TheBibleNet: Psalm 120

Psalms:

Bk 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Bk 2: 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Bk 3: 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Bk 4: 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

Bk 5: 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119a 119b 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132
133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Additional Psalms: 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 Samuel Chronicles

Essays: Intro - Music - Form & Language

BOOK SIX?

Why not? The original Book of Psalms was a single, complete work, and the division into books came much later. So why were the Shirei Ma'alot - numbers 120 through 134 - not regarded as Book Six, and then Book Seven for the Psalms that came after them? These fifteen are unquestionably a category unto themselves, and should surely be separated from the others in the collection (I have also placed this note at the start of Psalm 135).

And why fifteen? One for each day up until the full moon, one for each day until the end of the month? Most likely, though it is never stated. Fifteen - in case you are new to these commentaries, and unfamiliar with the Yehudit language - fifteen in Yehudit is, like English, 10+5, the 10 being Yud (י) and the 5 Hey (ה). Yud-Hey. YAH.

And the significance of this now takes us to the architecture of the Temple itself, where the Court of Yisra-El was elevated fifteen steps higher than the Women's Court, and each step in the formal procession to the sacrificial altar required a song. The Nikanor Gate led down that stairway to the Women's Court; according to the Mishnah (Midot 2) the steps in front of the Nikanor Gate were curved. The gate itself was located on the west end of the Women's Court, and lined up with the portal of the porch. It was on these circular stairs in front of the Nikanor Gate that the Levite choirs would sing Hallel – but the Hallel which Mishnah then describes is not the Hallel we encountered in Psalms 113-118, but rather the fifteen "Songs for the Ascent", the Shirey Ma'a lot, that we are about to encounter now. And yes, one for each step.

And note that there will be seven verses - at least in this first "Song for the Ascent". Seven being the sacred number of Yah's consort, YHVH.

120:1 SHIR HA MA'ALOT EL YHVH BA TSARATAH LI KARA'TI VA YA'ANENI

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת אֶל יְהוָה בַּצָּרָתָה לִּי קָרָאתִי וַיַּעֲנֵנִי

KJ: (A Song of degrees.) In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.

BN: A Song for the Ascent. {N} In my distress I called out to YHVH, and he answered me.

SHIR HA MA'ALOT: Ascents, actually, are multiple, which is why this is rendered in the plural (my translation really requires the original to have been SHIR HA MA'ALAH, or SHIR HA ALIYAH).

There was the ascent to Yeru-Shala'im the city, when David attempted to bring the Ark, and everything went horribly wrong (2 Samuel 6), followed by the successful second attempt three months later. On both occasions the pilgrimage was undertaken with singing and dancing and music, and it is likely that some at least of the several SHIREY MA'ALOT were written, in their original form, for these occasions.

Then there was the ascent described above, to get from the outside of the Temple to its courtyard.

Then there were the daily ascents along the ramp in the courtyards, both of the Solomonic and the Second Temple, to bring the shewbread or the first fruits or the sacrificial beasts to the altar, again always accompanied by the singing of the Temple choir and the music of the Temple orchestra.

Then, today, in our post-Temple world, there is the "calling-up" of the individual to the bimah, the reading desk in the synagogue, to participate in the ceremonial reading of the Torah on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays, New Moons and festivals, always accompanied by the recitation of Psalms in traditional synagogues, but never musically accompanied amongst the orthodox, who are still in mourning for the destroyed Temple; in Reform and other liberal denominations the music has been fully restored, which is to say new music has been created.

And finally there is migration to Yisra-El itself, which is also known as "making Aliyah".

We will also note another small but significant variant as we go through these 15 Psalms. You will see that I will always render SHIR HAMA'ALOT as "a song for the ascent", but SHIR LA MA'ALOT as "a song at the ascent", and I believe that the difference is between singing before you start, and singing while you are climbing.

120:2 YHVH HATSIYLAH NAPHSHI MI SEPHAT SHEKER MI LASHON REMIYAH

יְהוָה הַצִּילָה נַפְשִׁי מִשְּׂפַת שֶׁקֶר מִלָּשׁוֹן רְמִיָּה

KJ: Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.

BN: YHVH, deliver my soul from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

MI SEPHAT: Or MISPHAT? Definitely the former, because it is paralleled with the deceitful tongue; but written without vowels, as Yehudit always is except in the Masoretic or synagogue Chumash versions, it is impossible to tell the two apart.

