Psalm 122: A Visit to the Jerusalem of Old

The focus throughout Psalm 122 is on Jerusalem.^[1] Its name is repeated three times, and echoes of its name, in the letters ש-ל (sh-l), resonate throughout the psalm, especially in the words שָׁלוֹם (shalom), “peace,” and שַׁלְוָה (shalvah), “security” (vv. 6–9).

The psalm dates from the Persian period, as we know from its use of Late Biblical Hebrew (more on this later). By that time, the First Temple had been destroyed, and a significant part of the Judean population had been exiled to Babylonia. It is not clear if our speaker is still in exile or whether he is among the returnees to Judah who participated in, or witnessed, the building of the Second Temple.

In either case, he is a fictional persona. We should not automatically equate a speaker in a psalm with its author, nor should we assume that the events in a psalm actually occurred. Psalms are literary works, and, like modern poems and songs, they create scenarios and speakers in order to convey their message.^[2]

Jerusalem in Its Halcyon Days

The speaker begins by describing his joy at the thought of a pilgrimage to the Temple:

^{תהלים קכב:א} שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת לְדָוִד שָׂמַחְתִּי בְּאֹמְרִים לִי בֵּית יְ־הוָה נֵלֵךְ.

^{Ps 122:1} A Song of Ascents. Of David. I rejoiced that they said to me, “To the House of YHWH we are going.

Are they going to the First Temple or to the Second Temple? Modern commentators tend to set the speaker in Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple, and they assume that he has joined an actual pilgrimage to it.

On the other hand, some traditional Jewish commentators think the psalm is spoken by the exiles in Babylonia before the Second Temple was built. As David Qimḥi (1160–1235) says:

^{רד׳׳ק, תהלים קכב:א} והמזמור הזה מאמר בני הגלות, ומרוב תאותם לבנין בית המקדש יזכרו עלות ישראל לרגלים, וידברו על לשון האבות שהיו בזמן הבית.

^{Radak, Ps 122:1} This psalm quotes the exiles, who in their great desire to build the Temple, remembered Israel’s festival pilgrimages, and spoke in the words of their ancestors at the time that the Temple was standing.

I will follow Qimḥi in understanding that the speaker is in exile and the pilgrimage is imagined. Despite this exilic setting, however, the composition of the psalm may date from the time of the Second Temple. The hope for Jerusalem’s well-being at the end of the psalm would have been pertinent during the exile and also when the Temple had been rebuilt.

The speaker imagines earlier pilgrimages to Jerusalem, before the city was destroyed:

^{תהלים קכב:ב} עֹמְדוֹת הָיוּ רַגְלֵינוּ בִּשְׁעָרַיִךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם.

^{Ps 122:2} Our feet used to stand within your gates, Jerusalem.

He addresses Jerusalem directly (this is called “apostrophe” in literary terminology), a rhetorical device that makes Jerusalem’s presence even more immediate. He reminds Jerusalem that pilgrims once gathered regularly inside the city.

Within your gates. Jerusalem had multiple gates (Jer 1:15 and passim). Nehemiah mentions nine gates (ch. 3) and Ezekiel envisions twelve gates in a future Jerusalem (48:31–34). Alternatively, “within your gates” may refer to the courtyard area between the inner and outer gates of the city. This was a public space where justice was dispensed and legal matters were transacted. For example, the town gate is where Boaz goes to settle Ruth’s status with the other potential redeemer:^[3]

^{רות ד:א} וּבֹעַז עָלָה הַשַּׁעַר וַיֵּשֶׁב שָׁם וְהִנֵּה הַגֹּאֵל עֹבֵר אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בֹּעַז וַיֹּאמֶר סוּרָה שְׁבָה פֹּה פְּלֹנִי אַלְמֹנִי וַיָּסַר וַיֵּשֵׁב.

^{Ruth 4:1} Meanwhile, Boaz had gone to the gate and sat down there. And now the redeemer whom Boaz had mentioned passed by. He called, “Come over and sit down here, So-and-so!” And he came over and sat down.

The Septuagint’s reading, “Our feet stood in your courts, O Jerusalem,” may reflect this understanding.^[4] Alternatively, Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1167) suggests that crowds formed at the gates because the city was so full of people:

^{אבן עזרא, תהלים קכב:ב} כי היא היתה מלאה אדם והיינו מתעכבים בשערים לא נוכל להכנס מרוב העם הבאים והיוצאים.

^{Ibn Ezra, Ps 122:2} [Jerusalem] was full of people, and we (that is, the psalm’s speaker and other pilgrims) were held back at the gates. We were unable to enter because of the great number of people going in and coming out.

