Episode Details

Psalm 122: The Joy of Arrival

"I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." After the anguish of Psalm 120 and the anxious upward gaze of Psalm 121, the pilgrim has arrived. His feet are standing within the gates of Jerusalem, and the gladness of it nearly overwhelms him. The city is "compact together" — a phrase that means not merely architectural density but solidarity, a place where things hold. This is where the tribes go up, where the thrones of judgment are set, where the scattered people of God become, for a moment, one people in one place. And then comes the great imperative that has echoed through three thousand years of prayer: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." The Hebrew makes a pun — pray for the shalom of Yerushalayim — as if peace and this city were made for each other, two halves of the same word. The psalmist prays not for himself but for his brethren, his companions, the house of the Lord. Having arrived, his first instinct is not to rest but to bless. That is what arrival does to a pilgrim: it turns him into an intercessor.

00:00 I Was Glad
00:12 Our Feet Within Thy Gates
00:22 The Tribes Go Up
00:32 Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem
00:45 Peace Within Thy Walls
01:00 I Will Seek Thy Good