could never possess. "Walk about Zion, and go round about her, and tell the towers thereof; mark well her bulwarks; set up her houses that ye may tell them that come after." And why? "For this God is our God for ever and ever. He shall be our guide unto death." 2. And secondly, Jerusalem was the centre of the religious and national life of Israel. Jerusalem was what it was in a good Israelite's eyes less on its own account than because it contained the Temple. "Yea," cries the pilgrim, as he looks out on the fair city beneath him — "yea, because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do thee good." And so, although the city of Solomon and its Temple passed away, and a new city and a new temple rose upon the ruins of the old, pilgrims still came up with the old psalm upon their lips and in their hearts: "Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem." 3. And a third characteristic of Jerusalem, which appealed to religious pilgrims like this psalmist-pilgrim, was, if I may so phrase what I mean, its unworldliness. This appears partly in its situation. Jerusalem was not on the sea, or on a navigable river. The little stream of the Kedron was dry for the greater part of the year in ancient days as now, and nothing but rude mountain-paths connected the city with Egypt on one side or with Syria on the other. It was thus cut off from those activities of commerce and intercourse with distant countries which are essential to the material well-being and development of a great capital. 4. As the centuries went on, Jerusalem, thus dear to the heart of Israel as being what it was in itself, became yet dearer to it by misfortune. Of all that is most beautiful in life, sorrow is the last consecration. Sorrow is the poetry, no less than the discipline of humanity. Certainly, if one thing is clear from Scripture and from experience, sorrows such as those of Jerusalem are the result of sin. And yet this could not kill out the sense of blessing which attached to the sacred spot in the eyes of successive generations of pilgrims. Thinking only of the sure mercies of David, thinking with the apostle of a later age, that the gifts and calling of God are indeed without repentance, again and again under Manasseh as under Hezekiah, under Jehoiakim as under Josiah, they uttered their song, "Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem." The events which make Jerusalem what it is in Christian eyes do not belong to the Old Testament. That wonderful self-manifestation of the Eternal Being among men which began at Bethlehem and Nazareth reached its climax at Jerusalem. On the hills around this favoured city, along its streets, in the courts of its great sanctuary, there walked in visible form, One who had already lived from everlasting, and who had folded around His eternal person the body and the soul of the sons of men. Just outside its walls, He condescended to die in agony and in shame only that He might rise in triumph from His grave, and on a hill hard by He went visibly up to heaven to reign for ever in glory. He conferred on it in Christian eyes a patent of nobility which will only become invalid when His Gospel disappears from among men. But the Jerusalem of Christian thought is no longer only or mainly the city of David. It is, first of all, the visible and universal Church of Christ. The towers and walls and shrines of the ancient city, as faith gazes on them, melt away into the outline of a sublimer prospect — that of redeemed humanity through all the Christian centuries gathered and harmonized into the city of God. This was what St. Paul meant when, writing to the Galatians, he contrasted with Jerusalem "that now is which is in bondage" — that is, to the Romans — "with her children"; the Jerusalem "that is above," or, as we should say, "the spiritual Jerusalem that is free, and is the mother of us all." That vast society in whose ample bosom the souls of Christian men from generation to generation find shelter and welcome and warmth and nourishment is the reality of which the old Syrian city was the material type. This is the Jerusalem of the Christian creed — "I believe in one holy Catholic Apostolic Church;" this is the Jerusalem of, perhaps, the greatest work of the greatest teacher of the Christian Church since apostolic days — 's treatise on "The City of God." There may be controversies among Christians as to the exact direction and extent of its wails, just as there are controversies among antiquarians as to the extent and direction of the walls of its material prototype, but as to its place in the thoughts and affections of all true Christian men there should be no room for controversy. No other association of men can have such claims on the heart of a Christian as the Church of God. What if sin and division have marred its beauty and its unity. The old Jerusalem did not cease to be Jerusalem in Jeremiah's eyes because of the sins of the priests, of princes, of peoples which he so unsparingly denounced. The factions which rent the city that fell beneath the legions of Titus did not kill out` the love and the loyalty of its noblest sons. The true remedy for disappointment and sorrow on the score of shortcomings and differences within the sacred city is to be found in such prayers as those which we offer in our holiest service to the Divine Majesty, beseeching Him to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord. And this earthly Jerusalem suggests another city, a true haven of peace, with which the visible Church of Christ is already in communion, and into which all those