Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 122:2
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.
2. Our feet shall stand ] The verb cannot be rendered thus. It may mean ‘have been and still are standing,’ hence R.V. are standing; or were standing, which is the most natural rendering. The somewhat unusual combination of the participle with the substantive verb may be an indication of the lateness of the Psalm (the idiom is common in Nehemiah), but it gives prominence to the idea of duration (Driver, Tenses, 135. 5). It suggests that when the pilgrims reached the city gates, they halted for a while, spell-bound by the sight of its magnificence, and by the memories of its ancient glories.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
2 4. The arrival of the pilgrims, and the impression produced by the sight of the city.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem – We shall enter the sacred city. It appears now in full view before us – its walls, its palaces, its sacred places. We shall not stand and gaze upon it at a distance; we shall not merely be charmed with its beauty as we approach it; we shall accomplish the object of our desire, and enter within its walls and gates. So the believer approaches heaven – the New Jerusalem above. he will not merely admire its exterior, and look upon it at a distance; but he will enter in. He draws nearer and nearer to it, and as he approaches it when he is dying, its beauty becomes the more charming to his view, and the joy of his heart increases as he now feels the assurance that he will stand within its gates: that he will enter there, and dwell there forever. So said Dr. Payson, when approaching the end of life: The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached, and now he fills the whole hemisphere – pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering with unutterable wonder why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm. Works, i. 407. See also the exquisite description of the glories of heaven, familiar to all, as described by Bunyan, as the Christian pilgrims were about to cross the river of death.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 122:2
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem
The psalm was probably written by a pilgrim to Jerusalem at some time previous to the Babylonish Captivity. On the one hand, it is clear that the house of the Lord, the ancient Temple, was still standing; on the other, the reference to the house of David and the anxious prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, its walls, its palaces, seem to point to a later period than that of David. The pilgrim who composed the psalm would have belonged to one of the ten separated tribes; but he had remained after the general defection true to the divinely-ordered worship at Jerusalem, and his psalm may well have been composed on the occasion of his first visit.
1. Now, one thing that would have struck a pilgrim to Jerusalem who should approach the city, as was natural, from its north-eastern side, would be its beauty. Possibly this pilgrim had seen Damascus straggling out amid the beautiful oasis which surrounds it in the plain of the Abana, or he had seen Memphis, a long strip of buildings, thickly populated, extending for some twelve or fourteen miles along the western bank of the Nile. Compared with those Jerusalem had the compact beauty of a highland fortress, its buildings are seen from below standing out against the clear Syrian sky, and conveying an impression of grace and strength that would long linger in the memory. No doubt in the eyes of a pilgrim in these old Jewish times, as afterwards, the physical beauty of Jerusalem must have suggested and blended with a beauty of a higher order. The beauty of the world of spirit imparts to the world of sense a subtle lustre which of itself it could never possess. Walk about Zion, and go round about her, and tell the towers thereof; mark well her bulwarks; set up her houses that ye may tell them that come after. And why? For this God is our God for ever and ever. He shall be our guide unto death.
2. And secondly, Jerusalem was the centre of the religious and national life of Israel. Jerusalem was what it was in a good Israelites eyes less on its own account than because it contained the Temple. Yea, cries the pilgrim, as he looks out on the fair city beneath him–yea, because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do thee good. And so, although the city of Solomon and its Temple passed away, and a new city and a new temple rose upon the ruins of the old, pilgrims still came up with the old psalm upon their lips and in their hearts: Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem.
3. And a third characteristic of Jerusalem, which appealed to religious pilgrims like this psalmist-pilgrim, was, if I may so phrase what I mean, its unworldliness. This appears partly in its situation. Jerusalem was not on the sea, or on a navigable river. The little stream of the Kedron was dry for the greater part of the year in ancient days as now, and nothing but rude mountain-paths connected the city with Egypt on one side or with Syria on the other. It was thus cut off from those activities of commerce and intercourse with distant countries which are essential to the material well-being and development of a great capital.
