Ps 127 (Temple construction)

If Yhwh / does not build a house

                In vain / will its builders have toiled over it

If Yhwh / does not guard a city

                In vain / will the guard have stayed awake.

In vain / do you act

                Who rise early

                And rest late

Some eat bread / for which they have labored

                This is the way / he confers honor / on those he loves

Take notice / sons are what Yhwh gives

                Fruit from the womb / is a reward from him

Just like arrows / handled by a warrior

                Are sons / born in one’s youth

How fortunate / is the man

                Whose quiver

                He fills with them

Such do not suffer humiliation / when they argue

                With adversaries / at the gate.

The first half of the psalm contemplates the what occurs if Yhwh does not perform certain acts. The second half deals with what happens when Yhwh does engage in certain acts.

The first half, importantly, describes the acts as both Yhwh acts and human acts. Although Yhwh is a builder, a guardian and a farmer, those activities are also human acts that humans can perform on their own. However, if the humans do these without Yhwh also engaging in them, then their acts become vain and futile. In other words, it is Yhwh’s engagement in these acts that removes them from the potential of vanity and futility. Yhwh infuses them with his own sacred act, thereby elevating them, in a sense, above themselves and into a heaven-status of abiding perpetuity. These acts “meet their mark” when they are elevated by Yhwh beyond themselves.

A house that Yhwh and man builds, then, is not simply a house. A city that Yhwh and builds is not simply a city. One who labors, too, who rises early and rests late, is not, in a sense, “simply a man”. A field that Yhwh and man plants, is not simply a field. This does not mean that they necessarily reveal Yhwh’s hand. What this psalm stresses is that Yhwh’s acts keep these things from devolving into vanity and futility. In other words, to “see Yhwh’s hand” is to see these things last beyond what man can provide. They endure. This endurance, this abiding-ness to these things is the shimmering of divine glory, what shows these things to be Yhwh’s handiwork. All of these shimmer with divine glory.

Something similar to this occurs when Yhwh promises to Abram that he will have descendants as numerous as the sand. Before Abram, from the time of Adam when a child was born it was the product of the parent’s fruitfulness. However, when this blessing of children is provided to Abram it is Yhwh himself who will make him fruitful. Importantly, it is Yhwh’s involvement that establishes Abram’s line in perpetuity. While Yhwh does promise him that kings will come from him, he does not, for example, promise him that he will give birth to heroes. The “visibility” of Yhwh’s promise is, in large part, the fact that Abram’s line will not “enter into futility” but will survive.

And this is what we see in the second section of the psalm, where Yhwh’s activity is apparent. The psalmist shifts to the “fruit of the womb”. It is children that Yhwh “gives” as a “reward”. He gives them, at least in part, so that they be arrows for their father. And the more Yhwh gives, he more arrows he has to fill his quiver. They become what the city was the opening—the guardians of the father. They protect him against the adversaries “at the gate” and, in so doing, they protect him against humiliation. This humiliation must be somewhat akin to the vanity and futility of the opening.

There is, I think, a likely second layer of meaning in the psalm. The superscription to the psalm says it is “concerning Solomon” or “a processional son. Solomonic.” Solomon, as David’s son, is the “house builder” in the old covenant. He is also named by Yhwh as “Jedidiah”, which means “loved by the Lord”, which is referred to in here as Yhwh conferring honor on “those he loves”. Also, the “sleep” referring to Solomon’s dream where Yhwh praises him for asking for wisdom before all else and, because he has done so, he will receive “honor” (as in this psalm). These resonances with Solomon are profound. We are to see in the house, the building of the Temple itself, the city, the construction of Jerusalem and, importantly, both were destroyed and rebuilt. The prophets saw their destruction as a result of the people’s pollution and sins. They had become “mere buildings”. In a way, man’s actions made something that was sacred—something that had become what it was intended to be because Yhwh brought it beyond itself—into something profane, thereby subjecting it to vanity and futility. That said, their plans were retained in heaven such that they could be rebuilt, by Yhwh and man, thereby making them sacred once again. We will return to this below when see how this psalm is enacted in David’s other son, the final Temple builder, Jesus.

The fact that without Yhwh’s aid man’s acts devolve into futility and vanity deserves contemplation. The story of Adam and Eve somewhat speak to this especially in regard to the curses placed upon man and the fact that his work from that point forward will be difficult. There is, also, a sense running throughout the scriptures, especially the psalms and other wisdom literature, that futility and vanity mark creation and man’s efforts. It seems as if man’s work, apart from Yhwh, is subject to a type of curse. It is, without qualification, doomed to futility and vanity. It will not survive. “Curse” on the other hand may be too strong of a word. It also seems as if man’s work apart from Yhwh is simply abortive. It is intended to be “leavened” by Yhwh’s aid and assistance and, when it does not receive it, it decays (in a sense; or, falls back into chaos). The “natural end” of man’s work, then, is to participate in Yhwh’s work. When it does not do so, it ceases to “be itself” and fails. It’s failure is, in this regard, Yhwh “turning his face from man’s work”, a type of cursing. Yhwh, in this sense, does not “cause” its futility in the same way that he “causes” its success. When man’s work succeeds it is because Yhwh actively wills it so; when it fails it is because Yhwh passively turns away from it and permits it to become futile.

In Jesus, this psalm deepens in an extraordinary fashion. The first line refers to the “building of a house”, which, as we saw above, can and does refer to Solomon’s construction of the Temple. In the gospels, Jesus routinely refers to himself as the one “greater than Solomon” and as himself as being the new Temple. In this we see how this Temple—the Temple of Christ’s flesh—becomes the Temple that will not pass away or become subject to futility, like the one of the Davidic covenant. And it will be so because it is constructed by man and Yhwh—the Incarnation; Jesus himself—is the building that is not constructed once but is and always remains the living Temple. In other words, Christ’s perpetual and abiding faithfulness and his co-working with the Father, makes him the abiding and ongoing temple-builder and Temple. As the divine son, he and the Father ‘constructed’ this new Temple in the Spirit. As human, he cooperated in this construction completely and totally, without remainder. Christ is this entirely human and divine construction—this new Temple. Those are baptized into him, are baptized into him and his relationship with the Father, in the Spirit. That is why this construction can never devolve into futility because it cannot be profaned. Christ lived the life of purity and sacredness and, in his resurrection and ascension, brought that entire and abidingness into heaven, thereby establishing it in the Father’s Forever.

And yet, this Temple construction—this act of Christ as the new Solomon—in a real sense only begins with the ascension. That is when the “cornerstone, which the builders rejected” is first established. As Paul makes clear, Christ is continuing to “build up” the Temple, which is his body, through baptism and the incorporation of people through the Eucharist. It is into his faith that we are baptized. The work of the Eucharist, from this perspective, is key. Because Christ’s flesh is the new Temple, the flesh that he provides through the Eucharist is the literal act by which he builds his people up into himself (literally). This is the dual act by which Yhwh and Christ and us “build the house”. And while we may become stones that are ‘profaned’, and therefore discarded, that does not affect the permanent but ongoing holiness of Christ the Temple (Builder).