{Disclaimer: these are my rough teaching notes I use in my Mishkan Katan weekly broadcasts. There will be "typos". Proceed at your own risk, lol.You can find all my Mishkan Katan video teachings on my YouTube channel: genahood2818 . Look on the playlist called Messianic LAMB TV Network.}
Good morning! Boker Tov! Today’s broadcast is an unusual one, in that it is not coming to you live. I’m one of those rare creatures who loves to teach live, for whatever the reason. I suspect it is because my mother had me performing, live in churches, singing gospel songs, when I was a mere five years old. So, the prospect does not scare me.
Anyway, my husband and I are away for a few days, across several states, which necessitated me pre-recording today’s teaching. I will look forward to being back with you live next week.
Today, we will do our best to finish the psalms of ascent. Let’s get to it. Turn with me in your Bible to psalm 129. Radak describes the Psalm as a song of Thanksgiving and praise. The Psalm details, the nation of Israel’s history, from its time in Egypt until the day the song was written. The nation has survived, massive efforts by the enemy to destroy it. The nation has had periods of weakness and periods of strength. Yet, despite all of its adversities, the nation of Israel has not been vanquished. Instead, any weird Jews have lived, they have flourished. Today, the nation of Israel is flourishing, indeed. Let’s read the 8 verses of this Psalm, which depicts the constant growth of God‘s most favored nation as it matured,and in its aging rose to meet challenges and overcame threats.
Psalm 129
Protection of the Oppressed
A song of ascents.
1 Since my youth they have often attacked me—
let Israel say—
2 since my youth they have often attacked me,
but they have not prevailed against me.
3 Plowmen plowed over my back;
they made their furrows long.
4 The Lord is righteous;
he has cut the ropes of the wicked.
5 Let all who hate Zion
be driven back in disgrace.
6 Let them be like grass on the rooftops,
which withers before it grows up[a]
7 and can’t even fill the hands of the reaper
or the arms of the one who binds sheaves.
8 Then none who pass by will say,
“May the Lord’s blessing be on you.
We bless you in the name of the Lord.”
Let’s do a quick review of just some of the oppressions the Jewish people have been subjected to over the course of their history. And, this is not even an exhaustive list. These first 11 empires who came against Israel are basically extinct, by the “empire” standard.
Ancient Egypt ( Hosea 11:1 )
Babylonian
Neo-Assyrian
Greek
Roman
Byzantine
Sassanian
Mongol
Spanish
Soviet
Nazi
Then, we currently have Israel battling Iran (Islam). While the outcome of that war is yet to be determined, I’m willing to place a bet that Iran won’t win it in the end. And last on the list, also in the “currently” category, is The West, which is becoming more antisemitic by the day!
On an even more triumphant note, here is a brief assessment by Israeli influencer, Hillel Fuld - - - Facebook post, August, 2026.
“The more our enemies terrorize us, the more we innovate.
The more darkness they bring, the brighter our light shines.
Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey in the worst neighborhood on earth is fighting a war on seven fronts while breaking records in M&A, in strategic financing, in export, and showing no signs of slowing down.
This is just the latest piece of news about this remarkable country! 🇮🇱🇮🇱”
Amen.
You may wonder why, at the beginning of verse two the same phrase is repeated that we see in verse one. I wondered that also. The commentator say that the Psalmist decided to repeat these words to indicate that the threat which ancient Egypt posed against Israel was two-fold. It was first physical, and then it was also spiritual. The Egyptians, according to the sages attempted to rob Israel of its identification with Hashim by forbidding them to circumcise their baby sons. However, we learn in Joshua chapter 5 verse five that all those who left Egypt were circumcised. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, however, the newborn males were not circumcised during the decades the tribes were in the wilderness. That’s why they had to be circumcised shortly before they entered the promised land.
Verse three presents such an interesting word picture. Imagine someone walking with a plow that is pulled by a horse, and that plow is digging up the Earth making furrows in the Earth. And in front of the horse lies a man, face down on the dirt. The donkey walks over him, and the plow goes over his back, over his body. That is a horrific mental image, isn’t it?
The verse is reminiscent of Isaiah 51: 23, which says “They said to your soul, ‘bow down, that we may go over’ and you laid your body flat like the ground, and like the open street for those who cross over.” It goes beyond mere oppression to torture! According to the commentator Sforno, this verse, 129:3, points forward to the destruction of the second temple. The son of the Emperor, an aspiring ruler named Titus, lead the charge to destroy the second temple in Jerusalem. He left it a mass of rubble. However, 60 years after this, a Roman named Rufus had the entire Temple Mount completely plowed over, in order to crush and obliterate every trace of this holy site. The Talmud says that like the destruction itself, this plowing under occurred on the ninth of Av, that infamous day.