120:3 MAH YITEN LACH U MAH YOSIPH LACH LASHON REMIYAH

מַה יִּתֵּן לְךָ וּמַה יֹּסִיף לָךְ לָשׁוֹן רְמִיָּה

KJ: What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?

BN: What shall be given to you, and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue?

120:4 CHITSEY GIBOR SHENUNIM IM GACHALEY RETAMIM

חִצֵּי גִבּוֹר שְׁנוּנִים עִם גַּחֲלֵי רְתָמִים

KJ: Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.

BN: Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of broom.

GIBOR: The word means "hero", or"great one", but was used specifically for the 36 bodyguards of the king, starting with David who inherited them from Yehonatan, the son of Sha'ul. One of their specialist tricks was to form six groups of six, and lock their swords together ceremonially, each sestet creating a star shape; with this they then surrounded the king, providing him with a shield: Magen David, the "Star (really the shield) of David".

GACHALEY RETAMIM: We are dealing with sin, and asking how it should be dealt with, and ascending the ramp to the altar, for precisely that purpose. See Leviticus 16:12, which gives us the instructions for how exactly to do this on Yom Kippur, both the burning coals for the sacrificial altar, and the "sweet incense" as it is called there, for which broom (click here) would definitely be one of the candidates, and specifically Ruscus Hypophylum, which is commonplace in Yisra-El. Having said which, some translators reckon the RETAMIM are juniper rather than broom; even more likely for the incense, and four varieties in Yisra-El to choose from.

120:5 OYAH LI KI GARTI MESHECH SHACHANTI IM AHALEY KEDAR

אוֹיָה לִי כִּי גַרְתִּי מֶשֶׁךְ שָׁכַנְתִּי עִם אָהֳלֵי קֵדָר

KJ: Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!

BN: Woe is me, that I sojourn with Meshech, that I dwell beside the tents of Kedar!

OYAH: Is that not feminine? And LACH rather than LECHA in the pevious verse.

MESHECH: See my notes at the link. I strongly suspect that the Bedou inhabiting the Kidron valley were from the tribe of Meschech, and that the term had much the same tone to it as the tribes known as the Roma and the Sinti still have in Europe today.

KEDAR: We know of Kedar from the Song of Songs, but probably the allusion here is to a Bedou tribe living in the foothills of Yeru-Shala'im, where the name Kedar is etymologically linked to the brook Kidron.

120:6 RABAT SHACHNAH LAH NAPHSHI IM SON'E SHALOM

רַבַּת שָׁכְנָה לָּהּ נַפְשִׁי עִם שׂוֹנֵא שָׁלוֹם

KJ: My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.

BN: For a very long time, my soul has shared a dwelling with he who hates peace.

The order of the Psalms remains unexplained, but sometimes we see, or think we see, groupings. So the tone of this verse seems to follow entirely logically the Psalm that preceded it.

SHACHNAH: Impossible to hear this word, then as much as now, and not also hear SHECHINAH. Which also endorses my earlier noting of several unexpected feminines. I wonder if this was originally a hymn to the mother-goddess, Yah, masculinised at some later date. Logical enough, given where it was being chanted.

SHALOM: Never forget that "peace" is a very narrow translation of SHALOM. The root means "wholeness". It is also the root that yields the names Yeru-Shala'im, Shelomoh (Solomon), Av-Shalom (Absalom), Salome... Though, as here, it may also be used in that narrow form, and mean "peace".

120:7 ANI SHALOM VE CHI ADABER HEMAH LA MILCHAMAH

אֲנִי שָׁלוֹם וְכִי אֲדַבֵּר הֵמָּה לַמִּלְחָמָה

KJ: I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.

BN: I am all peace; but when I speak, they are for war. {P}

Why seven verses for a Psalm of ascent? Click here. But also note that there were fifteen steps leading up from the Women's Court to the Men's Court. Why fifteen? Letters are used for numbers in Yehudit. Yud-Hey spells 15, and also YAH (I think I mentioned that earlier! But I wilfully only gave one explanation, because the text had not yet clarified which meaning of MA'ALOT was in use here). Can we now assume that there would have been a Song of Ascents sung by the women as they came up to the Men's Court, one verse per step, and then this song for the men and women to sing together, as they climbed the seven steps along the ramp up to the altar? Or did they sing an entire Psalm on each of the fifteen steps - the whole exercise would only take about twenty minutes, even singing very slowly and pausing between steps?

120 - 7 verses

121 - 8

122 - 9

123 - 4

124 - 8

125 - 5

126 - 6

127 - 5

128 - 6

129 - 8

130 - 8

131 - 3

132 - 18