Alright, with our prayer completed, we're in the presence of God, let's tackle lesson 15. We're looking at Psalms 120 to 136. There's a lot of Psalms, right? But if you look at your Bibles here, hopefully you have them in front of you.
The vast majority of this section here, they're all short, short Psalms, except for 135 and 136. Blind and large, they're pretty straightforward and really, really fun. And this is the second cycle of the Psalms, the little second collection, if you want to call them that, of Book 5. So the past couple of lessons, we have been looking at the first cycle, and there was so much content, I was able to split it up here.
But now this is the second cycle, and there's just a lot of really great themes of joy and talking about Zion and Jerusalem, and the peace of Jerusalem, and praising God. It's a really, really great section here. There's a lot, but there's really a really awesome collection of Psalms with very strong themes here. So I actually decided to give you kind of a longer quote from your Catholic introduction to the Old Testament from Bercion and Petrie, probably one of the longest quotes I've ever reproduced here for the notes.
But I think it's really, really good because by now you know that I like showing the links in the chain. I like showing the golden thread that goes through the scriptures. It always really annoys me when people say, oh, there's no rhyme or reason to this book or this epistle or this gospel or these chapters, whatever. I'm like, okay, challenge accepted, but let's do this.
And so I really like this particular quotation here because it's going to tell us very well what we're going to be looking at in terms of the themes from Psalms 40. So I'm going to talk about the terms of the themes from Psalm 120 to 134 specifically, they're called the Psalms of a cent. So that any further ado, let me just read this here for you. And I want to unpack it a little bit before we dive into Psalm 120.
All right, so here it goes. It says following Psalm 119, remember Psalm 119 was the longest chapter of the whole Bible, longest Psalm in the Psalter. It's basically a beautiful love poem on God's law and God's word. So following that Psalm 119, the sacred editors added 15 Psalms of a cent.
It's what they're called or they're also called gradual Psalms or Psalms of the steps, which I'll explain what that means in a second. So that is the Arpilgrimage songs sung by worshippers journeying up to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. So these songs are 120 to 134. There is a progression, albeit uneven in the Psalms of a cent from alienation to intimacy with God and the Temple.
So in other words, just to kind of comment on this and I'm reading it, that is the journey from lament to praise. That we've been seeing so many times over the past number of lessons here that journey from lament to praise. It's in the entire Psalter from book one to book five. It's within certain books, certain Psalms themselves have that trajectory from lament to praise.
And this collection certainly has that trajectory from lament to praise. Or as the book here says alienation from intimacy. So from alienation to intimacy with God in the Temple. Alright, it goes on.
The Psalms begins far from the Temple exiled in Mckesch in Qadar. That's in Psalm 120. But then he lifts up his eyes to the hills of Judah where the Temple lies in 121. In Psalm 122 he arrives at the Holy City and it gives the quote, Our feet, Heaven standing within your gates of Jerusalem.
And then the following Psalms, that would be approximately 123 to 131, meditates on the city of Zion and the sometimes turbulent relationship between God and Israel that Zion represents. Let me just make a comment on that point. Yes, it certainly does reflect and meditate on that relationship between God and Israel. But what I actually think is going on even more so is it's meditating on the journey itself from exile to God.
Alright, because it's looking back at all the troubles that the exile or the pilgrim had to go through and thanking God for deliverance from all different kinds of things. I'll share that with you as I go along. So 123 to 131 is a bunch of reflections and meditations on the journey I would say. Alright, the quote goes on.
And 132 marks a decisive turning point. It's a psalm about the Davidic Covenant and God's combined choice of David as king and Zion as dwelling place. It is followed only by Psalms of praise. The Psalmist now seems to enter the Temple courts where he beholds the anointing of the High Priest in 133.
Then he remains in the Temple under the night and joins peaceful communion with the Lord and the intimacy of quiet darkness. Singing praises to the Lord together with the priests who stand on duty to the night watches in 134. Thus from Psalm 120 to 134, there is a progression from distance to intimacy with God's presence in the Temple. End quote.
Now I know that's a little bit long, but I tried to make some comments on that as I went through it here. But it does a really good job showing us the trajectory from lament to praise. As I said during this return from exile is remember all of the various themes of each book, especially going back to book three and four, book three is about the destruction of the Davidic Covenant in Temple and city and kingdom. Book four is a reflection while in exile.
