NOTES for Psa 120

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!" is a call found more than once in various psalms. For the sake of brothers and neighbors, for the sake of Yahweh's house, the hymnographer adds. What does he have in mind? Speaking of a concrete historical situation, one could say that the peace and well-being of Jerusalem and Judea also meant the peace and well-being of those living there.

Of course, well-being is a relative concept, but in any case, in time of war there can be no talk of any well-being at all for the inhabitants of a country at war.

And yet the question is not only outward well-being. The psalm in which the call to pray for Jerusalem's peace sounds is a pilgrimage hymn: pilgrims sang it as they first ascended to Jerusalem, which is a kilometer above sea level, and then up the steps of the Temple to the top of Mount Zion, to the temple court where the altar stood and sacrifice was offered.

In the time of the Second Temple, when Psalm 122 was apparently written, the Jerusalem Temple was the only place where sacrifice could be offered to the One, and the very possibility of communion with God in all its fullness depended on the well-being of Jerusalem, that holy city. This truth was especially well known to the Jews of the post-exilic era, who throughout the whole time of exile had remained without the Temple and without sacrifices.

There is nothing surprising here: sacrifice had always been the main form of communion with God in Yahwism, a shared meal of God with man. Without sacrifice, communion with God cannot be called full. In this context, wishing peace to Jerusalem also means wishing well-being to the altars of God.

However, there is yet another aspect, connected with the history of the covenant, with the history of those relationships that bind the people of God to their God. The question is the covenant of God with David, to whom God promised that his descendants would occupy the Jerusalem throne for as long as it existed.

That is why, already in the pre-exilic prophetic tradition, the conviction took hold that the Messiah, about whom Isaiah of Jerusalem was the first of the prophets to speak, would be a King from the line of David and would rule, like David, in Jerusalem. Here the wish for Jerusalem's peace becomes a request to God that He not forget His covenant with David and that He remember His people awaiting the promised Messiah.

For Jewish pilgrims going to Jerusalem, all three aspects connected with Jerusalem's sacred status were relevant. They remain relevant for us today as well: the covenant with God is one, and the promises given by God are given for all times.

How many times Scripture connects God's blessing with how outsiders treat the people whom He chose in order to lead everyone out of the captivity of paganism. From the blessing of Abraham to the letters of Paul, the Bible teaches us to treat with gratitude and reverence God's freedom to choose the path of salvation for all humanity. In our closed life we are most often inclined to see in those who did not accept Christ, at best, blind people, and at worst, killers. But if the people who waited for the Messiah for millennia did not recognize Him, what could have been done by one who worshiped idols, offered human sacrifices, and considered himself capable of knowing good and evil? Our attitude toward all those who, being sons of Abraham, brought us the Good News of the One can be only this: we must bless them, we are obliged to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Because by rejecting them, we also reject those on whom the Church was founded; we reject Christ.

Although the eyes are lifted toward the mountains, the mountains are only a visible image of the invisible world, somewhat like an icon. Clearly, salvation comes neither from the mountains nor even from beyond them, but from the One who created both the mountains and everything else. It is He, the Creator of the world, who is the one reliable Guardian of everything on earth.

In the seventh verse, which says that the Lord “will preserve you and preserve your soul,” we may conventionally see the kind of semantic rhyme so characteristic of biblical poetry, where a thought is expressed twice in different ways. That is true, but such an explanation is hardly exhaustive. Yes, body and soul are united, and we should not separate them excessively after the example of non-biblical mystics. Yet a moment will come when the soul is separated from the body. Then the One who guarded us from every evil on earth will also preserve our souls for Eternity.