Psalm 132:9

Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Clothed with righteousness.—The original is “salvation,” as below in Psalm 132:16, though the Hebrew word is slightly varied. This variation, however, is an almost positive proof that the psalmist, not the chronicler, is adopting words for his own purpose.

Possibly the priestly garments are mentioned, not only as symbolic of righteousness, but also as investing whoever possessed them, with supremacy political as well as religious. This is rendered more probable by the express mention of the diadem below (Psalm 132:18, see Note). “Whoever had these, the priestly paraphernalia, in his possession, had virtually the appointment to the office (high priest)” (Stanley, J. C. iii. 353). But if so, the Vulgate of the verse, in the form it has passed from the Breviary into Anglican worship, has amply recovered for the verse its larger and deeper spiritual intention: “Endue Thy ministers with righteousness, and make Thy chosen people joyful.”

Saints—chasîdîm. Here very possibly technical of the party so called in the Maccabæan period. (See Note, Psalm 16:10.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

132:1-10 David bound himself to find a place for the Lord, for the ark, the token of God's presence. When work is to be done for the Lord, it is good to tie ourselves to a time. It is good in the morning to fix upon work for the day, with submission to Providence, for we know not what a day may bring forth. And we should first, and without delay, seek to have our own hearts made a habitation of God through the Spirit. He prays that God would take up his dwelling in the habitation he had built; that he would give grace to the ministers of the sanctuary to do their duty. David pleads that he was the anointed of the Lord, and this he pleads as a type of Christ, the great Anointed. We have no merit of our own to plead; but, for His sake, in whom there is a fulness of merit, let us find favour. And every true believer in Christ, is an anointed one, and has received from the Holy One the oil of true grace. The request is, that God would not turn away, but hear and answer their petitions for his Son's sake.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness - This is also substantially the same language that was used by Solomon at the dedication of the temple. See again 2 Chronicles 6:41. The idea is, that in the service of such a God, the priests, the ministers of religion, should be holy. The honor of religion demanded it. It was the first qualification of those who "served the altar;" a qualification without which all other endowments would be valueless. On the word clothed, see the notes at Psalm 35:26; compare Psalm 65:13; Psalm 93:1; Psalm 104:1; Isaiah 61:10; 1 Peter 5:5.

And let thy saints shout for joy - Thy holy ones; all who truly worship and honor thee. Let them be happy in such a God; in thy presence; in thy service. The fact that there is a God, and such a God, and that this God is ours - that we may serve him, glorify him, enjoy him - is suited to fill the mind with joy.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8, 9. The solemn entry of the ark, symbolical of God's presence and power, with the attending priests, into the sanctuary, is proclaimed in the words used by Solomon (2Ch 6:41).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

With righteousness; not only with those outward sacerdotal garments of glory and beauty which thou hast appointed for them, but especially with those inward ornaments of righteousness and true holiness, that so their persons and services may be accepted by thee, both for themselves and for all thy people, and they may be clothed with salvation, as it is expressed here below, Psalm 132:16 2 Chronicles 6:41, which is the effect or consequent of the former clothing. Let thy saints shout for joy; let all thy people have cause of rejoicing in the tokens of thy goodness; which they eminently had at the dedication of the temple, as is noted, 1 Kings 8:66.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness,.... In 2 Chronicles 6:41; it is, "with salvation", as in Psalm 132:16. Either the ministers of the word; who may be said to be clothed with righteousness when they perform their work righteously, and faithfully dispense the word, keep back nothing that is profitable, and administer the ordinances according to the rules of Christ; and when their lives and conversations are agreeable to the Gospel they preach; see Job 29:14; or else all true believers; who are priests as well as kings unto God; and who are clothed with the robe of Christ's righteousness; and with the internal graces of the Spirit, the new man created in righteousness and true holiness; and with conversation garments, becoming the Gospel, and their profession of it;

and let thy saints shout for joy; the Levites; thy Holy Ones, as the Targum; so Kimchi, Arama, and others; the singers in the temple: but rather the Lord's sanctified ones, true believers under the Gospel dispensation, are meant; who shout for joy, and have reason so to do, at the incarnation of Christ, at his ascension to heaven, at the Gospel preached by his ministers, and at the robe of righteousness with which they are clothed. In 2 Chronicles 6:41 it is, "rejoice in goodness"; in the goodness of the Lord; in the good things bestowed on them, or promised to them.

