Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 122:5
For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.
5. For there were set (lit. sat) thrones for judgement] For throne cp. Psa 9:4; Psa 9:7. The poet is still looking back to the times before the Exile. Jerusalem was the centre of the nation’s civil life as well as of its religious life. Reference is made to a supreme tribunal at Jerusalem in Deu 17:8 ff.
the thrones of the house of David ] The king appears to have been assisted in his judicial functions by members of the royal family. Cp. Jer 21:11-12. If the verb in the preceding line is taken as a present ( are set), ‘thrones of the house of David’ must mean tribunals exercising a jurisdiction corresponding to that of the royal family in ancient times.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For there are set – Margin, Do sit. The Hebrew is, For there sit thrones for judgment. They are established there; or, That is the appointed place for administering justice.
Thrones of judgment – Seats for dispensing justice. The word throne is now commonly appropriated to the seat or chair of a king, but this is not necessarily the meaning here. The word may denote a seat or bench occupied by a judge. The meaning here is, that Jerusalem was the supreme seat of justice; the place where justice was dispensed for the nation. It was at once the religious and the civil capital of the nation.
The thrones of the house of David – Of the family of David, who performed the office of magistrates, or who administered justice. The family of David would naturally be employed in such a service as this. This office, Absalom – who had not been appointed to it – earnestly desired, in order that he might secure popularity in his contemplated rebellion. Oh that I were made a judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! 2Sa 15:4.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 122:5
For there are set thrones of judgment.
True worship and correct thinking
The words of our text are the very last we should expect to find in a psalm of praise and adoration. What had thrones of judgment, the place where disputes were settled, and deeds justified or condemned, to do with pilgrims who hungered for the living God? But a little reflection leads us to see that it was a true spiritual instinct that connects the sanctuary with the judgment-seat and worship with the criticism of life. Maybe there was a geographical proximity between the temple and the civil court, but we would fain believe that it was a much deeper connection, a spiritual association, that dictated the words of our text. For, as a matter of fact, we cannot prostrate ourselves before God without seeing all the facts of life in their true light and estimate all our thoughts and deeds at their true value, for there are set thrones of judgment.
1. True worship leads to just valuation and correct thinking. In the hurry of life God becomes a shadow, and in the controversies of thought He becomes a symbol; but when we bow our heads with adoration and awe, we place ourselves in an attitude to see the King in His beauty; and all the time we are engaged in worship, God is quietly reasserting His supremacy over our lives. In industry and commerce we are daily tempted to consider our fellow-men as means towards an end, bound to us by the cold relationship of a cash nexus or a business transaction. As we move in the social life around us we are tempted to group our fellows according to caste and class, to clique and circle, but when we escape to the sanctuary and turn to the great sacrifice of Christ for forgiveness, we see our fellow-man as he is, a fellow-sinner for whom Jesus died, a brother saint, heir of God and joint-heir of Jesus Christ. The sanctuary corrects the estimates of the world, and the thrones of judgment modify the rules and maxims of men. Outside the sanctuary property assumes vast dimensions, inside it dwindles into an incident of life. Outside sin is an inevitable trifle, inside it is the one tragedy of the world, crucifying Christ and wounding God. Outside, eternity is a guess and a chance, a dream and a shadow, but inside it is the great reality, the place of adjustment, reunion, and satisfaction. As men in a mist see every object disfigured and exaggerated, so in the atmosphere of worldliness we see everything out of its true shape and perspective, but in the sanctuary there are thrones of judgment. In worship we unconsciously escape from the dominion of maxims and thoughts that are merely worldly and material.
2. The reasons for this beneficent effect are not far to seek.
(1) Worship brings a man to the right standpoint. Vision is so often a matter of position. To learn how to see is to learn where to stand. The attitude of worship is a vantage ground which commands spiritual prospects and unseen landscapes, the land that is very far off, the world in its need, and the King in His beauty.
(2) Worship removes the disturbing element. Inaccurate judgments are due to passion and prejudice, to interest and greed, and all these are forms and modifications of selfishness. It is self that spoils the vision and upsets the balances. But worship is the surrender of the self, the renunciation of the great obstacle and the solemn repetition of our Saviours words–Not My will but Thine be done. Self is displaced and God is enthroned, and as the result the worshipper thinks as his Lord thinks, and his judgment is just and his valuation accurate.
(3) Worship quickens all the faculties of a mans life. We often see amiss because we do not see with the whole soul. Our judgments are wrong because they are partially made. It takes a man in the full totality of his gifts to see God and to understand Gods world. But there are many influences which rob us of this full-orbed activity. First of all there is sin. The man that has sinned away his purity has not only spoiled his character, he has mutilated his soul and robbed himself of the power of seeing God; and it is the same with the man who has become material, cynical, pessimistic, or self-sufficient. Then there is specialism. The age is more and more an age of specialization. Men are simply compelled to throw their whole energy into certain lines and to neglect certain parts of their nature altogether. You all remember the lament of Charles Darwin that he had lost the taste which once he had for music and poetry, and had become a mere machine for observing facts and grinding laws out of them. It is an undisputed fact that many men are in a parallel condition to-day, and to be in this state is to look at God and the world with half an eye and half a soul. The corrective for all this is worship, for reverence is the highest activity of the soul. Like the fly-wheel in a factory, it calls into movement all the multitudinous wheels of mans complex personality. Worship steadies the reason, chastens the emotions, vivifies the imagination, braces the will, spurs the spirit of inquiry, and gives unto man the full and free possession of all his faculties vitalized and alert.