It's very philosophical going back to brass tacks. In the now book five has got a lot of praise and happiness and joy and then so we moved back to the Temple. So the exiles have come back at least partially. The Temple is rebuilt partially.
The Kingdom has the hopes that are the glimmer of hope that it will be restored, but it hasn't yet. So this entire collection, the Psalms of ascend or gradual Psalms can be looked at as exile is coming back to Judah. Starting with Ezra and Nehemiah, you go back and read those books. The King Cyrus of the King of Persia allows the Jews to return and many don't, but many do.
And you got this journey from exile in Babylon going through the wilderness and all the trials and difficulties that it occurred in trying to get back to Jerusalem. Then the various peoples of the land that are fighting against Judah, they don't want them to rebuild the Temple, so there's persecution, very violent at times. And so all of that makes total sense if you understand the historical background of what these Psalms of ascend is talking about. Now I should say it's widely called Psalms of ascent because when you go up to Jerusalem you are sending the Holy Mountain, right?
You're actually going upwards towards the Temple Mountain, so you're ascending in that sense. So think of it in terms of especially the overarching theme of the Psalter, exile is coming back to Judah, going back to Jerusalem and singing to God the various joys and struggles, victories and defeats along the way. But then afterwards another way to look at this collection is that all pilgrims afterwards, right, even going into the time of Christ, when pilgrims would come in from wherever they're living throughout the Holy Land, or even exiles who might live outside the Holy Land but they're coming into town, and we just think of the beginning of Acts, the story of Pentecost. There were many, many Jewish people or even descendants of Israelites who were coming into Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, first Passover, then Pentecost that they're sticking around, and they're speaking all different kinds of languages, right?
So they don't necessarily live in the Holy Land but they're coming into the Holy Land for their pilgrimage. So all the pilgrims, excuse me, all the pilgrims have the sense of journeying towards Jerusalem and singing these Psalms on their way to the city and also in the city, right, because God has protected them from various difficulties and threats along the way. All right, so it's also called the Psalms of the steps because I give a little footnote down there for you number one. Basically, many commentators will point this out that in the Jewish tradition, it's very clear that the pilgrims would sing each Psalm on a literal step going up to the Temple Mount.
So there are 15 Psalms for 15 physical literal steps. So you have this tradition and this ritual once you get to the Temple and before you go up into the Temple area, there's a whole staircase there, 15 steps, and you reach each of these Psalms along the way. So that's actually kind of cool because you have short Psalms. You don't want to be sitting on one of the steps like reading Psalm 119, for example, I mean, that would take absolutely forever and it would clog up the traffic.
Wouldn't you? Everyone's waiting in line to go up the steps and get all these people trying to get through Psalm 119, that would take forever. So Psalms 120 to 134, by and large, are pretty darn short because you're going to pray them, whatever they are, 678 verses, something like that, give or take, and then you're going to the next step and then pray that Psalm. But then you're going to ascend those steps to the Temple Mount and you're going to go in and worship God.
And that's really, really awesome. So you have all this collection is just so beautiful, as straightforward as they are, they're just really, really beautiful when you think of it in terms of number one, to recap this for you. The exile is coming back to Judah, number two, various pilgrims afterwards, right, because they come back to June 6th century. So we got approximately 500 years of pilgrims coming back to the city of Jerusalem, singing these songs and these songs for joy, enjoy and praise of God.
Then you have the aspect of the 15 steps, one song for each step. So that makes this collection super fun and enjoyable. But what makes it even more enjoyable for our purposes here, as Christians in the New Covenant, is that it's filled with typology here, right? It's called the Psalms of ascents.
Well, we're not ascending the literal mountain of Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and we're not necessarily walking up literal 15 steps, but we are on pilgrimage. We're on this earthly pilgrimage towards heaven. We're trying to ascend towards heaven. So here's a little quote from one of the older commentaries I recommend for students, it's Haydock, it's his name.
It's a commentary on the old Dwey Reims Bible. We got some real gems in that from time to time. He says, the Holy Fathers in a mystical sense understood these steps or these ascensions, graduals, of the degrees by which Christians spiritually ascend to virtue and perfection, into the true temple of God in the heavenly Jerusalem. And then that makes it super awesome.