4. As the centuries went on, Jerusalem, thus dear to the heart of Israel as being what it was in itself, became yet dearer to it by misfortune. Of all that is most beautiful in life, sorrow is the last consecration. Sorrow is the poetry, no less than the discipline of humanity. Certainly, if one thing is clear from Scripture and from experience, sorrows such as those of Jerusalem are the result of sin. And yet this could not kill out the sense of blessing which attached to the sacred spot in the eyes of successive generations of pilgrims. Thinking only of the sure mercies of David, thinking with the apostle of a later age, that the gifts and calling of God are indeed without repentance, again and again under Manasseh as under Hezekiah, under Jehoiakim as under Josiah, they uttered their song, Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem. The events which make Jerusalem what it is in Christian eyes do not belong to the Old Testament. That wonderful self-manifestation of the Eternal Being among men which began at Bethlehem and Nazareth reached its climax at Jerusalem. On the hills around this favoured city, along its streets, in the courts of its great sanctuary, there walked in visible form, One who had already lived from everlasting, and who had folded around His eternal person the body and the soul of the sons of men. Just outside its walls, He condescended to die in agony and in shame only that He might rise in triumph from His grave, and on a hill hard by He went visibly up to heaven to reign for ever in glory. He conferred on it in Christian eyes a patent of nobility which will only become invalid when His Gospel disappears from among men. But the Jerusalem of Christian thought is no longer only or mainly the city of David. It is, first of all, the visible and universal Church of Christ. The towers and walls and shrines of the ancient city, as faith gazes on them, melt away into the outline of a sublimer prospect–that of redeemed humanity through all the Christian centuries gathered and harmonized into the city of God. This was what St. Paul meant when, writing to the Galatians, he contrasted with Jerusalem that now is which is in bondage–that is, to the Romans–with her children; the Jerusalem that is above, or, as we should say, the spiritual Jerusalem that is free, and is the mother of us all. That vast society in whose ample bosom the souls of Christian men from generation to generation find shelter and welcome and warmth and nourishment is the reality of which the old Syrian city was the material type. This is the Jerusalem of the Christian creed–I believe in one holy Catholic Apostolic Church; this is the Jerusalem of, perhaps, the greatest work of the greatest teacher of the Christian Church since apostolic days–Augustines treatise on The City of God. There may be controversies among Christians as to the exact direction and extent of its wails, just as there are controversies among antiquarians as to the extent and direction of the walls of its material prototype, but as to its place in the thoughts and affections of all true Christian men there should be no room for controversy. No other association of men can have such claims on the heart of a Christian as the Church of God. What if sin and division have marred its beauty and its unity. The old Jerusalem did not cease to be Jerusalem in Jeremiahs eyes because of the sins of the priests, of princes, of peoples which he so unsparingly denounced. The factions which rent the city that fell beneath the legions of Titus did not kill out` the love and the loyalty of its noblest sons. The true remedy for disappointment and sorrow on the score of shortcomings and differences within the sacred city is to be found in such prayers as those which we offer in our holiest service to the Divine Majesty, beseeching Him to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord. And this earthly Jerusalem suggests another city, a true haven of peace, with which the visible Church of Christ is already in communion, and into which all those true children of Zion who are joyful in their King will one day be received. (Canon Liddon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 2. Our feet shall stand] For seventy years we have been exiled from our own land; our heart was in Jerusalem, but our feet were in Chaldea. Now God has turned our captivity, and our feet shall shortly stand within the gates of Jerusalem. What a transition from misery to happiness! and what a subject for rejoicing!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Our feet shall stand; thither we shall come, and there we shall make our abode during the times of solemn worship.
Within thy gates, O Jerusalem; in that city where the ark is now fixed. We shall wander no more from place to place, as the ark was removed.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. gates(Compare Psa 9:14;Psa 87:2).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Which is to be understood not merely literally of the city of Jerusalem, and of continuance in the possession of it, it being lately taken out of the hands of the Jebusites; but spiritually of the church of God, which is often called by this name; the gates of which are the same as the gates of Zion, and the gates of wisdom, the word and ordinances; attendance on which is signified by “standing”: and which also denotes continuance therein: and happy are those that are within these gates, and have a comfortable assurance of their abiding there; and still more happy will they be who will be admitted within the gates of the New Jerusalem, which are said to be twelve, and every, one of them of one pearl; and through which none shall enter into the city but pure and holy persons,
Re 21:2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
2. Our feet shall be standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem! In the Hebrew text the verb is indeed in the past tense, which it would not be unsuitable to retain; but as it makes little difference as to the meaning whether the one reading or the other is adopted, I have no difficulty in leaving my readers to their own choice. David rehearses the language in which all the godly in common expressed themselves — that they should at length stand with sure footing in Jerusalem, because it was the will of God there to establish his Sanctuary, which hitherto had often changed its lodgings, and had been carried from place to place. By such a pilgrimage state of the ark, God reminded the people that he had not without cause spoken by Moses what I have a little ago adverted to. Thus, whenever the ark of the covenant was conveyed from one place to another, God thereby stirred up the hearts of his servants to desire and pray that a certain settled place might be appointed to it. Moreover, this fixing of its seat was not a matter of small moment. As while it was frequently changing its abode, the faith of the people hung in suspense, so after God had chosen for it a permanent residence, he by this testified more unequivocally that he would be the ever, lasting and unchangeable protector of his people. It is, therefore, not surprising to find the faithful gratefully acknowledging that their feet, which had hitherto been wont to run from place to place, should henceforth stand steadfast within the gates of Jerusalem. The ark, it is true, dwelt a long time in Shiloh, (1Sa 1:3,) but God having made no promise concerning that place, it could not be the permanent abode of that symbol of the divine presence. On the contrary, since, as we shall see on Psa 132:14, it was said of mount Zion — “This is my rest for ever,” the faithful, depending upon that promise, confidently boast that their feet shall hereafter be at rest and stand firm. Farther, as Christ,