The second half of this psalm details swap will happen to the wicked people who oppress the people of God. In verses four and five, we see that God who is ultimately and always righteous, will set free his people from the bounds, from the ropes of wicked people.Then those who have pressed his people, that is those who hate Zion, will be ashamed and punished. Versus six through eight contain an analogy and a judgment on those people. We don’t have many examples of grass growing on rooftops in our current day.
In a small town, not far from me, a tourist town, there is a restaurant that has goats which graze on the rooftop. Grass has been planted up there, and periodically a small herd of goats is released to go up there and graze on it. It is a sensational tourist attraction. However, this verse refers to grass that is not intentionally planted. In centuries passed, roofs were not made of shingles or metal. They were made of sod. In this type of situation grass would sprout haphazardly in tiny patches of dirt on the roof, such grass would not be well rooted in deep, healthy soil. And so therefore this wild grass would not flourish. It would be more like a parasite which would wither with the passage of time. In a similar way, Israel’s enemies who have sought to exploit Israel’s wealth and talents… They too are doomed to perish. Ultimately, they will be destroyed, as have been those in that list I gave, when we first began to talk about Psalm 129 today.
If you will, make a note concerning verse eight for Ruth chapter 2 verse four. In that verse, when Boaz encountered the reapers, he blessed them by saying “God be with you“. It was customary in that day for people to greet reapers by invoking God‘s blessing on them. However, such greetings were extended only when the harvest was bountiful and plentiful, only when it was a bountiful blessing from God. The reason that the passer buys referenced in verse eight here never invoke a blessing upon the reverse which are mentioned in verse seven is because the grass that was mentioned inverse six was not bountiful. Instead, it was plagued by drought and under a curse.
Such withered nations will not be given a blessing. History has demonstrated that these gentile nations who oppose God’s people have a relatively short history. In their early days, they may appear to prosper, but they never live up to the expectations of their youth. They eventually disintegrate and vanish from the stage of history. The psalmist talks about this in Psalm 92, especially vs. 7, and 13-16, if you would like to flip back there for a moment.
Those verses say “when the wicked bloom like grass and all the iniquitous blossom, it is to destroy them till eternity.” And now verse 13… “A righteous man will flourish like a date, palm, like a cedar in Lebanon he will grow tall they will still be fruitful in old age, full of sap and freshness they will be. To declare that God is just, my Rock, in whom there is no wrong.”
Psalm 130 Carrie’s themes of repentance and forgiveness. The Songs of Ascent were given to raise the spirits of the faithful. This is always important, but never more so than when someone or some nation is being severely oppressed. In our country today, it is frequently that righteous people feel they are being oppressed. Antisemitism is rising in our country. Therefore, the Jews are feeling increasingly, less safe here. Non-Jews, who follow the Lord God live our lives in a society that is becoming more and more evil and hostile to righteousness. It’s not easy.
Prior to 1948, in the previous two millennia, the Jews believed that exile and these types of misfortunes came about as a result of the peoples own sins. I don’t disagree with that. But in this psalm, the people are crying out in sincere repentance. The people are longing for forgiveness, for God to accept their repentance favorably. And so the song ends with a declaration of complete faith in Hashem’s desire to accept the people’s repentance.
Let’s read the eight verses of Psalm 130 together.
A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I call to you, Lord!
2 Lord, listen to my voice;
let your ears be attentive
to my cry for help.
3 Lord, if you kept an account of iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
so that you may be revered.
5 I wait for the Lord; I wait
and put my hope in his word.
6 I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning—
more than watchmen for the morning.
7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord.
For there is faithful love with the Lord,
and with him is redemption in abundance.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.
Several years ago, there was a popular expression that went like this. “It’s the pits!“ When someone would make that exclamation, they were basically saying that the situation they were describing was just about as bad as you could get. I believe that expression derived from the first verse of psalm 130. When you feel like you’re in a situation that couldn’t possibly be or get any worse, than you were at the very bottom of the well. You are in the pits. You are “in the depths,” as it says here in the CJB translation.