Geneva Study Bible

Let thy priests be clothed with {f} righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy.

(f) Let the effect of your grace appear both in the priests and in the people.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness] May those who minister in the sanctuary be worthy servants of a righteous God, fit representatives of a righteous nation (Isaiah 26:2)! The white priestly garments were intended to be symbolical of purity of character (Revelation 19:8). For the metaphor cp. Job 29:14.

let thy saints &c.] May thy chosen people worship there with jubilant rejoicing! For the meaning of thy saints, i.e. thy beloved, or thy godly ones, see Appendix, Note I.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness. In 2 Chronicles the expression used is "with salvation" - salvation being the effect, whereof "righteousness" is the cause. And let thy saints shout for joy. 2 Chronicles has, "rejoice in goodness," i.e. rejoice in God's goodness to them. There is no other sufficient reason for great joy. Psalm 132:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In Psalm 132:6 begins the language of the church, which in this Psalm reminds Jahve of His promises and comforts itself with them. Olshausen regards this Psalm 132:6 as altogether inexplicable. The interpretation nevertheless has some safe starting-points. (1) Since the subject spoken of is the founding of a fixed sanctuary, and one worthy of Jahve, the suffix of שׁמענוּה (with Chateph as in Hosea 8:2, Ew. ֗60, a) and מצאנוּה refers to the Ark of the covenant, which is fem. also in other instances (1 Samuel 4:17; 2 Chronicles 8:11). (2) The Ark of the covenant, fetched up out of Shiloh by the Israelites to the battle at Ebenezer, fell into the hands of the victors, and remained, having been again given up by them, for twenty years in Kirjath-Jearim (1 Samuel 7:1.), until David removed it out of this Judaean district to Zion (2 Samuel 6:2-4; cf. 2 Chronicles 1:4). What is then more natural than that שׂדי־יער is a poetical appellation of Kirjath-Jearim (cf. "the field of Zoan" in Psalm 78:12)? Kirjath-Jearim has, as a general thing, very varying names. It is also called Kirjath-ha-jearim in Jeremiah 26:20 (Kirjath-'arim in Ezra 2:25, cf. Joshua 18:28), Kirjath-ba'al in Joshua 16:1-10 :50, Ba'alah in Joshua 15:9; 1 Chronicles 13:6 (cf. Har-ha-ba'alah, Joshua 15:11, with Har-Jearim in Joshua 15:10), and, as it seems, even Ba'al Jehudah in 2 Samuel 6:2. Why should it not also have been called Ja'ar side by side with Kirjath-Jearim, and more especially if the mountainous district, to which the mention of a hill and mountain of Jearim points, was, as the name "city of the wood" implies, at the same time a wooded district? We therefore fall in with Khnl's (1799) rendering: we found it in the meadows of Jaar, and with his remark: "Jaar is a shortened name of the city of Kirjath-Jearim."