“
in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” (Col 2:9,)
and who is our true Immanuel, (Isa 7:14,) now resides amongst us, he has furnished us with matter of more abundant joy. We are, therefore, ungrateful and stupid, if that promise —
“
Lo, I am wit you always, even unto the end of the world,” (Mat 28:20,)
does not ravish us with exceeding joy, and especially if we see it in any place received publicly and with common consent. What I have just now quoted concerning the rest or repose of the Lord, has been at length accomplished in the person of Christ, as is evident from Isa 11:10 — “His rest shall be glorious;” where the Prophet does not speak of the burial of Christ, as some interpreters erroneously suppose, but of the future distinction of the Church.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(2) Our feet shall stand.Rather, Our feet have been, and are now, standing. Here we stand at last at thy gates, O Jerusalem. We must imagine the pilgrims arresting their steps to gaze about them as they reach the gates.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. Shall stand Literally, Have been standing, or, have stood. So Septuagint, , our feet have stood. This also is retrospective, but may apply to the recent past.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Reader! do mark with what rapture the Song speaks of even standing in the Lord’s house. And was it so delightful to those who only had types and shadows of good things to come; what then ought to be our joy under the full blessings of the gospel in Jesus? Pro_8:21; Pro_31:31; Pro_31:31 . And if such the joy here below, what will it be when we enter the new Jerusalem which is above? Rev 21:2-5 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 122:2 Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.
Ver. 2. Our feet shall stand within thy gates ] Where the ark (at times transported) was now fixed; this was their great joy, so should it be ours that the true religion is now settled among us, and that we are at a certainty. There was a time when good Melancthon groaned out, Quos fugiamus habemus, quos sequamur non intelligimus, We know whom we should fly (viz. the Papists), but whom to follow we yet know not (Respons. ad Staphyl.).
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
shall stand = have stood [and shall still stand. ] The reference is to the Passover, which had been kept for “all Israel”. See App-67.
Jerusalem. Note the Figure of speech Anadiplosis (App-6), the word being repeated at the beginning of the next verse.
compact = coupled together (as by a bridge), as Moriah was joined with Zion by the Millo. See note on 1Ki 9:15; 2Ki 12:20, and App-68.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 84:7, Psa 87:1-3, Psa 100:4, Exo 20:24, 2Ch 6:6
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
WITHIN THE GATES
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem!
Psa 122:2
The psalm from which this verse is taken was probably written by a pilgrim to Jerusalem at some time previous to the Babylonish captivity. On the one hand, it is clear that the house of the Lord, the ancient Temple, was still standing; on the other, the reference to the house of David and the anxious prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, its walls, its palaces, seem to point to a later time than that of David.
I. One thing which would have struck a pilgrim to Jerusalem who should approach the city, as was natural, from its northeastern side, would be its beauty.In the eyes of a religious pilgrim the physical beauty of Jerusalem must have suggested and blended with beauty of the highest order. The beauty of the world of spirit imparts to the world of sense a subtle lustre which of itself it could never possess.
II. Jerusalem was the centre of the religious and national life of Israel.Its greatest distinction was that the Temple lay within its walls. No other title to glory and distinction in these ancient days could compete with this place where God did choose to put His name.
III. A third characteristic of Jerusalem was its unworldliness.(1) This appears partly in its very situation. Jerusalem was not on the sea or on a navigable river. Isaiah rejoiced in Zion, the city of our solemnities, as a quiet habitation, wherein shall no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship, pass by. In his eyes its religious character as well as its security are ensured by its seclusion from the great highways of the world of his day. (2) This characteristic may be further illustrated by the smallness of Jerusalem. No large capital could have existed in such a situation. In point of area Jerusalem would ill compare with our larger London parishes, Marylebone or Islington. Yet no city in the world has so profoundly influenced the highest life of millions of the human race as has that little highland town in a remote province of the empire of Turkey.
IV. Once more, as the centuries went on, Jerusalem became yet dearer to the heart of Israel by misfortune.Of all that is most beautiful in life sorrow is the last consecration. Undoubtedly the author of our psalm would already have seen in Jerusalem a pathos and a dignity which so often come with suffering, and those who used this psalm in later ages would have felt increasingly this element of the attraction of the holy city.
V. The Jerusalem of Christian thought is no longer only or mainly the city of David.It is first of all the visible and universal Church of Christ. And it suggests another city, a true haven of peace, into which all those true children of Zion who are joyful in their King will one day be received.
Canon Liddon.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
122:2 Our {b} feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.
(b) Which were wont to wander to and fro, as the ark moved.