Often times, for reasons I can’t explain fully, we wait until we are at the very bottom before we cry out to God for help. What is that? Do we honestly think we can handle the situation better than he can? Yet, that is often what we do. We see the psalmist in such a situation here. He is in the depths. The say, just say that the sadist chose the plural form, depths, as opposed to depth, singular, to emphasize that the nation of Israel was drowning in many deep sorrows, not just one particular situation. The sages have decided a allocate principle from this verse, namely, that we should offer our prayers from a low posture. Not standing upon a high place when we pray, such as standing upon a bed, a chair, a bunch of stew, etc. We should adopt a posture which conveys no hardiness or pridefulness one of the presence of the Almighty. I thought that was interesting commentary. Traditionally, it is believed that kneeling, or bowing the knee to pray, is preferable. I confess that I don’t usually buy on my knees when I pray. I don’t know about you.
Inverse who the song is appears to be praying, and a loud voice, or perhaps wailing as he prays. It is obvious that the Sam is extremely agitated with misery, consuming him, and robbing him of his peace of mind. The fact that he cries out is a symptom of how anguish he truly is.
Inverse three, the smallest references his iniquities. He does not deny that he and his nation have sent abundantly. He points out that if God were to preserve sins or refused to forgive sins until people were totally deserving, then nobody could be forgiven. How grateful we should be that our Messiah has made a way for us to become right with God through him, made away for our sins to be forever forgiven. Verse three expresses the futility of trying to earn forgiveness on our own. This verse basically says that such a strategy is impossible.
God‘s forgiveness is like medicine, a soothing salve rubbed into a painful wound on our body. Send introduces despair into the life of the person who seeks after God. But forgiveness gives him hope that he can continue to serve God. If there were no forgiveness, we would become so demoralized, so completely devastated, that we would be thoroughly discouraged from pursuing God‘s will.
And why does God forgive us? Through the merits and finished work of his son, he provides forgiveness and eternal salvation so that we will love and fear him, love and reverence him. He belongs to have a deep and meaningful relationship with each one of his children. Wise earthly parents do the same. A child may hurt the heart of his parent, but the wise parent forgives and seeks restoration, for his own good and also for the good of his child.
The Noam Megadim makes commentary on this verse as follows:
“ When a person commits a sin, he has not merely become guilty in a legal sense; rather, he has erected a barrier of dense, profane darkness between himself and God. This obstruction makes the sinner less aware of God‘s presence and hence diminishes his awe of the Master of the Universe. Thus, when God forgives the sinner, He does more than wipe away his guilt. Divine pardon means that the barriers which separated the sinner from God are removed. Then the penitent is blessed with new awareness of God, so that he can fear him with heightened intensity.”
Verse five is reminiscent of lamentations three verse 25, which says “ God is good to those who placed confidence in Him; to the soul that seeks Him.”
About verses six through eight, the sage Radak commented that devout and Pius Jews, actually arise early to begin their morning. Prayers before the Dawn. And so doing, they are demonstrating their yearning for the Lord, as described in this verse. The phrase “those longing for the dawn” is repeated here for emphasis. These are people who looked and still look for their red redemption from the Lord as a nation morning after morning, faithfully. Their hope is in the Lord, because they trust in his kindness, and they are certain that their nation, Israel, will ultimately be redeemed from all of its iniquities.
Next, we will look at Psalm 131, which is along with Psalm 133 the shortest of all of the psalms of ascent. In the Psalm, King David speaks of his humility and of his trusting, childlike soul. He approaches the Almighty with genuine humility. Look with me for a moment at Deuteronomy 17 we’re going to look at versus 14 through 20.
14 “When you have entered the land Adonai your God is giving you, have taken possession of it and are living there, you may say, ‘I want to have a king over me, like all the other nations around me.’ 15 In that event, you must appoint as king the one whom Adonaiyour God will choose. He must be one of your kinsmen, this king you appoint over you — you are forbidden to appoint a foreigner over you who is not your kinsman. 16 However, he is not to acquire many horses for himself or have the people return to Egypt to obtain more horses, inasmuch as Adonai told you never to go back that way again. 17 Likewise, he is not to acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart will not turn away; and he is not to acquire excessive quantities of silver and gold.
18 “When he has come to occupy the throne of his kingdom, he is to write a copy of this Torah for himself in a scroll, from the one the cohanim and L’vi’im use. 19 It is to remain with him, and he is to read in it every day, as long as he lives; so that he will learn to fear Adonai his God and keep all the words of this Torah and these laws and obey them; 20 so that he will not think he is better than his kinsmen; and so that he will not turn aside either to the right or to the left from the mitzvah. In this way he will prolong his own reign and that of his children in Isra’el.
So you can see from these verses from Deuteronomy that the Kings subjects were obligated to honor him, but the king was also obligated to be modest, to be meek and to hold his ego in check. A king was required to remain humble, not exulting, his heart above his brothers. The sage is believed and have taught that David was able to foresee that one day. The Jewish nation would go into exile. He is making the point in the Psalm that only their sincere humility will bring about their redemption.
