Psalms 134
What Happens in This Chapter
This short psalm is a call and a reply. Someone calls to the servants who keep watch in the LORD's house at night, telling them to lift their hands and praise the LORD. The answer comes back as a blessing on the hearer from the LORD who made the heavens and the earth, spoken from Zion. It is the last of the Songs of Ascents, the group of psalms sung by people traveling up to Jerusalem.
Now praise the LORD, all you who serve the LORD, you who stand on duty by night in the house of the LORD.
1Behold, bless ye the LORD, all ye servants of the LORD, which by night stand in the house of the LORD.
The "house of the LORD" is the temple in Jerusalem, and its "servants" here are the priests and Levites who staffed it, some in shifts through the night, guarding the gates and tending the lamps and the altar fire. When people "bless" God, the Hebrew word does not mean granting him something he lacks; it means kneeling to him and speaking well of him, which is why the rendering uses "praise." The same word comes back in verse 3 running the other direction. This is also the last of the fifteen "Songs of Ascents" (Psalms 120–134), a set of short psalms associated with pilgrims traveling up to Jerusalem; it reads like a closing exchange at the temple as night falls.
2Lift up your hands toward the holy place, and praise the LORD.
2Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD.
Standing with hands raised, palms open, was the ordinary posture for prayer in this period, the way kneeling or folded hands is for many readers now, not a sign of unusual emotion. The Hebrew phrase behind "toward the holy place" is ambiguous: it can mean lifting the hands toward the sanctuary (the temple's inner room, where God was understood to be present) or lifting them "in holiness," meaning with hands that are ritually clean.
3May the LORD, who made the heavens and the earth, bless you from Zion.
3The LORD that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion.
Zion was originally the fortified hill David captured in Jerusalem; by the time this psalm was written the name stood for the temple mount, and then for Jerusalem as a whole. Two things shift in this verse. The verb "bless" is the same one used in verses 1 and 2, but now God is the one doing it, and from him it means bestowing life, protection and increase. And "you" turns singular here, where verses 1 and 2 addressed a group, the night watch calls out together, and the reply comes back to each person one at a time.
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