Psalm 132:9

Psalm 132 is one of the Songs of Degrees, the collection of psalms (Psalms 120–134) that pilgrims sang as they went up to Jerusalem for the great feasts. It opens with David’s vow that he would give himself no rest until he had found a place for the LORD (Psalm 132:1–5), and it closes with the LORD’s own oath to David about his sons and about Zion (Psalm 132:11–18). The verses of this study stand between David’s vow and God’s oath. In them the whole people speak, remembering the search for the ark, declaring that they will go up to worship, and praying for God’s presence, his priests, his people and his king. Read as a whole, Psalm 132 gathers up the ark, the covenant with David and Zion as the place God chose.

The “it” of verse 6 is the ark of the covenant, the most sacred object in Israel, which stood for God’s throne and his presence among his people. The Philistines captured it in battle (1 Samuel 4:11), and after it was sent back it stayed in the house of Abinadab at Kirjath-jearim, where “the time was long; for it was twenty years” (1 Samuel 7:1–2). When David had made Jerusalem his capital, he put bringing the ark there among his first concerns, and he proposed to the people that they bring it back to themselves (1 Chronicles 13:3). The first attempt and the joyful second one are told in 2 Samuel 6, in 1 Chronicles 13 and in 1 Chronicles 15–16.

The verse opens with “Lo”, the Hebrew hinneh, which calls the hearer to attention. “We heard of it” uses shâmaʻ, to hear with attention and understanding. The people heard of the ark, took in what they heard, and acted on it. “We found it” uses mâtsâʼ, to find or attain, the word for reaching what you were looking for. Hearing and finding together tell the whole story, from the first news of where the ark lay to bringing it home. The voice is “we” throughout, so the memory belongs to the whole people, and every pilgrim who sang the psalm on the road to Jerusalem joined in it.

Behind the search lies God’s own wish to live among his people. When he first gave Israel the pattern of the tabernacle, he said, “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). David’s zeal for the ark was zeal for that presence.

Verse 7 is the people’s answer once the ark is found: “We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool.” The verb bôwʼ means to go or come, and here to enter. The resolve lies in the double “we will”, which is the language of pilgrims who have set their faces toward God’s house. Isaiah gives the same call to the nations: “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob” (Isaiah 2:3).

The word for tabernacles, mishkân, means a dwelling place or tabernacle, and it can also mean a tent or hut. It is the word for the wilderness tabernacle, and the psalm uses it of the sanctuary in Zion, first the tent where David placed the ark and later the temple. The Hebrew is plural, and that may point to the courts and chambers of the one sanctuary, or it may be a plural of majesty that honours the single dwelling of God.

“His footstool” pictures God as a King seated on a throne, with his feet resting on the place where his people come before him. Here it most likely means the ark itself, or the mercy seat on top of it, which was the earthly throne of God’s unseen presence. It may also mean the holy of holies where the ark stood. The LORD speaks of his throne and footstool on the grandest scale in Isaiah: “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (Isaiah 66:1). The God whose footstool is the whole earth stooped to meet Israel at the ark.

To worship, shâchâh, is to bow down, to fall prostrate, as people did in homage before a king or before God. So the verse pictures worshippers going into the King’s house and bowing low before his throne. Jesus speaks of the hour when true worshippers worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24), and the humble bowing of this verse is still the posture of that worship.

Verse 8 turns from the people’s resolve to prayer. “Arise”, qûwm, is the everyday word for rising or getting up, and it was used when God was called on to act. When the ark set out in the wilderness, Moses said, “Rise up, LORD, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee” (Numbers 10:35). That cry sent the LORD out ahead of his people on the march. Here the people ask him to rise and come “into thy rest”, so the ark’s long journeys come to an end in the place prepared for it.

The word for rest, mᵉnûwchâh, means rest, quiet and ease, and also a resting place or abode. It answers David’s vow in the verses before, where he would find “a place for the LORD”. The prayer is addressed to the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of Israel’s God.

“Thou, and the ark of thy strength” asks for both together, God himself and the ark that stood for his presence. The word for the ark, ʼârôwn, means a chest or box. This chest was overlaid with gold, held the tablets of the law, Aaron’s rod and a pot of manna, and was the place where God promised to meet his people: “there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat” (Exodus 25:22). Strength, ʻôz, means strength or might.

Solomon prayed in nearly the same words when the ark was brought into the temple he had built: “Now therefore arise, O LORD God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength” (2 Chronicles 6:41). The verse may have been sung when the ark was carried in procession, or at the temple’s dedication. Either way, it prays for what God had promised David, a house for God’s name and a throne for David’s line (2 Samuel 7:16).

