Psalms 134: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

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.

Claim by Claim

1. 134:1
   • This psalm is titled a Song of Ascents.
   • The psalm calls out to bless the LORD.
   • The call is addressed to all the servants of the LORD.
   • These servants stand in the house of the LORD.
   • They stand there by night.
2. 134:2
   • The hearers are told to lift up their hands.
   • The hands are to be lifted toward the sanctuary, or lifted in holiness; the wording allows either.
   • The hearers are told to bless the LORD.
3. 134:3
   • May the LORD bless you.
   • The blessing comes out of Zion.
   • The LORD made heaven and earth.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

134:1

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.

134:2

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.

134:3

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.