true children of Zion who are joyful in their King will one day be received. ( Canon Liddon. ) Whither the tribes go up. Psalm 122:4 The church the centre of union N. McMichael. The church is still the centre of union. To this sacred place the tribes of God are ever going up, in accordance with the Divine statute, "to give thanks unto the name of the Lord." All local peculiarities, all national distinctions, vanish in the house of God. The Asiatic and the Esquimaux, the Red Indian and the Islander of the Southern Ocean, the African and the European, assemble here as one family; and, throwing aside all sectional feuds and rivalries, they worship on the same holy mountain. The great bond of union is Christ, and, joined to Him who is our living Head, we are members of one another. All one in Christ. There is one Father, one Redeemer, one Holy Ghost. There is one condemnation, and there is one redemption; one cross of atonement, one throne of grace, one home in heaven. Whenever believers meet, they can sing the same psalms, and repeat the same prayers. The New Jerusalem, the metropolis of the universe, where the Son of David is seated upon His mediatorial throne, is the eternal centre of worship and of union. To this true Holy of holies the tribes of Israel are always going up, "to give thanks unto the name of the Lord." Pleasant it must have been to witness company after company of pilgrims arriving at the earthly Jerusalem, to worship Jehovah at His solemn feasts. But how much more delightful to behold their disembodied spirits, borne upwards on the wings of angels, passing through the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem, and placed in triumph before the jasper throne! They come from the east and the west, from the north and the south. Each day, each night, accessions are made to the number of the redeemed, and new voices added to their jubilant songs. And then, too, the assemblies never break up, and the festivals have no end. There is peace within the walls, and prosperity within the palaces: peace flowing on as a majestic river, unruffled with storms, and unchafed with any impediment: prosperity, ample as the desires of the glorified spirit, and immortal as its nature. ( N. McMichael. ) For there are set thrones of judgment. Psalm 122:5 True worship and correct thinking T. Phillips, B. A. The words of our text are the very last we should expect to find in a psalm of praise and adoration. What had thrones of judgment, the place where disputes were settled, and deeds justified or condemned, to do with pilgrims who hungered for the living God? But a little reflection leads us to see that it was a true spiritual instinct that connects the sanctuary with the judgment-seat and worship with the criticism of life. Maybe there was a geographical proximity between the temple and the civil court, but we would fain believe that it was a much deeper connection, a spiritual association, that dictated the words of our text. For, as a matter of fact, we cannot prostrate ourselves before God without seeing all the facts of life in their true light and estimate all our thoughts and deeds at their true value, for "there are set thrones of judgment." 1. True worship leads to just valuation and correct thinking. In the hurry of life God becomes a shadow, and in the controversies of thought He becomes a symbol; but when we bow our heads with adoration and awe, we place ourselves in an attitude to see the King in His beauty; and all the time we are engaged in worship, God is quietly reasserting His supremacy over our lives. In industry and commerce we are daily tempted to consider our fellow-men as means towards an end, bound to us by the cold relationship of a cash nexus or a business transaction. As we move in the social life around us we are tempted to group our fellows according to caste and class, to clique and circle, but when we escape to the sanctuary and turn to the great sacrifice of Christ for forgiveness, we see our fellow-man as he is, a fellow-sinner for whom Jesus died, a brother saint, heir of God and joint-heir of Jesus Christ. The sanctuary corrects the estimates of the world, and the thrones of judgment modify the rules and maxims of men. Outside the sanctuary property assumes vast dimensions, inside it dwindles into an incident of life. Outside sin is an inevitable trifle, inside it is the one tragedy of the world, crucifying Christ and wounding God. Outside, eternity is a guess and a chance, a dream and a shadow, but inside it is the great reality, the place of adjustment, reunion, and satisfaction. As men in a mist see every object disfigured and exaggerated, so in the atmosphere of worldliness we see everything out of its true shape and perspective, but in the sanctuary there are thrones of judgment. In worship we unconsciously escape from the dominion of maxims and thoughts that are merely worldly and material. 2. The reasons for this beneficent effect are not far to seek.(1) Worship brings a man to the right standpoint. Vision is so often a matter of position. To learn how to see is to learn where to stand. The attitude of worship is a vantage ground which commands spiritual prospects and unseen landscapes, the land that is very far off, the world in its need, and the King in His beauty.(2) Worship removes the disturbing element. Inaccurate judgments are due to passion and prejudice, to interest and greed, and all these are forms and modifications of selfishness. It is self that spoils the vision and upsets the balances. But worship is the surrender of the self, the renunciation of the great obstacle and the solemn repetition of our Saviour's words — "Not My will but Thine be done." Self is displaced and God is enthroned, and as the result the worshipper thinks as his Lord thinks, and his judgment is just and his valuation accurate.(3) Worship quickens all the faculties of a man's life. We often see amiss because we do not see with the whole soul. Our judgments are wrong because they are partially

