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This introductory question, sung as the procession climbed the steep, had realised what was needed for those who should get the entrance that they sought, and comes to be a very significant and important one.

I. THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONS. It lies deep in all men's hearts, and underlies sacrifices and priesthoods and asceticisms of all sorts. It sometimes rises in the thoughts of the most degraded, and it is present always with some of the better and nobler of men. It indicates that, for life and blessedness, men must get somehow to the side of God, and be quiet there, as children in their father's house. The universal consciousness is, that this fellowship with God, which is indispensable to a man's peace, is impossible to a man's impurity. So the question raises the thought of the consciousness of sin which comes creeping over a man when he is sometimes feeling after God, and seems to batter him in the face and fling him back into the outer darkness. That this question should rise and insist upon being answered as it does proves these three things — man's need of God, man's sense of God's purity, man's consciousness of his own sin. The "ascent of the hill of the Lord" includes all the present life, and all the future.

II. THE ANSWER TO THIS GREAT QUESTION. The Psalm contains the qualifications necessary. They are four. They mean, "Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." An impossible requirement is laid down, broad and stern and unmistakable. But is that all? Read on in Psalm, "He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation." So then, the impossible requirement is made possible as a gift to be received. In Jesus Christ there is the new life bestowed that will develop the righteousness far beyond our reach.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

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KJV: Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?

WEB: Who may ascend to Yahweh's hill? Who may stand in his holy place?