the time of the persecution by Absalom, which cast a yearning look back towards home, the house of God (Psa 23:1-6; Psa 26:1-12, Psa 55:15; Psa 61:1-8, and more particularly Psa 63:1-11). But the לדוד is wanting in the lxx, Codd. Alex. and Vat.; and the Cod Sinait., which has ΤΩ ΔΑΔ, puts this before Psa 124:1-8, ει ̓ μὴ ὅτι κύριος κ. τ. λ., also, contrary to Codd. Alex. and Vat. Here it is occasioned by Psa 122:5, but without any critical discernment. The measures adopted by Jeroboam I show, moreover, that the pilgrimages to the feasts were customary even in the time of David and Solomon. The images of calves in Dan and Bethel, and the changing of the Feast of Tabernacles to another month, were intended to strengthen the political rupture, by breaking up the religious unity of the people and weaning them from visiting Jerusalem. The poet of the Psalm before us, however, lived much later. He lived, as is to be inferred with Hupfeld from Psa 122:3, in the time of the post-exilic Jerusalem which rose again out of its ruins. Thither he had been at one of the great feasts, and here, still quite full of the inspiring memory, he looks back towards the holy city; for, in spite of Reuss, Hupfeld, and Hitzig, Psa 122:1., so far as the style is concerned, are manifestly a retrospect.
Verses 1-3
The preterite שׂמחתי 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 היה 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, עמדות היוּ 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 עמדוּ (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.[1]
Reviving this memory, he
- ↑ 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.”