Benson Commentary Psalm 122:1 A Song of degrees of David. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. Psalm 122:1-2 . I was glad when they said, Let us go, &c. — Or, We will go, into the house of the Lord — They are the words of the people, exhorting one another to go and attend upon the worship of God at his tabernacle or temple at Jerusalem, and especially at the three great festivals; and they are intended to signify with what great joy such Israelites as were pious received and complied with invitations from their brethren to accompany them on these occasions. But with how much greater joy ought Christians to embrace all opportunities of approaching God, and assembling with his people in the more rational, spiritual, and edifying worship of the New Testament church! Our feet shall stand within thy gates, &c. — Thither we will come, and there we will continue during the times of solemn worship; O Jerusalem — The city where the ark of the covenant and God’s holy altars are now fixed. We shall wander no more, as we did formerly, when the ark was removed from place to place. We have now got a settled habitation for it, and where it is there will we be. Psalm 122:2 Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Psalm 122:3 Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: Psalm 122:3 . Jerusalem is builded as a city, compact together — Hebrew, ?????? ?? , shechubberah lah, quæ conjuncta est sibi, which is united, or, compacted to, or, in itself. The word signifies “the connection or joining of things aptly and closely to each other. Thus it is used of the coupling of the curtains of the tabernacle together, Exodus 36:18 . Hence it is used to denote the connection and society of friendship, affection, and purpose, Genesis 14:3 ; Hosea 4:17 . In the place before us, both senses seem to be united. Jerusalem was compact as to its buildings, and the inhabitants of it were firmly united by mutual harmony and friendship.” — Chandler. This clause is rendered by Mudge, As a city that is placed in the centre of union. “Jerusalem,” says Dr. Delaney, “the great seat and centre of religion and justice, was the centre of union to all the tribes; the palace, the centre of the city; and the tabernacle, of the palace. Blessed and happy is that nation whose prince is the centre of union to his people, and God (that is, true religion) the common centre and cement both of people and prince.” — Life of David, book 2., chapter 12., page 162. Psalm 122:4 Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD. Psalm 122:4-5 . Whither the tribes go up, &c. — Hebrew, Thither the tribes ascend; the tribes of the Lord — Whom God hath chosen to be his people, and whom he hath invited and required to resort thither. Unto the testimony of Israel — Unto the ark, called the testimony because of the tables of the covenant laid up in it, which are called God’s testimony, and the tables of the testimony. And this is called the testimony of, or to Israel, because it was given by God to them. To give thanks unto the name of the Lord — To worship God; this one eminent part thereof being put for all the rest. For there are set thrones of judgment — The supreme courts of justice for ecclesiastical and civil affairs. The thrones of the house of David — The royal throne, allotted by God to David and to his posterity, and the inferior seats of justice established by and under his authority. Psalm 122:5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Psalm 122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Psalm 122:6-9 . Pray for the peace of Jerusalem — In the prosperity of which both your civil and religious privileges are deeply concerned. They shall prosper that love thee — Or, Let them prosper, the future being taken imperatively, as is very frequent. The Lord grant them prosperity and all happiness. Peace be within thy walls — In all thy dwellings; and prosperity within thy palaces — Especially in the dwellings of thy princes and rulers, whose welfare and prosperity may be a public blessing to all the people. For my brethren and companions’ sakes — And this I desire, says David, not only, nor chiefly, for my own security and for the glory of my empire, but for the sake of all my fellow-citizens, and of all the Israelites, whom, though my subjects, I must own for my brethren and companions in the chief privileges and blessings enjoyed at Jerusalem. Because of the house of the Lord — Which is now fixed in this city; because of the ordinances of his worship, which are here established. I will seek thy good — Thy protection, peace, and prosperity. Thus, “in these concluding verses, the psalmist declares the two motives which induced him to utter his best wishes, and to use his best endeavours for the prosperity of Jerusalem; namely, the love of his brethren, whose happiness was involved in that of their city; and the love of God, who had there fixed the residence of his glory. These motives are ever in force, and ought, surely, to operate with marvellous energy upon our hearts, to stir us up to imitate the pattern now before us, in fervent zeal and unwearied labour for the salvation of men, and the glory of our great Redeemer; both which will then be complete, when the church militant shall become the church triumphant, and the heavenly paradise shall be filled with plants taken from its terrestrial nursery.” — Horne. Psalm 122:7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. Psalm 122:8 For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Psalm 122:9 Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 122:1 A Song of degrees of David. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. Psalm 122:1-9 THIS is very distinctly a pilgrim psalm. But there is difficulty in determining the singer’s precise point of view, arising from the possibility of understanding the phrase in Psalm 122:2 , "are standing," as meaning either "are" or "were standing" or "have stood." If it is taken as a present tense, the psalm begins by recalling the joy with which the pilgrims began their march, and in Psalm 122:2 rejoices in reaching the goal. Then, in Psalm 122:3 , Psalm 122:4 , Psalm 122:5 the psalmist paints, the sight of the city which gladdened the gazer’s eyes, remembers ancient glories when Jerusalem was the rallying point for united worship and the seat of the Davidic monarchy, and finally pours out patriotic exhortations to love Jerusalem and prayers for her peace and prosperity. This seems the most natural construing of the psalm. If, on the other hand, Psalm 122:2 refers to a past time, "the poet, now again returning home or actually returned, remembers the whole pilgrimage from its beginning onwards." This is possible; but the warmth of emotion in the exclamation in Psalm 122:3 is more appropriate to the moment of rapturous realisation of a long-sought joy than to the paler remembrance of it. Taking, then, the former view of the verse, we have the beginning and end of the pilgrimage brought into juxtaposition in Psalm 122:1 and Psalm 122:2 . It was begun in joy; it ends in full attainment and a satisfied rapture, as the pilgrim finds the feet which have traversed many a weary mile planted at last within the city. How fading the annoyances of the road! Happy they whose life’s path ends where the psalmist’s did! The joy of fruition will surpass that of anticipation, and difficulties and dangers will be forgotten. Psalm 122:3-5 give voice to the crowding thoughts and memories waked by that moment of supreme joy, when dreams and hopes have become realities, and the pilgrim’s happy eyes do actually see the city. It stands "built," by which is best understood built anew, rising from the ruins of many years. It is "compact together," the former breaches in the walls and the melancholy gaps in the buildings being filled up. Others take the reference to be to the crowding of its houses, which its site, a narrow peninsula of rock with deep ravines on three sides, made necessary. But fair to his eyes as the Jerusalem of today looked, the poet-patriot sees auguster forms rising behind it, and recalls vanished glories, when all the twelve tribes came up to worship, according to the commandment, and there was yet a king in Israel. The religious and civil life of the nation had their centres in the city; and Jerusalem had become the seat of worship because it was the seat of the monarchy. These days were past; but though few in number, the tribes still were going up; and the psalmist does not feel the sadness but the sanctity of the vanished past. Thus moved to the depths of his soul, he breaks forth into exhortation to his companion pilgrims to pray for the peace of the city. There is a play on the meaning of the name in Psalm 122:6 a; for, as the Tel-el-Amarna tablets have told us, the name of the city of the priest-king was Uru Salim-the city of [the god of] peace. The prayer is that the no men may become omen, and that the hope that moved in the hearts that had so long ago and in the midst of wars given so fair a designation to their abode, may be fulfilled now at last. A similar play of words lies in the interchange of "peace" and "prosperity," which are closely similar in sound in the Hebrew. So sure is the psalmist that God will favour Zion, that he assures his companions that individual well-being will be secured by loyal love to her. The motive appealed to may be so put as to be mere selfishness, though, if any man loved Zion not for Zion’s sake but for his own, he could scarcely be deemed to love her at all. But rightly understood, the psalmist proclaims an everlasting truth, that the highest good is realised by sinking self in a passion of earnest love for and service to the City of God. Such love is in itself well-being; and while it may have no rewards appreciable by sense, it cannot fail of sharing in the good of Zion and the prosperity of God’s chosen. The singer puts forth the prayers which he enjoins on others, and rises high above all considerations of self. His desires are winged by two great motives-on the one hand, his self-oblivious wish for the good of those who are knit to him by common faith and worship; on the other, his loving reverence for the sacred house of Jehovah. That house hallowed every stone in the city. To wish for the prosperity of Jerusalem, forgetting that the Temple was in it, would have been mere earthly patriotism, a very questionable virtue. To wish and struggle for the growth of an external organisation called a Church, disregarding the Presence which gives it all its sanctity, is no uncommon fault in some who think that they are actuated by "zeal for the Lord," when it is a much more earthly flame that burns in them. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.