Let’s read Psalm 131.
1 Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not get involved with things
too great or too wondrous for me.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like a weaned child.
3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
both now and forever.
Verse two in the CJB translation is not a good reflection of the actual Hebrew. There is a phrase there that literally says, “if not” . The dramatic usage here is a form of oath and would be better translated as “I swear”. In other words, “let dire circumstances result of this is not the truth.” He had just stated that he did not overextend his abilities or pursue knowledge that was too great or lofty for him. He “stayed in his lane”, so to speak, and he did it with humility. When I think about it, a nursing child (as it is translated in some translations) is totally dependent on its mother for sustenance. David is portraying his total dependency on God, and his total contentment with the situation, by using that analogy.
Psalm 132, in contrast to psalm 131, is the longest of the Psalms of Ascent, at 18 verses. Most people will leave their earthly life with unresolved issues or unfulfilled longings or both. One of David’s was that he be allowed to build the holy temple. That was not part of God’s plan. However, if you read the opening lines of Psalm 30, David was credited with having contributed so significantly to the building of the temple, due to all the pain staking efforts he had made toward the project. And for this reason, we are told that Psalm 30 was some at the inauguration of the temple.
The commentator say that David wrote this psalm in regards to three separate events related to the temple. The first of these involved his trying to discover the spot where the altar of the temple would stand. Before he died, he did build an altar on that very spot. And then the third event was that when Solomon built the temple, he made the altar. It’s focal point.The fortunes of David’s family are bound up in the temple. One day, and may it be soon and in our day, the fourth temple, the one described in Ezekiel, will be built. And concurrent with that event will be the re-establishment of the royal seed of David upon the throne in Jerusalem. That regent will be none other than our Mashiach, Yeshua.
Let’s read Psalm 132.
A song of ascents.
1 Lord, remember David
and all the hardships he endured,
2 and how he swore an oath to the Lord,
making a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
3 “I will not enter my house
or get into my bed,
4 I will not allow my eyes to sleep
or my eyelids to slumber
5 until I find a place for the Lord,
a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”
6 We heard of the ark in Ephrathah;[a]
we found it in the fields of Jaar.[b]
7 Let’s go to his dwelling place;
let’s worship at his footstool.
8 Rise up, Lord, come to your resting place,
you and your powerful ark.
9 May your priests be clothed with righteousness,
and may your faithful people shout for joy.
10 For the sake of your servant David,
do not reject your anointed one.[c]
11 The Lord swore an oath to David,
a promise he will not abandon:
“I will set one of your offspring[d]
on your throne.
12 If your sons keep my covenant
and my decrees that I will teach them,
their sons will also sit on your throne forever.”
13 For the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his home:
14 “This is my resting place forever;
I will make my home here
because I have desired it.
15 I will abundantly bless its food;
I will satisfy its needy with bread.
16 I will clothe its priests with salvation,
and its faithful people will shout for joy.
17 There I will make a horn grow for David;
I have prepared a lamp[e] for my anointed one.
18 I will clothe his enemies with shame,
but the crown he wears[f] will be glorious.”
What a beautiful psalm! I particularly love the reiterated promise that Hashem made to David, recorded in verses 11 and 12. I wish we had more time to spend on this Psalm this morning.
We are now at the second of the 3-verse Psalms of Ascent. Psalms 131 and 133 stand as a kind of book end on either side of the lengthy Psalm 132. The main theme of Psalm 133 is the unity of brothers and by extension the unity of the nation of Israel. After King Solomon ascended to the throne of his father David, he unified his several brothers as he established his kingdom. This is one of the ways that Solomon’s kingdom “shone”, as his father David had predicted in versus 17 and 18 of the previous Psalm. King Solomon was a great unifier. Although king David had fought many battles to bring peace to his nation, his dream of harmony was not fully realized until the rain of his son, Solomon. Do you hear the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, in the name of Solomon? That’s no accident his name means “he who is the master of peace.”
One of the greatest examples of brotherly love in the Bible concerns, Moses and Aaron, who, although they were very different in nature and temperament yet their strengths and weaknesses, complemented each other to form a beautifully balanced leadership for the Jewish nation. This psalm celebrates them and their virtues, by highlighting the anointing of Aaron as the first high priest over Israel under the Levitical system. In fact, he is the very first Jewish leader mentioned in the Bible as being anointed with oil. When Aaron was installed as high priest, they poured oil on the top of his head. Without doubt, it ran down upon his beard. And it’s conceivable that it ran actually all over him to the point that it reached the hem of his garments. Oil in the Bible is a sign of the spirit of God. The oil you used to anoint kings and priests was a sign that the spirit of God rested on Aaron, as well as on those who were anointed and ordained for God’s holy purposes. The very title Mashiach, or in English, Messiah, means “anointed one”. Let’s read this psalm together.
