The Psalms of Ascent

Each of the fifteen psalms (120-134) carries the superscription "Shir HaMaalot" (שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת, Song of Ascents / Song of Going Up; maalot = steps, ascents, the going-up). Three of the fifteen have additions: Psalm 121 is "Shir LaMaalot" (A Song For the Ascents), and Psalms 122, 124, 131, 133 are attributed to David, and 127 to Solomon.

The traditional interpretation: these were the psalms sung by pilgrims going up (the verb alah, עָלָה, to go up) to Jerusalem for the three annual pilgrimage festivals, Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Weeks/Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles). Deuteronomy 16:16: "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths."

Jerusalem sits in the Judean hill country; to go to Jerusalem is literally to go up. The Mishnah (Middot 2:5) preserves the tradition that the fifteen steps of the temple Court of Women, leading up to the Court of Israel (the men's court), corresponded to the fifteen Psalms of Ascent, the Levites would stand on those steps and sing these psalms. The psalms are thus both the pilgrim's journey to the temple and the liturgy of the temple itself.

Psalm 120 opens in distress: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue... Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace" (120:1-2, 5-6). The psalmist is in the far place, Meshech (near the Black Sea) and Kedar (the desert east of Palestine) are stand-ins for everywhere that is not Zion. The collection begins with the cry of the person far from home.

Psalm 121, the guardian psalm: "My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber... The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life" (121:2-3, 7). The one going up is kept by the one who made the hills, the hills are not the help; the Maker of the hills is the help.

Psalm 122, arrival: "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD!' Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!" (122:1-2). The pilgrim arrives. The psalm becomes a prayer for Jerusalem: "Peace be within your walls and security within your towers! For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, 'Peace be within you!'" (122:7-8).

Psalm 133, the blessing of unity: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the LORD has commanded the blessing, life forevermore" (133:1-3). The blessing of life-forevermore is commanded at Zion, not only for the individual but for the gathered community.

Psalm 134, the closing benediction: "Behold, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the house of the LORD! Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the LORD! May the LORD bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!" (134:1-3). The collection closes with the night-watch servants of YHWH blessing him, and receiving the blessing back from Zion. The cry from Meshech has become the blessing from YHWH's house.

Psalm 121, "I lift up my eyes to the hills": the great comfort psalm of the ascent. Six times in eight verses YHWH "keeps" (shamar, שָׁמַר, to keep, to guard, to watch over) the pilgrim: he keeps your going out and your coming in, from this time forth and forevermore (121:8). The psalm's second half is a priestly blessing pronounced over the departing pilgrim.

Psalm 123, the look of the servant toward the master: "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us" (123:2). A psalm of waiting and watching, the upward gaze of the one who has no recourse but YHWH.

Psalm 126, the return from captivity: "When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy... Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negev! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!" (126:1-2, 4-5). The psalm moves between the remembered restoration (past) and the still-awaited full restoration (present prayer), the eschatological hope of those who sow in tears.

Psalm 127, "Unless the LORD builds the house": "Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain... He gives sleep to his beloved. Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward" (127:1-3). The gift of sleep (the Lord keeps his beloved without the anxious wakefulness of self-reliance) and the gift of children are the counterweight to vain striving.

Psalm 130, De Profundis, "Out of the depths": "Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared" (130:1-4). One of the seven Penitential Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143). The depths (mamakim, the deep places) of guilt and despair, but forgiveness is with YHWH, and that forgiveness produces fear (reverence) rather than contempt.

Psalm 131, the weaned child: "O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high... But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me" (131:1-2). A psalm of three verses, the quieted soul at rest with YHWH. The weaned child does not clamor for what it cannot have; it rests in the presence of the mother. Israel is to wait for YHWH like this.

Jesus himself sang these psalms. Luke 2:41-42: "Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom." The "going up" of the holy family to Jerusalem at the annual feasts was the context in which Jesus would have sung the Psalms of Ascent.

The Passover Hallel (Psalms 113-118) was sung at the Passover meal, but the Psalms of Ascent were the songs of the journey. The Last Supper in Jerusalem (Luke 22:14-23) closes with a hymn (Matthew 26:30, "when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives"), possibly from the Hallel, possibly from the Ascent psalms.

Jesus's final entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:28: "he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem") is a literal ascent, and the crowd's cry in 19:38 echoes Psalm 118:26: "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" The one who sang "Unless the LORD builds the house" is himself the cornerstone; the one who sang "I lift up my eyes to the hills" is himself the help.

The Sanctum holds the Psalms of Ascent as the pilgrimage arc that shapes every believer's journey: the cry from the far place (Psalm 120) to the guardian on the road (121) to the arrival at Zion (122) to the weaned child at rest (131) to the final blessing from YHWH's house (134). The collection is a liturgical journey through the whole of the spiritual life, from exile to homecoming, from distress to blessing, from sowing in tears to reaping with joy.