Psalm 122:1

The KJV prints the psalm’s title as part of verse 1: “A Song of degrees of David.” Fifteen psalms carry this title, Psalms 120 to 134. The Hebrew phrase, Shir Hama’alot, means “Song of the Goings Up”, which is why modern translations call them the Songs of Ascents. Israel’s pilgrims sang them on the way up to Jerusalem for the three great feasts of the year, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. The law called every man of Israel to that journey: “Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose” (Deuteronomy 16:16).

Jerusalem stands on hills, so the road really did climb, and the climb became a picture of drawing near to God. The songs carry the whole range of the journey, from distress and prayers for safety to joy on reaching the holy city. Psalm 121 sings of the LORD who keeps the traveller on the way, and Psalm 122 follows it with the gladness of setting out and the joy of arrival. A few psalms later the pilgrims sing of the LORD round about his people as the mountains are round about Jerusalem (Psalm 125).

“Of David” names the king who made Jerusalem the capital of Israel, both of the nation and of its worship, and who longed for God’s dwelling place. The words can mean that David wrote the psalm, or that it was written in his spirit and manner. Either way, it carries the delight of the king who set Jerusalem at the centre of Israel’s life, and it set the tone for every generation of pilgrims after him.

“I was glad” is the psalm’s first word about the worshipper’s heart. The verb, sâmach, means to rejoice or be glad, to feel and show great joy. Elsewhere the same verb can describe wrong kinds of rejoicing, so what makes this gladness holy is what it rejoices in: the house of the LORD. The psalmist looks back to the moment the invitation came and to the joy it woke in him.

The call came from others: “when they said unto me.” Fellow pilgrims, neighbours setting out for the feast, said “Let us go,” and his gladness began with a shared invitation. The verb for go, yâlak, is the everyday word for walking, used literally or figuratively, and here it is the walk of pilgrims on the road. Isaiah hears the same invitation on the lips of the nations in the last days: “And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob” (Isaiah 2:2–3).

God wants his people to come to him in this way. “Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing” (Psalm 100:2). Gathering with other believers is a joy and a gift, and the New Testament speaks to the same gathering when it tells us to keep meeting: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Hebrews 10:25).

Verse 2 speaks to the city herself: “O Jerusalem.” The pilgrims address Jerusalem as if she could hear them, out of love and reverence for the city God chose as his dwelling place. “Our feet” is plural. They travelled together, bore the road together, and now they stand inside the city together.

The verb ʻâmad means to stand. The feet that walked the long road now stand within the walls. The KJV’s “shall stand” speaks of the arrival as certain, so sure that the singers can already see themselves inside. The way up was often long, tiring and open to danger, so the moment of standing within the gates brought relief and deep thankfulness, and the eager worship still to come.

The pilgrims’ joy in God’s house finds its fulfilment in Jesus. He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” and John explains, “But he spake of the temple of his body” (John 2:19–21). In him God dwells with us, and through him we come to the Father. Paul says that Christ is our peace, who has broken down the middle wall of partition, “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:14–18). Jesus told the woman of Samaria that the true worshippers worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24), and he promised, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).

The same chapter of Ephesians gives the gates of verse 2 their meaning for us. Believers are “fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19), built together into “an holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21–22), and each believer’s body is “the temple of the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Christ himself is the way in: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9).

The journey ends in a city too. “Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22). John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God, and heard, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:2–3). In that city there is no temple building, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it” (Revelation 21:22). The joy of standing within Jerusalem’s gates is a foretaste of standing in the presence of God with all his people for ever.

These two verses give us the words of people who were glad to be called to God’s house and glad to arrive there together. The gladness belongs to the LORD’s design. He chose a place to set his name, he called his people to come to him, and he made the journey one they shared. The call “Let us go” still passes from one believer to another, and the God who met Israel in Jerusalem meets his gathered people now in Christ. Every arrival in his presence looks ahead to the day when our feet will stand within the gates of the new Jerusalem, where God himself dwells with us.