Eighteen verses, the longest of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, and the only one built on two oaths that answer each other. In the first half a man swears he will not sleep until he has found God a place; in the second half God swears back, to David, about a throne. Verses 8 to 10 turn up almost word for word at the close of Solomon's dedication prayer in 2 Chronicles 6, which is the clearest sign of where the psalm belonged. Watch the verb for clothing: it is asked for in verse 9, granted in a changed form in verse 16, and turned against the enemies in verse 18.
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The psalm opens by asking God to remember, and what is to be remembered is not David's merit but his hardship. The request is filed before any argument for it is made.
2
אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַיהֹוָה נָדַר
לַאֲבִיר יַעֲקֹב
אֲשֶׁר
A-sher
who
נִשְׁבַּע
NISH-ba
he swore
לַיהֹוָה
lai-ho-VA
to the LORD
נָדַר
na-DAR
he vowed
how he swore to the LORD, vowed
לַאֲבִיר
la-a-VIR
to the Mighty One of
יַעֲקֹב
ya-a-KOV
Jacob
to the Mighty One of Jacob:
The content of the memory is an oath. This verb returns in verse 11 with the parties reversed, and that reversal is what joins the two halves of the psalm.
Hebrew oaths are stated as half a sentence. The word opening each line means if, and the curse that would complete it is left unsaid, so the effect in English is a flat refusal.
4
אִם אֶתֵּן שְׁנַת לְעֵינָי
לְעַפְעַפַּי תְּנוּמָה
אִם
im
if
אֶתֵּן
e-TEN
I give
שְׁנַת
shnat
sleep
לְעֵינָי
le-ei-NAI
to my eyes
I will not give sleep to my eyes,
לְעַפְעַפַּי
le-af-a-PAI
to my eyelids
תְּנוּמָה
te-nu-MA
slumber
slumber to my eyelids,
Sleep and slumber, eyes and eyelids: the second line narrows the first. The self denial is total but domestic, a man refusing his own bed rather than performing a feat.
The line borrows the formula spoken whenever the ark set out in the wilderness, with rest put where travel used to be. The journey is being declared over.
The first of the two requests that get answered later. Note exactly what is asked for here, righteousness, and hold it against what arrives in verse 16.
The plea rests entirely on someone else. David is long dead, and the whole argument is that a promise made to him is still owed to whoever sits in his place.
of the fruit of your body I will set on your throne.
The pivot of the psalm. The verb of verse 2 comes back with the parties exchanged: now God is the one swearing, and David is the one sworn to. Everything after this is answer, not request.
If your sons keep My covenant, and this testimony of Mine that I teach them,
גַּם
gam
also
בְּנֵיהֶם
BNEI-hem
their sons
עֲדֵי
a-DEI
unto
עַד
ad
perpetuity
יֵשְׁבוּ
yesh-VU
they shall sit
לְכִסֵּא
le-chi-SE
for the throne
לָךְ
lach
for you
their sons too, for ever, shall sit on your throne.
A condition attached to an oath that the previous verse called unturnable. Whether the grant is absolute or conditional is read both ways, and the psalm itself does not settle it.
God speaks in the first person for the first time. The resting place David went out looking for in verse 5 is claimed here, using the same word he used.
The answer to verse 9, and it does not match the request. Righteousness was asked for and salvation is given, and the shout is doubled by an emphatic verb form.
Two royal images, a horn that sprouts and a lamp kept ready. Both are living things: the dynasty is described as a plant and a flame, never as a building.
The clothing verb runs a third time, and this time it dresses the opposition. The psalm ends on a contrast rather than on a request.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Two halves, hinged on one verb. Verses 1 to 10 are the human side: a vow not to rest until God has a place, a search at בְאֶפְרָתָה (ve-ef-ra-ta, v.6) and יָעַר (ya-ar, v.6), a procession, and a plea that leans on a dead king's name. Verses 11 to 18 are the reply, spoken by God, and each request of the first half comes back altered. The prayer at קוּמָה (ku-ma, v.8) takes the words said whenever the ark set out in the wilderness and swaps the destination from marching to rest. Verses 8 to 10 appear again at the close of Solomon's dedication prayer in 2 Chronicles 6, which places this psalm in the world of the Temple rather than the road.
רמז · Remez: allusion
Three grammatical details carry the argument. First, the oaths at אִם (im, v.3) and אִם (im, v.12) open with the word if and never finish the sentence: a biblical oath cuts itself off before the self curse, so if I enter my house means I certainly will not. Second, the verb for clothing runs at יִלְבְּשׁוּ (yil-be-shu, v.9), אַלְבִּישׁ (al-bish, v.16) and אַלְבִּישׁ (al-bish, v.18), and the garment differs each time, so the request is granted, upgraded, then turned on the enemies. Third, בָּרֵךְ (ba-rech, v.15) sets an infinitive beside its own finite verb, the ordinary Hebrew way of saying that the thing will happen and there is no arguing about it. The two place names of verse 6 are disputed: Ephrathah is usually read as the region of Bethlehem and the fields of יָעַר (ya-ar, v.6) as Kiriath-Jearim, where the ark stood before David moved it, but that identification is an inference from the names and is not stated in the psalm.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
The tension readers keep returning to is between נִשְׁבַּע (nish-ba, v.11), an oath God says He will not turn back from, and the condition in verse 12 that hangs the throne on whether David's sons keep the covenant. One line of reading takes the promise as unconditional and the condition as governing only unbroken rule; another takes the whole grant as conditional and the exile as its proof. Both readings are old, and this psalm does not decide between them. Verse 10 is the classic text for arguing from the merit of someone already dead: the petitioner offers nothing of his own and asks only that an old commitment be honoured. Chronicles puts that same sentence in Solomon's mouth at the moment the Temple is dedicated, which is a use of the psalm rather than a comment on it.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
The controlling word is rest. It is the destination in קוּמָה (ku-ma, v.8) and God's own claim in verse 14, and in the mystical reading rest is not the absence of work but the state in which presence settles into a place and stops moving, which is why the same root names what the Sabbath is for. Zion is chosen by desire at אִוָּהּ (i-vah, v.13) and desired again at אִוִּתִיהָ (i-vi-ti-a, v.14), so the longing runs in both directions and the dwelling is something wanted before it is something built. The crown of the last verse blossoms rather than shines, which keeps the king inside the same vocabulary of growth already used for the horn and the lamp.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).