Psalm 122 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 122 (1928 BCP) (Lætatus sum) is a pilgrim song of joyful approach to the house of the LORD in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (1928) Psalter. The book appoints it at Morning Prayer on the Twenty-seventh Day of the month. Its movement is from invitation, through the gates of Jerusalem, to intercession for the city's peace; thus it joins corporate worship, justice, fellowship, and prayer for the good of others.
Prayer Book Text
The 1928 Psalter prints the Latin title Lætatus sum and places Psalm 122 after Psalm 121 in the Twenty-seventh-Day Morning Prayer sequence. Verses 1–3 establish the Psalm's glad arrival:
I WAS glad when they said unto me, * We will go into the house of the LORD. 2 Our feet shall stand in thy gates, * O Jerusalem. 3 Jerusalem is built as a city * that is at unity in itself.
The speaker does not delight merely in private religious feeling. Others say, “We will go,” and the answer is gladness. The gates name a concrete destination, while “at unity in itself” introduces the Psalm's concern for a people gathered rather than scattered.
4 For thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the LORD, * to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the Name of the LORD. 5 For there is the seat of judgment, * even the seat of the house of David. 6 O pray for the peace of Jerusalem; * they shall prosper that love thee.
Thanksgiving and judgment belong together in this pilgrimage. The tribes go up to give thanks, but the city is also associated with Davidic judgment. Prayer for peace is consequently neither indifference to justice nor a slogan for one party's advantage: it seeks the ordered wellbeing of the community before God.
7 Peace be within thy walls, * and plenteousness within thy palaces. 8 For my brethren and companions' sakes, * I will wish thee prosperity. 9 Yea, because of the house of the LORD our God, * I will seek to do thee good.
The last three verses make the prayer personal without making it individualistic. The Psalmist seeks Jerusalem's good “for my brethren and companions' sakes” and because it is the place of the LORD's house. In the Daily Office, that grammar teaches worshippers to carry concern for neighbours into public prayer.
Jerusalem, worship, and the Church
The New Testament uses the imagery of household, temple, and a people built together to describe Gentiles and Jews reconciled in Christ:
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
This does not dissolve Psalm 122's historical voice as Israel's song about Jerusalem. It does explain a classic Christian reception of the Psalm: the joy of going to God's house is heard alongside Christ's work of making one household and one holy temple. The 1928 Office therefore lets Christians pray the Psalm as Scripture first and then hear its language within the Church's confession of reconciliation.
Augustine gives this explicitly ecclesial and eschatological reading to the song of ascent:
There is in heaven the eternal Jerusalem, where are our fellow citizens, the Angels: we are wanderers on earth from these our fellow citizens. We sigh in our pilgrimage; we shall rejoice in the city. But we find companions in this pilgrimage, who have already seen this city herself; who summon us to run towards her.
This is a theological reception, not a claim that the Psalm has no reference to earthly Jerusalem. Augustine's emphasis on companions helps illuminate verse 1: the Psalm's gladness is social, because pilgrims call one another toward God's dwelling.
A city being built
The Prayer Book wording “at unity in itself” is particularly suited to reflection on a city held together. Augustine attends to the related wording of the Latin Psalter and connects the city's being built with the Church as a spiritual house:
This city is therefore now in building; stones are cut down from the hills by the hands of those who preach truth, they are squared that they may enter into an everlasting structure. There are still many stones in the hands of the Builder: let them not fall from His hands, that they may be built perfect into the structure of the temple.
The image strengthens rather than weakens the Psalm's communal demand. A building is not a collection of disconnected stones; it has a foundation, order, and mutual fitting-together. Ephesians 2 supplies a New Testament counterpart, while Psalm 122 itself directs the worshipper to the shared acts of thanksgiving, judgement, and intercession that sustain a common life.
Augustine also identifies stability, rather than mere civic pride, as the object of the pilgrim's desire:
That city which partakes in the same, partakes in its stability: justly therefore, since he is made a sharer in its stability, says he who runs there. For all things there stand where nought passes by. Do you too wish to stand there and not to pass by? Run there.
His language distinguishes the final stability sought in God from any easy identification of an earthly polity with the kingdom of God. Christians may pray concretely for cities and their neighbours, as Psalm 122 commands, while also confessing that every temporal city remains in need of judgement, mercy, and peace.
Prayer for peace
Psalm 122's request for peace ends in active concern: “I will seek to do thee good.” Augustine reads the peace of Jerusalem through charity:
Love is a powerful thing, my brethren, love is a powerful thing. Do ye wish to see how powerful a thing love is? ... If charity be destitute of means, so that it cannot find what to bestow upon the poor, let it love: let it give one cup of cold water.
The Psalm itself gives the immediate reason for such prayer: brothers, companions, and the house of the LORD. Augustine's application to charity is therefore a historical Christian interpretation of the Psalm's peace, not a substitute for its words. It keeps prayer from becoming abstraction: the love of Jerusalem appears in seeking another's good.
For my brethren and companions' sake, I spoke peace of you. O Jerusalem, thou city whose partaking is in The Same, I in this life and on this earth, I poor, he says, I a stranger and groaning, not as yet enjoying to the full your peace, and preaching your peace; preach it not for my own sake ... I spoke peace of you, for my brethren and companions' sakes.
For Anglican use, Psalm 122 can therefore be prayed for the Church's visible fellowship, for the peace and just order of places where Christians live, and for the grace to pursue the good of neighbours. It does not authorize complacency. Its answer to division is a pilgrimage of shared thanksgiving, truthful judgement, intercession, and practical love.
Use in the Daily Office
At Twenty-seventh-Day Morning Prayer, Psalm 122 follows Psalm 121's confession that the LORD keeps his people. The sequence moves from guarded pilgrimage to joyful arrival, and then continues through Psalms 123–125 in prayerful dependence. Psalm 122 may be used especially in intercession for congregations, civil communities, reconciliation, and those travelling toward worship; its own language requires that such petitions seek peace for the sake of brothers, companions, and the house of the LORD.
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- The Psalter (1928 BCP)
- Daily Office (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 121 (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 123 (1928 BCP)
External Links
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 122, Lætatus sum, vv. 1–3, “The Twenty-seventh Day: Morning Prayer”; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The title, appointment, verse order, punctuation, and wording were compared word for word with
sources/justus1928/Psalms3.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 122, vv. 4–6; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The text was checked against the named local 1928 source.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 122, vv. 7–9; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The text was checked against the named local 1928 source.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1769), Ephesians 2:19–22; Bible Gateway, “Ephesians 2:19–22, KJV”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 122, §2, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 122”. The quotation was checked against the named transcription of Tweed's translation.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 122, §4, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 122”. The wording and section were checked against the cited source.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 122, §6, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 122”. The wording and section were checked against the cited source.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 122, §10, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 122”. The ellipsis represents Augustine's intervening rhetorical question; the surrounding words were checked against the cited source.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 122, §13, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 122”. Ellipses mark intervening words in the cited translation; the beginning, conclusion, and contextual interpretation were checked against the source.