(4) Worship gives to the soul that hospitality which saves it from being deluded by dogmatism and self-sufficiency. There is more light to break forth from Gods world and Gods Word, and our hardest task is to keep our eyes open and our hearts hospitable towards the dawn. But this is the attitude of worship, for, as the shell on the shore is open to the waves of the sea, as the bud on the tree is open to the rays of the light, so is the soul of the worshipper open to the mysterious influences that perennially stream from the unseen and the unknown. (T. Phillips, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. There are set thrones of judgment] There were the public courts, and thither the people went to obtain justice; and while the thrones of the house of David were there, they had justice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This is added as another reason inviting and obliging them to go up to Jerusalem, and as another commendation of this city.
Thrones of judgment; the supreme courts of justice for ecclesiastical, and especially for civil affairs, as the next clause explains it.
The thrones of the house of David; the royal throne allotted by God to David and to his posterity for ever, and the inferior seats of justice established by and under his authority. See 2Ch 19:8-10.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. there are set thronesor,”do sit, thrones,” used for the occupants, David’s sons(2Sa 8:18).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For there are set thrones of judgment,…. In Jerusalem as the Targum; here were courts of judicature, and thrones for the judges to sit upon, to execute judgment and justice to the people;
the thrones of the house of David; the Targum is,
“thrones in the house of the sanctuary, for the kings of the house of David;”
who might sit there, as the Jews say, when others might not. In the church of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, every saint is a king, as well as a priest, and all have thrones and seats there; have a power of judging, not only lesser matters pertaining to this life, but such as regard the spiritual peace and welfare of the church and interest of Christ; having laws and rules given them to go by, in the admission and exclusion of members, and respecting their conduct to each other, and to their Lord and head: and in the New Jerusalem there will be thrones set, not only for the twelve apostles of Christ, and for the martyrs of Jesus, but for all the saints; there will be the thrones of God and of the Lamb, and every overcomer shall sit down on the same; this honour will have all the saints, Mt 19:28.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
5. For there were set thrones for judgment. He means, that the throne of the kingdom was fixed or established at Jerusalem, or that there it had its permanent seat. Among that people some order of judgments had always existed; these, however, had formerly been in an unsettled state, and frequently changed, but God at length ordained, in the person of David, a new government which should flow in a continual course; for it was his will that the children of David should succeed their father in this royal dignity from age to age until the coming of Christ. The Prophet has a little before spoken of the Temple and the priesthood; and now he affirms, that this kingdom, which God had erected, will be firm and stable; in order to distinguish it from all the other kingdoms of the world, which are not only temporary, but also frail and subject to a variety of changes. This everlastingness of the kingdom has been expressly confirmed by other Prophets in various parts of their’ writings, and not without cause; for the object was, to teach the faithful that God would be the guardian of their welfare only upon the supposition of their remaining under the protection and defense of David, and that, therefore, if they desired to continue in safety and to prosper, they should not make for themselves new kings at their own pleasure, but should live quietly under that kind of government which God had set up among them. The repetition of the word throne is emphatic. There, says the Psalmist, the throne of judgment and equity is erected. Then he adds, the throne of the house of David; for it was the will of God that the right and prerogative of reigning should continue in David’s posterity, until the true everlastingness of this kingdom should be manifested in the person of Christ.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) Thrones.Jerusalem, at first a cause of wonder as a city, is now to the pilgrims a cause of admiration as the capital. The mention of the House of David itself disposes of the title, but does not prove that the monarchy was still in existence, since even the Sanhedrim might be said to administer justice from the throne of the house or successors of David. The administration of justice was the original and principal duty of a monarch in time of peace (1Ki. 3:11, seq.). The marginal do sit gives the literal rendering of the Hebrew, which in this use of sit, where we should say in English stand, is exactly the provincial Scotch.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. There are set thrones There they established thrones. The Hebrew word for throne ( kisseh) means also a high seat, whether for honour and rank, or for authority and judgment. Jdg 3:20; 1Sa 4:13; 1Sa 4:18; Est 3:1. Here the plural “thrones” should be taken as seats of judicial and executive authority for the administration of justice established by David, and hence called “thrones of judgment,” “thrones of the house of David.” The force of the statement lies in the fact that the choice of Jerusalem, as the place of supreme judgment and of David’s kingly authority, had been sorely contested, but the attempt had proved abortive. The law required that the religious centre of the nation should be its supreme seat of judgment. Deu 7:8-12
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 122:5. For there are set thrones “There sits the Sanhedrim, and there resides the royal house of David.” Mudge.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 122:5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.
Ver. 5. For there are set thrones of judgment ] These are the two chief praises of any place. 1. The exercise of God’s sincere service. 2. The administration and execution of public justice.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
thrones. Plural of Majesty = the great Throne.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 122:5
Psa 122:5
“For there are set thrones for judgment,
The thrones of the house of David.”
McCaw thought “thrones” as used here was a “Plural of majesty, referring to the `great throne’ of David and his dynasty. Dummelow also pointed out that it might refer to, “The princes of the house of David.” If that meaning should be allowed here, then we have positive proof that this psalm must be identified with the reign of David and not with some later historical circumstance.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 122:5. Jerusalem was the capital of the Israelite national government. That means that the thrones (seats) of judgment would be located in that city.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
there: Deu 17:8, Deu 17:18, 2Ch 19:8
are set: Heb. do sit
the thrones: 2Sa 8:18, 2Ch 11:22
Reciprocal: 1Ki 7:7 – for the throne 1Ki 10:18 – a great throne 1Ch 11:5 – the city Neh 11:1 – the rulers Psa 108:8 – Judah Psa 137:5 – I forget Son 7:12 – there will I give thee Jer 31:23 – The Lord 1Co 4:8 – ye did Phi 2:15 – a crooked
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
122:5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of {e} David.
(e) In whose house God placed the throne of justice, and made it a figure of Christ’s kingdom.