Songs of Ascent;- Psalm 124

Cards on the table. The Psalms are not really my thing. Even in poetry, I prefer narrative to lyric. So while I’m looking at this group of Psalms, I won’t rely entirely on my own conclusions. I’ll separate out my own observations (in this first post) from what I find in commentaries and add in the later posts..

Psalm 124

“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side-
Let Israel now say-
If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us…” (vv1-2)

Anyone who has experienced church services of the more formal, “liturgical”, type should be able to see what’s happening here.
The first voice sings or chants the opening line.
Then the same voice or a secondary voice instructs the congregation to join in, and that’s what happens.
The entire congregation takes over, probably still following a leading voice, starting the psalm again from the beginning.

The same arrangement is found at the beginning of Psalm 129.

There is a more complicated sequence at the start of Psalm 118 (not part of this series), where three groups in turn are instructed to repeat the same line. First “Israel”, meaning the lay congregation; then “the house of Aaron”, meaning the priests and Levites; then “those who fear the Lord”, which I take to mean both groups in unison. The result is that the sequence builds towards a climax.

This psalm is divided between images of the threatening enemies.

As something which threatened the nation in the recent past, they are floodwaters, an image presumably inspired by the tradition of Noah’s flood (vv2-5)
They “rose up against us”; “would have swallowed us”;
“Then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us, then over us would have gone the raging waters.”

As something from which the Lord has saved the nation, they are a pack of animals (v6). “He has not given us a prey to their teeth”. Lions, I think. Or are they dogs?

Alternatively, they are human hunters, treating the nation of Israel as prey to be captured; “We have escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken…” (v7).

And as a final assurance; “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (v8).
Apart from the change from “my” to “our”, this verse is identical to Psalm 121 v2. Helping to confirm the impression that these “Songs of Ascent” were composed and used as a group.

These images speak of a very narrow escape. They came very close to being drowned in the waters, very close to being chewed up and swallowed, gone for ever. To me, this implies, once again, that the nation has gone through the Babylonian experience, the fall of the kingdom and the exile. If the work of Cyrus had been delayed much longer, the nation would have been too dispersed, the loss of culture memory would have been too extreme, for any kind of revival to be possible. They really did escape “by the skin
of their teeth”. None of their experiences before the fall of the kingdom would have been quite so extreme.

And the same must apply to the other “Songs of Ascent”, if they all belong together. They must have been for use in the Second Temple.

The above are my own independent thoughts on the psalm. Having got that far, I will now open up Weiser’s commentary bought a couple of years ago, discover (probably) a number of insights which haven’t occurred to me, and add them here.

He acknowledges the implication of v1, that the psalm was intended for liturgical use.
I’ve also glanced at his view on the opening of Psalm 118, and I see that he interprets the third group as “proselytes of non-Israelite origin”. I don’t think that theory works. It doesn’t work liturgically, because it brings the sequence down to an anti-climax. In fact, on that theory, the sequence should have started with the house of Aaron and moved outwards from there. A sequence which puts the house of Aaron in second place is building up towards a climax, which my “combined unison” theory provides.

Also I don’t think it works historically. I’m not convinced that Gentile proselytes would have been present in those days in sufficient number to be brought into the ceremonial as a separate group. I believe Weiser is being led astray by the later connotations of the expression “God-fearer”, failing to recognise that usages change and new meanings develop.

In v3, he thinks the “swallowing up” threat implies the action of sea-monsters (rather than the sea itself). Whereas v4 is a mountain stream after heavy rainfall.

Out of the knowledge of man’s helplessness, there grows a faith which relies wholly on God alone.

+++

Or Matthew Henry.

“The more desperate the disease appear to have been the more does the skill of the Physician appear in the cure.”
The “men” who rise up against us are creatures of our own kind and yet bent on our ruin.
“Happy the people whose God is all-sufficient.”

They were delivered like a lamb out of the jaws of a beast of prey. Or like a rescued bird (specifically, the word signifies a sparrow). It was God who broke the snare and turned the counsels of the enemy into foolishness.
“It is a comfort that Israel’s God is the same that made the world, and therefore will have a church in the world, and can secure that church in times of the greatest danger and distress.”

Very good observations. A poet myself, I have always been fond of Psalms. Even now, as an unbeliever, I can’t help but daydream about how it must have sounded to hear these passages recited in person. How did the cadence of these ancient songs feel in the pit of your stomach? How did the melody compliment the emotions portrayed? To what heights would it bring you? Lovely stuff.

a reply to: KleenX How did the cadence of these ancient songs feel in the pit of your stomach? How did the melody compliment the emotions portrayed? To what heights would it bring you?

These questions cannot be answered by Gentiles as Jews were the ones to sing these and obey the commands that go with them.

So to ask them properly it would be How did it feel in the pit of THEIR stomachs? . . . compliment THEIR emotions? . . . would it bring THEM?

Still a bit to much worldliness in your INDEPENDENT (OPINION) thoughts.

Lot's of errors tired of rebuking and correcting you that is why I am not posting much. Just so you know it is not that you were correct on any of the past issues I brought up to where I promised to leave you alone.

Just so everyone knows I am leaving him alone because the Bible says rebuke a heretic 2 times after that to reject him. I gave him well more than 2. Enough room, grace and patients has been given so as not to waist my time with correcting Disraeli with the AV Bible.