So over and over again, I'm going to share with you as we go through these pretty short Psalms. And we have a lot to do here, so I got to make sure I stay on track. But as we go through these Psalms, I want to try to read all of them. Imagine you as a Christian pilgrim trying to go to the heavenly Jerusalem, and you're going to ascend the mountain step by step in virtue and in holiness before you can dwell with God.
And you're going to be a peace of the heavenly, and you're going to be a peace of the heavenly, and you're going to be a peace of the heavenly, and you're going to be a peace of the heavenly, and you're going to be a peace of the heavenly. So that's really, really awesome. All these Psalms are a type of heavenly pilgrimage. Now, also one more cool thing before I dive into 120 is that I remember last lesson I was sharing with you how the Hallelujah Psalms 113 to 118, Jesus actually prayed those at the Passover, fulfilling all the typology and prophecy of those Psalms in himself in the Paschal Mysteries.
So, I'm going to read these Psalms over and over again throughout his entire life. As a Jewish man, he would have gone to Jerusalem from a young age three times a year for the Feast of Passover, then Pentecost, in the spring, then tabernacles in the fall. And as Jewish tradition developed, closer and closer to the time of Christ, leading up to the time of Christ, Jesus would have prayed these all the time. So it's always really cool, and I'm not going to point out everything.
You might notice a lot of things yourself as you pray over these Psalms. Imagine Jesus praying these going up to Jerusalem in on the triumphal entry, right, Palm Sunday, which makes that's really, really cool. I see goes up to the temple. He would have been praying these as a pilgrim.
That's really awesome. And how all of them have the deeper meaning of our Christian souls as sent to heaven. So I want to spend a considerable amount of time. I guess we're almost 15 minutes now.
Give or take just talking about that because it is just really cool. And I geek out about it a little bit. I hope you do too. Alright, so without any further ado, let's look at Psalm 120 now.
It's a lament song. So we're beginning our trajectory in this little collection from lament to praise when we get to 134. It's going to be heavily full of praise. So keep that in mind as we go along.
And let's just read it now. Psalm 120 verse 1 is not very long here, only seven verses. And here's how it begins verse 1. So that's a good example in my mind of what this almost is praying about.
And so there's the man of deceitful tongue. And we talked about that in a number of different Psalms prior to this lesson. That's a refrain here of the man who is deceitful and speaks a lies and call me. And on all these different sins, that's a whole theme in all the wisdom literature and even going to the epistle of James.
Our tongue is a small member of our body, small body part, but it causes so much damage. And so the wisdom literature is always speaking about how we really need to just zip it and curb our tongue and speak good things about our brothers and our neighbors. So in any case, what's the punishment going to be for this deceitful man with a deceitful tongue? Well, he's going to be punished with these sharp arrows.
It's actually kind of interesting. I'm not exactly sure if the sharp arrows are referring to that a deceitful man because that a deceitful tongue is like a sharp arrow that just pierces people or that he's going to make a lot of sense, of course, or that he's going to suffer as his punishment sharp arrows from God. Both, I think, make a lot of sense there. But he's bemoaning his exile.
He's like, I'm in Myshek and I'm in Qatar. Those are just different territories abroad. You can consult other commentaries and they're going to give you examples of where they might actually be. This is where you want to have a good atlas.
And you can check out the details of this in a little bit more specifics. So, it's been in the case of the point is he is living a strange, from the land and he desires to come home. And he says in verse 6, again, too long I've had my only place among those who hate peace. I'm for peace when I speak there for war.
I've always really liked that particular verse because we really do need to work hard for peace. There are too many people out there and I'm going to avoid all modern political applications right here, but there are just too many people who want war and want war. And we really do need to pray for peace. War is horrible.
And I'm the pacifist. I'll tell you that right now. Sometimes you have legitimate, just war. You need to defend your country.
You need to defend your family. That's all fine. Great. I'm ready to defend my family if I have to and defend my country if I have to.
But by and large, we need to really, really seek for peace. And as this verse says here and verse says, I just love that. When I speak there for war and those people who are for war are the ones with a deceitful tongue. And that's I think very applicable in so many different instances in modern Western geopolitical conversations.
All right. Well, in any case, this is all typological. Right? Again, I want to try to make as many typological applications as I can here because it makes it personal for us.