The meaning of the next verse is unclear and translations abound. I suggest rendering it as:

^{תהלים קכב:ג} יְרוּשָׁלִַם הַבְּנוּיָה כְּעִיר שֶׁחֻבְּרָה לָּהּ יַחְדָּו.

^{Ps 122:3} Jerusalem, built up, indeed, a city bound all together.

Several medieval commentators suggest that it refers to the beauty of the city. “Built” when used of Jerusalem generally means “rebuilt” (Isa 44:26; Jer 31:4). Here, though, since it is describing pre-exilic Jerusalem, it means how well-constructed it was before it was destroyed. The psalm hopes that it will be “built up/rebuilt” in the future.

Bound all together may refer to the city’s architecture; it is built compactly, with buildings close together, or it is well-built, that is, well-designed with surrounding walls to protect it. Or it may mean that Jerusalem, the capital of the country, is the focal point around which all the tribes are bound together (see v. 4). The Septuagint’s “Jerusalem—being built as a city that is shared in common” seems to draw on the latter interpretation.^[5]

The “tribes of Yah” ascend to Jerusalem, to the Temple, from all parts of the country:

^{תהלים קכב:ד} שֶׁשָּׁם עָלוּ שְׁבָטִים שִׁבְטֵי יָהּ עֵדוּת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל לְהֹדוֹת לְשֵׁם יְ־הוָה.

^{Ps 122:4} Where the tribes ascended, the tribes of Yah; a decree to Israel to give thanks to the name of YHWH.

The tribes of Yah is a unique expression. It means the tribes belonging to God, that is, the tribes of Israel. The more usual expression is שֵׁבֶט נַחֲלָתוֹ, “the tribe of His possession” (Jer 10:16; 51:19; Isa 63:17; Ps 74:2), which is found in postexilic texts. The reference here is to the tribes at the time of the United Monarchy but the terminology is postexilic. Likewise, the use of the relative particle שֶׁ- in the word שֶׁשָּׁם (she-sham) instead of אֲשֶׁר is typical in Late Biblical (postexilic) Hebrew.

A decree to Israel. Israel was commanded to worship at the Temple and nowhere else. Ibn Ezra interprets this more specifically: “a decree to Israel” alludes to the Torah’s command that Israel appear in God’s presence at specific (festival) times (Exod 23:14–17; 34:23; Deut 16:16):

^{אבן עזרא, תהלים קכב:ד} וחק ומצוה לבא שלש פעמים.

^{Ibn Ezra, Ps 122:4} It was a law and a commandment to come [to the Temple] three times [per year].

To give thanks, לְהֹדוֹת, to God, or to God’s name, is to acknowledge or praise Him. It is a common phrase in the psalms and denotes worshiping Him at the Temple.

The speaker imagines that the court of justice resides in the Temple precinct or in Jerusalem:

^{תהלים קכב:ה} כִּי שָׁמָּה יָשְׁבוּ כִסְאוֹת לְמִשְׁפָּט כִּסְאוֹת לְבֵית דָּוִיד.

^{Ps 122:5} Where the thrones of judgment stayed, the thrones of the house of David.

Deuteronomy says that if a legal case is too difficult for the local judiciary, one is to go אֶל הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, “to the place that the Lord your God will have chosen” (the Temple), where the Levitical priests or the magistrate will render a judgment (17:8–9). However, in the ancient world, including Israel, one of the important roles of a king was to dispense justice, which he did while seated on a throne.

Solomon’s palace complex has אוּלָם הַכִּסֵּא אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁפָּט שָׁם אֻלָם הַמִּשְׁפָּט, “the throne portico, where he was to pronounce judgment—the Hall of Judgment” (1 Kings 7:7). David is also described as ruling over all Israel and executing righteous justice (2 Sam 8:15 = 1 Chr 18:14).^[6]

When David’s son Absalom wants to replace David as king, he tries to assume the role of justice-giver for himself by standing on the road to the city gate to intercept people coming to have their legal cases adjudicated (2 Sam 15:2–6). The psalm’s emphasis on the thrones of judgment, glossed as the thrones of the Davidic kings, points to the hope for the return of the Davidic monarchy.

Here ends the idealized picture of how the city once was, in its halcyon days, when Jerusalem was the locus of worship at the Temple and the seat of the Davidic monarchy. Both were lost when Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C.E. The hope of the exiles was that both would soon be restored. The Temple was indeed rebuilt but the Davidic monarchy was never re-established. In time this hope was transmuted into the hope for the future coming of the Messiah, the anointed one (=king) of the House of David.

