I was so pleased / with the those who said to me
“ We
will go / to the temple of Yhwh”
Our feet / are standing
Within
your gates / Jerusalem
Jerusalem / built as a city should be
Closely
compact
Where the tribes / go up
The
tribes of Yhwh
It is stipulated / that Israel should give thanks
To
Yhwh’s name
There sits
The
tribunal / of justice
The
tribunal / of David’s court
Pray for Jerusalem’s peace
“may
those who love you / prosper securely
May peace / lie within your ramparts
Secure
prosperity / within your citadels
For my brothers’ / and neighbors’ sakes
I say /
Peace be within you
For the sake / of the temple of Yhwh our God
I will
seek / your good.
The psalmist begins with a statement that took place away
from Jerusalem, by those who wanted to go to Yhwh’s Temple. It begins with this
type of communal pilgrimage, and their desire makes the psalmist pleased with
them. This sense of communal bonding happens again at the end of the psalm when
the psalmist says “Peace be within you” for the sake of “my brothers and
neighbors”. This then moves into peace for the Temple itself. Both—temple and
community—fall within this sphere of peace.
The psalmist then moves within Jerusalem’s gates. From
there, within her walls, he looks around and what impresses itself upon him is
its stability and security as well as its being a gathering place for “the
tribes”. It is the designated place where Israel should give thanks to Yhwh’s
name. It is, also, the place of justice, of “the tribunal of David’s court”.
From there he moves into petitioning for Jerusalem’s peace
and the prosperity of those who love her. He wants peace to be within
Jerusalem’s ramparts and prosperity in her citadels. He address Jerusalem. He
calls down upon it a blessing of Yhwh protection and prosperity. For him,
Jerusalem is more akin to a living reality than a city of mere stones. He then
concludes that peace within Jerusalem will benefit his brothers and neighbors.
He then sees that the Temple relies on Jerusalem’s “good”. It is as if the city
stands to the Temple the same way the king stands to the priests—he protects
them, while they administer the liturgy and sacrifices. Jerusalem is, also, to the
Temple like Adam to Eve. She was “built” out of his side and he, in turn, was
to be her protector. They both contribute to each other in their different
assigned roles. And, in this we see the covenant with David—his “house” and
Yhwh’s “house” will be built together, both relying on each other, both drawing
from the same covenant power of Yhwh.
The emphasis here is clearly on the Temple as it sits
nestled within Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s peace, her ability to administer justice,
her secure prosperity—she stands as the Temple’s protector, like the body
guarding its heart, the husband guarding his bride. And the reason is because
everything flows from the Temple—all divine aid and protection and prosperity
and the covenant; it all flows like a river from the Temple. But the Temple
needs a protector.
In this we see, in a way, the previous psalms coming into
play, where Yhwh was called upon in order to protect pilgrims as they went from
liturgy-to-liturgy. Just as the psalmist called upon Yhwh to be their divine
protector, so too, now, are blessings called down upon Jerusalem so that she
can protect the Liturgical Home itself.
It is interesting in this regard that once Adam is expelled
from the Garden, it immediately becomes a place of protection, a type of “Jerusalem”
against intrusion. Adam stands to Eden the way the nations stand to the Temple.
Jerusalem’s beauty, in this psalm, is both internal and
external. Internally, it is a beautiful city because justice flows from it, the
‘tribunal of David’s court’. David, his covenant, and his legacy, are still
present there in the administration of justice. Internally, it is also a place
of secure prosperity. There is a sense that within Jerusalem, the earth’s
bounty is not (as) subject to the vanity of the world. It can abide. It can be
relied upon. It does, in a word, participate within Yhwh’s own Forever and his
Presence. Externally, it is a thing of beauty as well because of its fortitude
against intrusion. Like the cherubim that prevented Adam’s access into Eden, so
as to protect it’s holiness and sacred character, so too does Jerusalem stand
against the forces of chaos and vanity that swirl around outside its borders.
It establishes the safe harbor. And it does so for the same reason that,
internally, it is prosperous—its defense, it’s ‘compactness’ and its
‘security’—are manifestations and participations within Yhwh’s own Presence
that defends against entropy, chaos and vanity.
The “joy of Jerusalem” participates in this two-fold beauty.
For those who live outside of Jerusalem’s walls, they look to Jerusalem as a
place where heaven guards earth so that the earth can become itself—a place of
security and stability—protected against the onslaught of chaos and taint of
the nations. Within Jerusalem, though, the pilgrims experience the earth
becoming more than what it is. It is ‘creation ecstatic’, outside of itself.
From within, Jerusalem is a festive prosperity that radiates Yhwh’s blessing.
Jerusalem is, in this way, like a stained glass window. It has the colors “of
itself” but also is made to actually “be itself” when the light of Yhwh’s
Presence shines through it—then making it “more than itself”. More deeply still
is the fact that this sense of protection, stability, prosperity and blessing
coincide with the “tribes of Yhwh”, with the psalmist’s “brothers and
neighbors”. This abiding prosperity that is Jerusalem is a city—a place where
the people of Yhwh themselves participate within this momentum. They too become
“compact”, and protected and stable. They too become prosperous and full of
blessing. The chaos that tears apart community that exists outside the walls of
Jerusalem—from discord, to sickness, to sin, to death—all find their Conqueror
within Jerusalem.
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