With the LORD in his place, the prayer turns to those who serve him and those who worship him. The priests, kôhên, were the sons of Aaron who served in the tabernacle and later the temple, offering sacrifices, praying for the people and teaching the law. The law already required them to “be holy unto their God” (Leviticus 21:6), and it gave them holy garments to wear (Exodus 28). Verse 9 asks that righteousness itself be their clothing, covering them as fully as their robes did.

Righteousness, tsedeq, means what is right, and it covers right conduct, just judgment, true speech and honest dealing. A priest clothed with it would serve God rightly and deal with the people justly. The prophets pressed the same call on Israel’s leaders, “Learn to do well; seek judgment” (Isaiah 1:17).

The saints are God’s devoted people, in Hebrew chasidim, the faithful who hold to his covenant. To shout for joy, rânan, is to give a ringing cry, usually of gladness. It is a sound people are often called on to make, and here the psalm prays for it with the words “let thy saints shout for joy”. Such joy belonged to the great feasts the pilgrims went up to keep (Deuteronomy 16), and when Solomon dedicated the temple the people went home glad of heart (1 Kings 8).

The two halves of the verse belong together. Where those who minister before God are righteous, his people rejoice in his presence. Nehemiah told a weeping people that “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4), and he joins the two words of this verse when he says that the kingdom of God is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). Peter calls all believers “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), so the prayer for priests clothed with righteousness now reaches every one of God’s people.

Verse 10 brings the prayer to the king: “For thy servant David’s sake turn not away the face of thine anointed.” The appeal rests on David. Servant, ʻebed, means a servant or bondman, and “thy servant David” names him as the LORD’s loyal servant, the man to whom God made his promise. That promise is set out in 2 Samuel 7: “thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever” (2 Samuel 7:16). Another psalm sings of it, “I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant” (Psalm 89:3–4), and Isaiah calls it “the sure mercies of David” (Isaiah 55:3).

So the psalm asks God to act for the sake of his own word to David, whatever the worth of the king who now reigns. That is a confident way to pray, because it rests on God’s faithfulness to what he has said.

The face, pânîym, is a word plural in form and always used as a singular, and from the face itself it reaches to a person’s front and presence. To turn away the face is to refuse someone, to reject his request or withdraw your favour. The prayer asks God to receive the king, listen to him and grant his petition. The priestly blessing asks for the very opposite of turning away: “The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace” (Numbers 6:26).

All that these verses long for comes to its fullness in Jesus Christ. The people searched for the ark because it stood for God’s presence, and in Jesus God himself came to be with us. He is “Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matthew 1:23). “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

David’s zeal for God’s dwelling is matched by the zeal of David’s Son, of whom his disciples remembered, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (John 2:17). Jesus spoke of his own body as the temple that would be raised in three days (John 2:19–21). He is the greater and more perfect tabernacle, made without hands (Hebrews 9:11–12), and through him we have access by one Spirit to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). The pilgrims bowed at God’s footstool, and we are invited to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

The prayer for God to come into his rest has an answer in his people too. God now dwells by his Spirit in those who belong to Christ, so that each believer’s body is a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19) and the church together is God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16), built on Christ as the cornerstone into “an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:20–22). Jesus promised that the Father and he would come to the one who loves him and make their abode with him (John 14:23). And the rest of this psalm becomes the rest Jesus offers: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30).

The prayer for priests clothed with righteousness is answered in our great High Priest. He is the sinless “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and God made him to be sin for us, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Clothed in his righteousness, God’s saints have peace with God and rejoice in hope of his glory (Romans 5:1–2).

The prayer for the anointed king is answered in Jesus, the son of David (Matthew 1:1), made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Romans 1:3). God anointed him “with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts 10:38), upheld him through suffering and death, and raised him and gave him the name above every name (Philippians 2:9–11). Of his kingdom “there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). At the last, the longing of this psalm is fulfilled completely: “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3), and the holy city has no temple, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it” (Revelation 21:22).

These verses show us a God who wants to be near his people. The ark lay forgotten for years in the fields of the wood, and still God brought it home and made Zion his resting place. The people who found it answered with worship, bowing low at his footstool, because the God who comes near is still the King.

They also show what makes a people glad. Where God is present and those who serve him are clothed with righteousness, his saints shout for joy. And they show what we may lean on when we pray. The psalm rests its plea on God’s word to David, and in Christ every one of God’s promises stands sure. The Father has not refused his Anointed, and for the sake of Christ he turns his face toward all who come to him through his Son.