Shaʾalu Shelom Yerushalaim

The rest of the psalm returns us to the speaker’s present with a wish for Jerusalem’s well-being and security. As before, both architectural structures and the people are included. And as before (v. 2), Jerusalem is addressed directly (in the second-person pronouns in the second part of the verse):

^{תהלים קכב:ו} שַׁאֲלוּ שְׁלוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם יִשְׁלָיוּ אֹהֲבָיִךְ.

^{Ps 122:6} Ask for the peace of Jerusalem; may those who love you be secure.

The sounds of the name of Jerusalem reverberate in this verse (and in v. 7) through the repetition of the consonants ש-ל: shaʾalu shelom yerushalaim yishlayu ʾohavayikh.

Ask for the peace of Jerusalem. A rhetorical turn to an unnamed (plural) audience. Many readers see here a prayer, but the term “pray” does not occur, and the words of the “prayer” (vv. 6b–7) are addressed not to God but rather to Jerusalem. This is a wish, or a blessing for Jerusalem, that the city and the people who love it will be secure. Similarly, Jeremiah urges the exiles to seek the welfare of the city (Babylon), in this case including praying for her:

^{ירמיה כט:ז} וְדִרְשׁוּ אֶת שְׁלוֹם הָעִיר אֲשֶׁר הִגְלֵיתִי אֶתְכֶם שָׁמָּה וְהִתְפַּלְלוּ בַעֲדָהּ אֶל יְ־הוָה כִּי בִשְׁלוֹמָהּ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם שָׁלוֹם.

^{Jer 29:7} And seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to YHWH in its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper.

Those who love you (אֹהֲבָיִךְ) in the Psalm are the people loyal to Jerusalem (see also Isa 66:10). They are, presumably, the ones who should “ask for the peace of Jerusalem” and are the speaker’s “kin and friends” (v. 8, below), the group with which he associates himself. This may be one faction within the Judean community, as opposed to שֹׂנְאֵי צִיּוֹן, “those who hate Zion” (Ps 129:5).

^{תהלים קכב:ז} יְהִי שָׁלוֹם בְּחֵילֵךְ שַׁלְוָה בְּאַרְמְנוֹתָיִךְ.

^{Ps 122:7} May there be peace in your ramparts; security in your citadels.

Ramparts and citadels are the fortifications, the walls and towers that encircle and protect the city. They are visual symbols of the city’s strength and glory in Psalm 48:

^{תהלים מח:יד} שִׁיתוּ לִבְּכֶם לְחֵילָה פַּסְּגוּ אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ לְמַעַן תְּסַפְּרוּ לְדוֹר אַחֲרוֹן.

^{Ps 48:14} Take note of its ramparts; go through its citadels, that you may recount it to a future age.

And they are the structures that are destroyed in Lamentations (2:5,7–8). The description forms a bridge between the idealized past and the hoped-for future. The Jerusalem of the speaker’s time should once again become like the Jerusalem of the past.

^{תהלים קכב:ח} לְמַעַן אַחַי וְרֵעָי אֲדַבְּרָה נָּא שָׁלוֹם בָּךְ.

^{Ps 122:8} For the sake of my kin and friends, let me speak for peace within you.

^{תהלים קכב:ט} לְמַעַן בֵּית יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ אֲבַקְשָׁה טוֹב לָךְ.

^{Ps 122:9} For the sake of the House of YHWH our God, let me seek good for you.

Both the community and the Temple are dependent on the city’s well-being. They will prosper only if the city, the symbol of the nation and its land, prospers. The hope is that Jerusalem will be restored to its former glory, to the way it was described at the beginning of the psalm.

In the final verse, בֵּית יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ, “the House of YHWH our God” forms an inclusio with בֵּית יְ־הוָה, “House of YHWH,” in verse 1 but is strengthened and personalized by the addition of “our God.”

An Emotional Visit to Ancient Jerusalem

What could be more fitting for Yom Yerushalayim, which commemorates the 1967 reunification of Jerusalem and the return of Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the Old City, than a virtual visit to the Jerusalem of First Temple times?

That is exactly what we have in Psalm 122. Through the imaginative telling of the psalm’s anonymous first-person speaker, he, and we along with him, are transported back to Jerusalem—Jerusalem as he envisions it in the time of Solomon, when the Temple was the religious center (v. 4) and the city was the political capital of the United Kingdom (v. 5). Verses 2–5 picture an idealized First-Temple Jerusalem and verses 6–9 return us to the speaker’s “present,” with the ardent hope for the peace and well-being of Jerusalem in his own time.

This hope is no less relevant in our own days.