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 How delightfully good
when brothers live together in harmony!
2 It is like fine oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down Aaron’s beard
onto his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon[a]
falling on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord has appointed the blessing—
life forevermore.
Why are you suppose in verse one the adjectives of good and pleasant are used? Well, some things can be good for us, but not at the moment same pleasant. A foul tasting medicine can fall into this category. Other things are pleasant to experience, but are not necessarily good for us. A great example of that is a sweet tasting food that is pleasant to the tongue, but it is not healthful for the body. But brotherhood and unity are both good and pleasant.
The psalmist then uses another contrast, another word picture similar to the one of the oil flowing downward over the person of Aaron. Mt. Hermon is the talle#t peak in the land of Israel today. Even when the boundaries of the Promised Land were much larger, it was STILL the tallest peak in the land. Similar to the downward motion of the oil, the dew, which symbolizes the life-giving blessings of God, is pictured as flowing from the tallest mountain peak in the land, to the lesser peaks and then nourishing the land with life-giving water, through rivers and streams.
In Deuteronomy 32:2, the Torah is compared to life-giving dew. Through His Word, both written and living, we are given life’s greatest blessings.
Psalm 134 is the last of the Psalms of Ascent and the last of the 3-verse psalms in this section. Psalm 134 is about the work of the priests, and specifically the work of the priests who worked “the night shift.” In Numbers 1:1-5 we read that the priests were to watch over the Temple both day and night. I don’t know about you, but I did not realize that the Temple was a round-the-clock operation! The Sefer Ha-chinuch was written in the 13th century, in Spain. Its name means “Book of Education”, and the author was a godly man, but we don’t know his name. At any rate, in this book, we learn that 24 guards were stationed at 24 strategic locations on the Temple Mount. These men were not placed there as guards, because there was really no threat from enemies on the temple mount, not in those days. Instead, these men served as something like an honor guard. Their purpose was to show that the holy temple was the earthly palace of the Lord God, the heavenly king.
Because of its subject matter, some Jewish communities have the custom of reciting this song just before the nighttime prayers of my Reve are said, since this song praises the servant of God who serve in the house of Hashim in the nighttime hours.
Let’s read this short, psalm together, and then I’ll have a few more comments to make.
1 Now bless the Lord,
all you servants of the Lord
who stand in the Lord’s house at night!
2 Lift up your hands in the holy place
and bless the Lord!
3 May the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.
People who upend the normal circadian rhythms of humanity to keep our world running and functioning in the night, deserve special consideration, and commendation. I’m thinking of people like law-enforcement officers and medical personnel. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law for example is a nurse practitioner in the ICU of a Metro hospital. Her hours vary; but, at the moment she is in the middle of working for six days straight from 6 PM to 6 AM. She also has a challenging commute to and from work, as both commutes are during rush-hour. She doesn’t live near the hospital in which she works. So, her commute is lengthy, in addition to the fact that it takes place at rush-hour. I’m praying Earnestly for her, because it is quite a burden to work six days straight for 12 hours a day starting at sunset and ending at sunrise, which means that she has to catch her restorative sleep during the daylight hours. It’s not easy. But what would we do without people like her to keep us well, to keep us safe, and in the case of the temple priesthood when we had a temple standing, to maintain the functions of our place of worship. We don’t appreciate enough people who work through the nighttime hours.
Verse two refers to lifting up one’s hands in prayer and in giving blessings. I was bemused to see in the commentary. I’m using for the study that praying with upraised hands as a form of worship, although commended in scripture, has fallen into disuse in synagogue services since Christian Gentiles have adopted it as their form of prayer. Personally, I don’t see why praying with that praise hands has to be relegated to the exclusive domain of any one worship of the One true God. As most of you know, I tend to view all of us who worship the one true God, as part of the same family, although there are some deep estrangements, which the bit I just mentioned from the commentary illustrated.
While some translations give verse two meaning as, “ lift up your hands in the sanctuary”, others translate to Hebrew as “ lift up your hands in sanctity”. This means that when we lift up our hands in prayer, we must be sure that our hands are not tainted with sin. This highlights the very important role of confession in our prayers. Adoration and confession should both precede any kind of requests we make of our holy God.
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