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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 122:1 - 122:1
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The preterite שָׂמַחְתִי may signify: I rejoice (1Sa 2:1), just as much as: I rejoiced. Here in comparison with Psa 122:2 it is a retrospect; for הָיָה with the participle has for the most part a retrospective signification, Gen 39:22; Deu 9:22, Deu 9:24; Jdg 1:7; Job 1:14. True, עֹֽמְדֹות הָיוּ might also signify: they have been standing and still stand (as in Psa 10:14; Isa 59:2; Isa 30:20); but then why was it not more briefly expressed by עָֽמְדוּ (Psa 26:12)? The lxx correctly renders: εὐφράνθην and ἑστῶτες ἦσαν. The poet, now again on the journey homewards, or having returned home, calls to mind the joy with which the cry for setting out, “Let us go up to the house of Jahve!” filled him. When he and the other visitors to the feast had reached the goal of their pilgrimage, their feet came to a stand-still, as if spell-bound by the overpowering, glorious sight.
(Note: So also Veith in his, in many points, beautiful Lectures on twelve gradual Psalms (Vienna 1863), S. 72, “They arrested their steps, in order to give time to the amazement with which the sight of the Temple, the citadel of the king, and the magnificent city filled them.”)
Reviving this memory, he exclaims: Jerusalem, O thou who art built up again - true, בָּנָה in itself only signifies “to build,” but here, where, if there is nothing to the contrary, a closed sense is to be assumed for the line of the verse, and in the midst of songs which reflect the joy and sorrow of the post-exilic restoration period, it obtains the same meaning as in Psa 102:17; Psa 147:2, and frequently (Gesenius: O Hierosolyma restituta). The parallel member, Psa 122:3, does not indeed require this sense, but is at least favourable to it. Luther's earlier rendering, “as a city which is compacted together,” was happier than his later rendering, “a city where they shall come together,” which requires a Niph. or Hithpa. instead of the passive. חֻבַּר signifies, as in Exo 28:7, to be joined together, to be united into a whole; and יַחְדָּו strengthens the idea of that which is harmoniously, perfectly, and snugly closed up (cf. Psa 133:1). The Kaph of כְּעִיר is the so-called Kaph veritatis: Jerusalem has risen again out of its ruined and razed condition, the breaches and gaps are done away with (Isa 58:12), it stands there as a closely compacted city, in which house joins on to house. Thus has the poet seen it, and the recollection fills him with rapture.
(Note: In the synagogue and church it is become customary to interpret Psa 122:3 of the parallelism of the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem.)