The question now further arises as to what Ephrathah is intended to mean. This is an ancient name of Bethlehem; but the Ark of the covenant never was in Bethlehem. Accordingly Hengstenberg interprets, "We knew of it in Bethlehem (where David had spent his youth) only by hearsay, no one had seen it; we found it in Kirjath-Jearim, yonder in the wooded environs of the city, where it was as it were buried in darkness and solitude." So even Anton Hulsius (1650): Ipse David loquitur, qui dicit illam ipsam arcam, de qua quum adhuc Bethlehemi versaretur inaudivisset, postea a se (vel majroibus suis ipso adhuc minorenni) inventam fuisse in campis Jaar. But (1) the supposition that David's words are continued here does not harmonize with the way in which they are introduced in Psalm 132:2, according to which they cannot possibly extend beyond the vow that follows. (2) If the church is speaking, one does not see why Bethlehem is mentioned in particular as the place of the hearsay. (3) We heard it in Ephrathah cannot well mean anything else than, per antiptosin (as in Genesis 1:4, but without כּי), we heard that it was in Ephrathah. But the Ark was before Kirjath-Jearim in Shiloh. The former lay in the tribe of Judah close to the western borders of Benjamin, the latter in the midst of the tribe of Ephraim. Now since אפרתי quite as often means an Ephraimite as it does a Bethlehemite, it may be asked whether Ephrathah is not intended of the Ephraimitish territory (Khnl, Gesenius, Maurer, Tholuck, and others). The meaning would then be: we had heard that the sacred Ark was in Shiloh, but we found it not there, but in Kirjath-Jearim. And we can easily understand why the poet has mentioned the two places just in this way. Ephrāth, according to its etymon, is fruitful fields, with which are contrasted the fields of the wood - the sacred Ark had fallen from its original, more worthy abode, as it were, into the wilderness. But is it probable, more especially in view of Micah 5:1, that in a connection in which the memory of David is the ruling idea, Ephrathah signifies the land of Ephraim? No, Ephrathah is the name of the district in which Kirjath-Jearim lay. Caleb had, for instance, by Ephrath, his third wife, a son named Hr (Chr), 1 Chronicles 2:19, This Hr, the first-born of Ephrathah, is the father of the population of Bethlehem (1 Chronicles 4:4), and Shobal, a son of this Hr, is father of the population of Kirjath-Jearim (1 Chronicles 2:50). Kirjath-Jearim is therefore, so to speak, the daughter of Bethlehem. This was called Ephrathah in ancient times, and this name of Bethlehem became the name of its district (Micah 5:1). Kirjath-Jearim belonged to Caleb-Ephrathah (1 Chronicles 2:24), as the northern part of this district seems to have been called in distinction from Negeb-Caleb (1 Samuel 30:14).

But משׁכּנותיו in Psalm 132:7 is now neither a designation of the house of Abinadab in Kirjath-Jearim, for the expression would be too grand, and in relation to Psalm 132:5 even confusing, nor a designation of the Salomonic Temple-building, for the expression standing thus by itself is not enough alone to designate it. What is meant will therefore be the tent-temple erected by David for the Ark when removed to Zion (2 Samuel 7:2, יריעה). The church arouses itself to enter this, and to prostrate itself in adoration towards (vid., Psalm 99:5) the footstool of Jahve, i.e., the Ark; and to what purpose? The ark of the covenant is now to have a place more worthy of it; the מנוּחה, i.e., the בּית מנוּחה, 1 Chronicles 28:2, in which David's endeavours have through Solomon reached their goal, is erected: let Jahve and the Ark of His sovereign power, that may not be touched (see the examples of its inviolable character in 1 Samuel 5:1-12, 1 Samuel 6, 2 Samuel 6:6.), now enter this fixed abode! Let His priests who are to serve Him there clothe themselves in "righteousness," i.e., in conduct that is according to His will and pleasure; let His saints, who shall there seek and find mercy, shout for joy! More especially, however, let Jahve for David's sake, His servant, to whose restless longing this place of rest owes its origin, not turn back the face of His anointed one, i.e., not reject his face which there turns towards Him in the attitude of prayer (cf. Psalm 84:10). The chronicler has understood Psalm 132:10 as an intercession on behalf of Solomon, and the situation into which we are introduced by Psalm 132:6-8 seems to require this. It is, however, possible that a more recent poet here, in Psalm 132:7-8, reproduces words taken from the heart of the church in Solomon's time, and blends petitions of the church of the present with them. The subject all through is the church, which is ever identical although changing in the persons of its members. The Israel that brought the sacred Ark out of Kirjath-Jearim to Zion and accompanied it thence to the Temple-hill, and now worships in the sanctuary raised by David's zeal for the glory of Jahve, is one and the same. The prayer for the priests, for all the saints, and more especially for the reigning king, that then resounded at the dedication of the Temple, is continued so long as the history of Israel lasts, even in a time when Israel has no king, but has all the stronger longing for the fulfilment of the Messianic promise.