PSALM 125

During the winter months, there is a Jewish tradition of studying a special set of psalms - "tehilim" - on Shabbat afternoons. These psalms, #120-#134, are known as the Shir HaMaalot/Songs of Ascent psalms, as that is the first phrase in each psalm.  Each week, one of these psalms will be presented here.  We have so far covered Psalm 104, the Psalm for the New Month, and Psalms 120-124. This week, we look at Psalm 125, which we can find in Sefaria at https://www.sefaria.org/Psalms.125?lang=bi.

Psalm 125 continues our journey up the Temple Mount, using many of the modes common in these psalms. We have a song of holy confidence (verses 1-2), a promise (verse 3), a prayer for divine aid (verse 4), and a final note of warning. Below, we have two ways of considering the psalm.  We have the actual text, mixed with the classic Rashi commentary. In addition, I have added an incredible hymn written by Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a hero of the German anti-Nazi resistance, which was his personal meditation on Psalm 125. When he wrote this in 1944, he was in a prison cell, where he would spend the last two years of his life before he was murdered just days before the war ended.

Psalm 125.

A song of ascents.

Those who trust in G-d (will not falter) are like Mount Zion, that cannot be moved, enduring forever. Jerusalem, hills enfold it, and G-d enfolds this people now and forever (for just as Jerusalem is surrounded by mountains, so is the Holy One, blessed be he, wrapped around his people).

The scepter of the wicked shall never rest upon the land allotted to the righteous, that the righteous not set their hand to wrongdoing (For the Holy One, blessed be he, will not allow the rule of the wicked to rest on the righteous because the righteous are careful not to stretch out their hand in wrongdoing).

Do good, O Eternal One, to the good, to the upright in heart.

But those who in their crookedness act corruptly (turning on the people with wicked accusations), let G-d make them go the way of evildoers (the Lord will lead them away with the workers of iniquity). May it be well with Israel!

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,

And confidently waiting, come what may,

We know that God is with us night and morning

And never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,

Still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;

O give our frightened souls the sure salvation

For which, O Lord, You taught us to prepare.

And when this cup You give is filled to brimming

With bitter suffering, hard to understand,

We take it thankfully and without trembling,

Out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world You give us

The joy we had, the brightness of Your sun,

We shall remember all the days we lived through,

And our whole life shall then be Yours alone.

            (translated by Fred Pratt Green, 1972)