Right? It makes it relevant. So we are in exile. Right?
We're exiled from the promise land of heaven. And we are on this pilgrimage of life and this valley of tears, this wilderness of life that it is. And so Prosper of Aquitaine, I pulled this quote from one of your commentaries, he says, this is the cry, this Psalm here, Psalm 120 is the cry of the whole church and of all the saints who live for the good things of their eternal homeland in the midst of their long exile. Because these men of the spirit live side by side with worldly men and those who seek only the goods of this earth are annoyed by those who strive after heavenly things.
And oh my gosh, that is so true. You don't really need to pay attention too much to the modern world. The people who seek for pleasure or wealth or fortune fame, whatever it might be, they very much are annoyed by anybody who is pursuing heavenly blessings and are heavenly homeland. The worldly men hate godly men and that is very much a safe generalization.
Worthy men and people of the world hate people of God and children of God. And this is what Prosper of Aquitaine is saying. We are on our journey towards our eternal heavenly homeland and it's a long exile. It feels like that so much.
And we do need, while we're living side by side of worldly men, we are persecuted by those who live deceitful time. Alright, so we're off on a good start here with Psalm 120. We're in exile, spiritually speaking, typologically speaking, and certainly so is this man in exile or this pilgrim. In 121 it's a trust psalm.
And while in exile the psalm is just praying that God blesses his pilgrimage towards Jerusalem and brings him safely home to Jerusalem. And you're going to see here, there's a lot of clear references to a pilgrimage very clearly in this Psalm. So we're at 121 verse 1, I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my help come? Now, what is he lifting up his eyes to the hills?
Probably as the previous quote I shared with you, it's Jerusalem, the hills of Jerusalem where he's walking towards and journeying towards. So where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord whom they'd heaven and earth. It's a very beautiful line right there.
We get that line in many other verses and scripture really helps us in the nice and constant opal creed, right? The God who made heaven and earth like that's really beautiful. Verse 3, he will not let your foot be moved. Now, I want you to see the various references here to a pilgrimage, right?
He'll not let your foot be moved. In other words, you're not going to like break your ankle or twist your ankle or something like that. You'll have sure steady steps. He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade. All right.
So when you're traveling the wilderness, it's like really hot. Isn't it? It's really hot and you're traveling through the desert and you're looking for shade. Well, the Lord is your shade.
He'll protect you. Verse 6, the sun shall not strike you by day in the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He'll keep your life, right?
So when you're traveling, hopefully bandits don't get you or outlaws or anything like that or even wild animals. Then finally, verse 8, the Lord will keep you're going out and you're coming in from this time forth forevermore. So you have all these very clear references, right? I'm with them.
The hill is because I'm traveling towards there. He's not going to let your foot be moved. The Lord is your keeper, your shade. The sun won't hurt you.
The moon won't hurt you. Evil won't hurt you and all this kind of stuff. And how is this typologically applicable to us? Well, very clearly because God is protecting us in our earthly pilgrimage.
We also endure all kinds of difficulties. Physical and moral, attacks from enemies, just as a long journey where things can go well or things can go poorly. God is always protecting us on our journey towards the heaven of Jerusalem. So on that point, another quote to share with you is from Saint John Yani.
He says, Our God never lets us out of sight. He is like a mother who watches closely over her child as he takes his first step. Really quickly here. When we get to Psalm 131, I want to come back to the image of God as a mother.
God is not mother. He's revealed himself as father. But nevertheless, all the perfection of motherhood, God has himself too in an illogical kind of way. But in any case, this is beautiful, right?
He's like a mother who watches closely over her child as he takes his first steps. What consolation the Christian feels to know that God is always watching over him. That he witnesses his trials and his struggles to know that God is on his side. That's a really great quote right there too.
So yeah, God is on our side as we are setting our sight, lifting up our eyes through the hills metaphorically to heaven, right? And it's a very difficult journey, but God is protecting us. He's our shade. He will keep our foot unmoved, protect us from evil.
That's very reassuring if you ask me. All right. Well, in Psalm 122, it's called the Zion Psalm because now the Psalmist has arrived in Jerusalem. Hey, this is Doc Nick.
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So thank you so much. God bless you and keep studying your Bible.